Linky Lunes & Making Your Home Bilingual

by | Aug 5, 2013 | Uncategorized

This month I am taking the NaBloPoMo challenge to post everyday in August.  I barely made it last night, blogging in at 11:25pm.  Sorry New York!  The NaBloPoMo theme for the month is: HOT.  Of course, Missouri is letting us down and delivering cool, muggy, misty, fall-like days, so HOT is not really on my mind.

However, this blog post is HOT off the press, and the coffee I am drinking is  was HOT.  So there you have it.  Oh, also, the bathroom was HOT and steamy this morning as I worked on another of my bilingual labeling projects.  Check it out!  (To see other posts about Making Your Home Bilingual read here and here.)

I have had this Household Essentials Over The Door 24 Packet Shoe Storage Organizer since college.  My mother is the queen of organization, and she had the idea to buy this canvas shoe organizer for my dorm room.  I actually never used it for shoes (until now as you can see from the pics).  I have always used it for my beauty products.  And I use the word beauty loosely–I do not have a lot of makeup or hair products.  This system works great for all of my contacts, brushes, toothbrushes, blow dryer, curling irons, straighteners, and such.  In college our suite shared a bathroom with no counters or cabinets, so I kept all of my stuff in my shoe organizer.  It makes for nice and easy access as it hangs right on the back of any door (no screwing or nailing necessary), and the pockets are not too deep so everything is easily visible and within finger-grabbing distance.  My mom is a genius.

Ten years later I still use that thing today…the same one!  The sturdy canvas material has taken a beating with my thirty-five moves since then.  Poor thing has sharpie all over it now.  Let me explain.  For most of our ten-year relationship, I used all the pockets for myself.  Since our family’s most recent move, I decided we would all share it to use for the entire family’s bathroom stuff (our current bathroom has no drawers or medicine cabinet).  I found that no one knew Mr. Canvas Storage Things like I did and stuff kept getting switched around, driving me crazy!  So one day in a moment of pregnant hormonal rage, I grabbed my Sharpie and wrote in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS where everything went.  No more confusion.  It felt really good to get that out of my system, but later I wish I had maybe chose a more cutesy, less permanent solution to my exasperation.  Oh well!

It ended up being the perfect place to do some more bilingual labeling as you can see from the pictures below.  I have not finished labeling it yet, as some of the compartments still need to be designated for certain things.  Here is a list of vocab I compiled of things already in there, and things that might be someday.  I hope you can put this list to good use as well in your bilingual bathroom labeling projects!

English
Spanish
Pronunciation
straightener
alisador de pelo
ah-lees-ah-DOHR day PAY-loh
blow dryer
secador de pelo
say-kah-DOHR day PAY-loh
nail clippers
cortaúñas
kohr-tah-OOHN-yahs
hair clippers (Argentina)
maquinita
mah-kee-NEE-tah
hair clippers
corta pelos
KOHR-tah PAY-lohs
shaving (noun)
afeitada
ah-fay-ee-TAH-dah
shampoo
champú
chahm-POO
brushes
cepillos
say-PEE-yohs
gel
gel
hel
gel (Spain)
gomina
goh-MEE-nah
contacts
pupilentes
poo-pee-LEHN-tays
contacts (Spain)
lentillas
lehn-TEE-yahs
makeup remover
desmaquillante
dehs-mah-kee-YAHN-tay
lotion
loción
loh-see-OHN
toothbrushes
cepillos de dientes
say-PEE-yohs day dee-EHN-tays
toothpaste
pasta dentifrice
PAH-stah dehn-TEE-free-kah
deodorant
antisudoral
ahn-tee-soo-dohr-AHL
perfume
perfume
pehr-FOO-may

This thing has been well-loved over the years (and used)!
Note: afeitada is the NOUN for shaving

I had to look up the name for straightener…and to my
surprise it was in the dictionary!

I thought “toothbrushes and toothpaste and floss”
was too long for labeling so I just gave the general name “teeth.”

As you can see from the vocab list, different countries have
different names for things.  In this case I wrote both so I could
learn both!  Before I would have just called them (incorrectly)
contactos.  (That is a word in Spanish for contacts, just not the
kind you put in your eyes.)

Okay, don’t laugh.  I didn’t know how to spell deodorant
in English.  Duh “odor” is in the word but I guess I really
schwa this one up!

What have you been labeling lately!?  Besides labeling, in what ways do you make your house bilingual?  Link up your ideas below!  Any ideas about being bilingual, raising bilinguals, learning or practicing language are welcome.

Kali Carollo

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