Creole, French, Spanish…It’s no fun knowing a little bit of several languages, but not knowing how to speak either of them fluently. My parents and siblings were all born in Port Au Prince, Haiti 🇭🇹 so they spoke fluent Haitian Creole and French. I was the youngest and born in the United States.

Although I was exposed to these languages, we mostly spoke English in our home. My mom and siblings spoke English to me. However, I do recall my mom telling me there was a time when I solely spoke Creole. It had to be before I started school.

To complicate matters further, in high school, I was in a program where I had to take Spanish. I thought this would be my time to finally learn the language, but NOOOOO! I really wanted to be in this program because it would put me on a path for college. So I learned Spanish for 3 years and was even quite good at it. I earned a college scholarship from my Spanish class.

I decided that college was my time to finally learn French. I took French classes for two years, enjoyed them, and learned a lot. Now, I have these 3 languages swimming in my head and understand each of them in different capacities.

When my son and I visited the Dominican Republic for a mission trip with our church in 2019, I met Haitians who spoke all 3 languages – Haitian Creole, French, and Spanish. They were our interpreters. I was fascinated.

I loved our time with them because they are kind, professional, and Godly people. They shared their experience and thoughts about Haiti with me, and I loved making new friends with other Haitians. We still keep in contact. I blogged about our trip in the posts: DR Chronicles 2019: Lost in translation, Dominican Republic (DR) Chronicles 2019: Comfort Zone, and Dominican Republic (DR) Chronicles 2019: Food.

I want to learn to speak French and Haitian Creole fluently. I haven’t set a time frame yet, but it will happen.

Bloganuary Day 26 prompt!