MULTI TONGUE KIDS

The amazing wonders of built-in meta-grammatical awareness

2010-04-14T21:11:00.010Z

I try to read books daily to my kids, and in a perfect world, I should read only in Italian to them. The reality is that, when I come home after a long day at work, tired and famished, and they ask me to read one of the many French books they love from their library, I just read it in French: my brain, on certain evenings, refuses any collaboration, and if I try to simultanously translate in Italian, I sound like a foreigner! The kids don't mind it, but while Zeno keeps interrupting me with 1000 questions about the story (that is, focusing on the content of the story), Milo cannott help correcting the occasional pronunciation mistake I make (a nasal vowel, a missed liaison...).
Tonight , though, he went a step further and he simply blew me away! I was trying to read the following sentence:
"Ils entrent dans la salle..." which means they enter the room; while the final 's' is normally not pronounced in French words, in this case it needs to be pronounced because it provides a liaison which helps the listener capting the plural nature of the verb.

So I stumbled a few times around the sentence: "Il rentr...ils rentr...il rentre?" and Milo shed the light for me:
"Si dice Ils rentr, mamma: se fosse stato uno solo avresti dovuto dire il rentr, ma siccome sono due..." (You read it ils rentr, mama; if it was just one person you would have read it il rentr, but since it's two persons here...).

The kid is still in kindergarden (he will turn 6 soon, and start primary school in September), and while they work a lot at school, grammar is definitely not on the program yet!
How could he come up with such a logical and grammatically oriented explanation for something he knows only by ear, in theory?
I'm stille in awe!

If you're in Paris , go DULALA!

2010-04-14T20:49:00.000Z

I had posted previously about a brilliant association here in Paris organizing language playgroups for multilingual families: it was called the Association des Familles Multilingues. It recently changed name, website and enlarged its scope: it's now called D'Une Langue A L'Autre (DULALA), if you are based in Paris or simply French-spoken, take a look at their sleek website! I recently joined their Research Committee and it's great fun to interact with the founder, Anna Stevanato, a fellow Italian woman who's a linguist and specialised on bilingualism, as well as the other members.

It's exciting to see how much has changed here in Paris in the last 5 years, that is ever since I started wondering about multilingualism: not only parents have now access to a plethora of information on the web as well as associations such as the Cafe Bilingue and DULALA, but the general media is also finally recognizing the changing demographics of France's capital and are investigating on the matter. If you understand French, listen to this (very French indeed!) podcast from Europe1, one the top French news radios, entitled: "Je veux que mon enfant soit bilingue!"

An Easter kind of Carnival...

2010-04-02T00:01:00.000Z

It's almost Easter, but before you dash out painting eggs with your kids and hiding chocolates for them in the garden, take the time to sit down and browse through a whole range of great blogs, and discover what's new in their multilingual venture! Welcome to the March/April 2010 issue of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, initiated by Letizia, founder of Bilingual for Fun, and hosted every month by a different blog on multilingualism.

It's my first time hosting it and I truly enjoyed discovering new blogs I wasn't aware of, but especially realizing the variety of motivations and circumstances that committed all these families to a multilingual journey!

For instance, Sarah at Home Educate in Italy this month writes about the [inevitable] necessity to correct our children when they make mistakes in the minority language, and how this might hurt their sensitivity and inhibit them to keep speaking the language. Find out how she overcame this by finding creating ways to get the message across without damaging her child' confidence: a great lesson in multilingual as well as emphatic parenting....

Smashedpea over at Intrepidly Bilingual tells us about a rather common phenomenon among young bilinguals: her youngest child mixes a lot between English, the dominant environmental language, and German, her native language, currently being learnt also by her not-for-long monolingual husband.

Lauren at HoboMama is raising her child bilingual in English and German, while not being a native German speaker. This month she unveils her plan to be more consistent in her own learning of German, in order to summon up the courage to speak German with natives!

Jan at BabelKid considers how her daughter seems more comfortable counting in English (the environmental/school language) rather than his native German.

And German is once again the language of honor at Mummy Do That, where Steffi lists her favourite German children books.

Eve at Blogging on Bilingualism analizes the benefits and pitfalls of dual citizenship, for herself and for her children. In her case, the French/American citizenships opens up wider options for her kids' higher education.

And Sarah of Bringing Up Baby Bilingual profiles a fascinating Trinidanian English spoken family, where the mum has self taught French, and has chosen to raise their 2 year old child bilingual English/French.

Which leads to my post here below on what do we consider as a maternal language when we are raised bilingual, and how does that define our identity.

Here we have it once again: different families, in different countries, with different projects, all sharing the need or the desire to raise their kids in one or more languages. Each Carnival gives me more confidence that our children's generation will be, by sheer numbers, equipped with more tolerant leaders, more apt at dealing with the issues of the world!

Should you wish to receive updates or to host the future Carnivals, you can sign up here.
Happy Easter everyone! May the hunt begin!

Who you really are: a post about national, linguistic and cultural identity for multilinguals.

2010-03-31T02:02:00.056Z

This post is meant as an entry for the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism which I will be hosting on April 2nd.
Come back in a few days to check it out!

When our sons were born, we found ourselves having to deal with a complex linguistic situation, being both parents native speakers of different languages (Italian and Dutch), living in a third country (France) and communicating in a fourth language (English). After some research, we opted for the OPOL method, and, 6 years later, we can honestly say it has worked well for us. Although the Belgianite and I are both multilingual, it was natural for us to decide to use our respective native language with the kids.

However, what happens when the parents are bilingual from birth?

Consider Elena, a bilingual native Italian/French speaker: she is married to another bilingual native Spanish/English speaker. The couple resides in the UK. Their 6 months old daughter has all the chances of growing up quadri-lingual. Elena has opted for speaking Italian in the mornings and French in the afternoons, yet she wonders if it is going to really work.

I attended recently a conference of the Café Bilingue here in Paris, where Ranka Bijeljac-Babic, a CNRS researcher, specialized on bilingualism, shared some of the latest research projects on bilingual kids (I am writing a separate post on this conference). Several bilingual parents like Elena asked the same type of question: did they really have to choose one of their native languages? It is easy to relate and understand their resistance to this notion of having to choose. They grew up with 2 languages, each expresses a strong aspect of their personality and is linked to a cultural patrimony that these parents desire passing on. To choose between one or another is like asking them to get rid of one of their arms or legs!

However, specialists seem to be wary of one parent carelessly addressing the child in 2 (ore more) languages during the first 3 years, that is in the delicate phase when the language structure is building itself. The advantage of OPOL is that the child has a clear and well defined identification to a specific parent for each language. This schema provides the necessary linguistic boundaries so that each language can build itself consistently, progressively and separately.

But a careless OPTL (One Parent, Two Languages – note, I am making this up!) can be potentially harmful and lead to all sorts of problematic situations.
The fact that you are bilingual, Elena, is a richness, and you have all the due motivation (and right!) to pass on your cultural heritage, and to stay true to yourself. Moreover, since you probably speak French and Italian (and obviosuly English) on a daily basis, your child has already "heard" you while she was in uterus: research shows that 7 months into the pregnanacy the auditory system of the foetus is complete, hence your baby has grown accustomed to hear you speaking these different languages.

However, since your child is also confronted to 2 additional languages (Spanish from your husband and English from the environment), you have to consider the child and the potential difficulties she might have in dealing with such a complex linguistic arrangements. For bilingual/multilingual children, language acquisition is indeed more complex. The baby has to differentiate the languages (s)he hears, avoid interferences and learn that language is arbitrary.

Here in France pediatricians and speech therapists would strongly recommend you give up one of your 2 native languages. They have an expression I have heard several times, which I find irritating: "faire le deuil d'une de ses langues maternelles," that is, literally, mourning one of your mother tongues. I personally find this unnatural. I think your project is doable, but you need a well defined family language strategy, and loads of motivation, perseverance and patience. Think of the child: try to make things flow. You could, for instance, intensify the presence of other Italian and French speakers in your daughter’ routine. Ideally, you should find a care giver (a nanny, baby sitter) who would speak one of your 2 languages only, let’s say French, and you would only speak Italian. At least until the age of 3.

Alternatively, you can look into language play groups; on top of the different timings devoted to the 2 languages (Italian in the morning, French in the afternoon), you could also link each language to specific moments/activities/places: the bath, the playground, etc.

Finally, don’t be afraid to explain to your child from early on that you speak 2 languages, and why; to tell her your story, to show her on the map these 2 countries. Do not underestimate the meta-linguistic awareness of [multilingual] children!

I find Elena fascinating because she represents a preview of my children’s adulthood: when (if!) they will become parents themselves, they will be confronted with the same issue: will they want to speak Italian, Dutch or French to their kids? Unless their future partner will be a native speaker of any of these three, inevitably some of these languages (and a facet of their personality?) will be lost…

But even before getting to their future parenting issues, I have often wondered and written about their national, linguistic and cultural identity. And, alongside, dwelled on the notion of mother tongue: in Elena’s or my children’ case, we are obliged to use the term ‘mother tongues’:

"Mother tongue: the language a human being learns from birth.” [Language, by Leonard Bloomfield]

“Mother Tongue: the language that the speaker speaks best. In either case, a person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity.” [The native speaker: myth and reality, by Alan Davie])

I have heard people claim: your mother tongue is the one you feel at ease counting in! Plausible: my mother tongue is Italian, I grew up monolingual and learnt languages as an adult. When it comes down to complex calculations (and mind, counting the rest from the baker for me qualifies as a complex calculation!), indeed, I have to resort to Italian. I still manage to do simple operations in English, but God forbid in French! On the other hand, I seem to have a hard time giving out my (French) phone number in English and Italian. But when I have to type in the pin code for my (French) credit card, it's definitely in Italian that I mentally recite the digits.

However, Milo (6) and Zeno (3 and ½) can both count easily in French, Italian and Dutch, so will the same ‘rule’ apply to them? Probably not. What language does Elena resort to for counting? I’d like to know!

“Your mother tongue language is the one you dream in!” I’ve also heard. Milo is a sleep talker and I have heard him on more than one occasion dreaming in French or Italian. Which makes sense!

Nav recently left in a previous post an intriguing related question: “Which language do you think on, when you are not conversing?” I started paying attention to my inner discussions, and I realized that the language varied with the environment or situation. At home it’s mostly Italian. On the way from school to work in the morning it’s French. But at work, or on the way home at night, it’s mostly in English. Basically, it depends upon the language I have been using actively moments earlier. Since I speak these three languages daily in both my personal and professional environment, I happen to think in all three as well.

There is another mother tongue indicator which is pretty infallible: anger! When I am truly upset, words pour out of me in Italian! Milo and Zeno as well, when they fight, it’s in Italian. Will it stay that way over time?

All in all, we, multilinguals and parents of multilingual children, "have to stop thinking that something more complex is necessarily less efficient," as a VP of a top French corporation recently oddly stated. With the rapidly changing demographics of our children' generation, so will change the way we define items like mother tongue and national identity.

If you can read this, you're just...normal!

2010-02-17T10:21:00.000Z

"I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the first and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig, huh?!"

I wonder if it works in every language! Any volunteers to draft a paragraph like this in any other language?!Please email them at: multitonguekids@yahoo.com

My new Dutch tutor!

2010-01-25T21:56:00.007Z

It was bath time ("bagnetto time") last weekend, and, out of the blue, Milo addressed me in Dutch:
"Brrr...mijn pijama is koud! Waarom heb je het niet op de radiator gelegd, mama?"
It was one of those shivering moments, when you realize something eventful is taking place but you are not quite sure what exactly, nor why! I kept my cool, I looked behind my shoulder to check if, by any chance, he was addressing anyone else, but no: it was just me and him in the room! I had somewhat understood what he had said: the pajama was cold, why didn't I put it on the radiator, as I usually do in the winter months?
Bemused, I quickly tried to come up with an answer in Dutch, but simply did not have the words.
So I replied in Italian:
"Non lo so, tesoro, me ne sono dimenticata..." (I don't know, I forgot about it - I know, pretty damn dull!)
Milo insisted: "Volgende keer, vergeet het niet, alsjeblieft!" (next time don't forget, please!)
The little dude was obviosly in provocaton mode: the honey-combed voice confirmed my suspicions!
I took a deep breath and tried my very best guttural sounds:
"Waarom spreche Nederlands met mama, kleine sloeber?!" (Why are you speaking Dutch to me, little rascal?)
"Ik weet het niet...dat is zo!" (I don't know..I feel like it)
"Si, ma se poi io non ti capisco?! Come la mettiamo?!" (What if I don't understand you?)
"Ik zal het je leren!" (Don't worry: I will teach you!)

And right there I felt my heart sqeezing with joy, pride, surprise, it was an unbelieveble milestone of (multilingual) parenting that I will never forget! I should have just hugged Milo right there and savor the moment, I should have known better that silence is gold, sometimes...

...instead, I had to add:
"Vuoi davvero che impari l'Olandese, eh?" (You really want me to learn Dutch, don't you?)
To which he replied , angel-like, still in Dutch:
"Papa heeft Italiaans geleerd!" (Papa has learnt Italian!)

That's when I made a mental note to never, ever forget to warm up his pajama again!

The Italian brothers...

2010-01-22T04:44:00.001Z

Zeno: "Mamma, mi canti 'L'Italia Tedesca' ?"
Me: "Cosa? Che canzone è?"
Milo: " Vuole dire la canzone dei Fratelli dell'Italia..."
Me: "Ah, Fratelli d'Italia...l'Italia s'è DES-TA, non tedesca!"
Zeno: "L'Italia sedesca!"
Milo (singing): "Frateeeeelliiii d'IIIIItaaaaaliaaaaa..."
Me & Zeno: "...l'Itaaaaliaaaaa s'è deeeestaaaaa...."

The dialogue above concerns the Italian national anthem, which I have sang to my children since they were babys on and off, on various occasions. I learnt the national anthem as an adult, as it is not sang in schools, but rather at football games in stadiums (which, by the way, I never attended!). But since I moved abroad , to the US first and to France next, I became sensistive to this artistic symbol of my country: I find it a beautyful song (despite an occasional recurring debate in Italy concerning the need to swap it with some aria by Verdi or Puccini), and its choppy-rythm version has served several times as a perfect diversion from a tantrum or a difficult situation with my 2 little princes! Moral of the story, they learnt it too, over time, and they enjoy it just like any other song, although, due to it's aulic Italian (it was written in 1846 by Goffredo Mameli) they don't understand all the lyrics and I always get the odd question ("Chi è Scipio? Perchè Roma aveva una schiava? Chi era la Schiava? Perchè sono pronti a morire?"). I think on some level they think the song is about them, since it talks about Italian brothers! They feel concerned!
While the identification with the French culture and its symbolysm has inevitably begun (Milo's drawings of boats and airplains always showcase a French flag), my two boys also identify strongly with their Italian side. A few weeks ago Zeno was watching a DVD cartoon in French, and after a while he asked me to switch it to Italian, "...perché noi siamo Italiani!"
Also, last weekend in Milan upon landing at the airport, he marveled at the fact that everyone spoke Italian! ("Mamma, ma parlano tutti Italiano qui!").
They are very aware of their Belgian identity as well, we have both flags in their room, they can spot Italy and Belgium on the map, and they know that they are italo-belgian, but the Belgianite being less fanatic of anthems and symbols, the most Belgian behaviour they have assimilated so far is the addiction to quality chocolate!
I wrote recently on the public debate on National Identity that has taken (dangerously as well as corageously) place in France in the last few months, and one of the measures that came out of this debate is to make mandatory the regular singing of the French national anthem ('La Marseillese') in public schools. So, I guess that's the next song they will learn.
I still have a hard time, though, projecting the way they will feel once grown up, in terms of national identity. Will the amount of time we will have spent in France be a key factor? Will this early identification with Italy provide a strong root? Will they have the TCK syndrome, at ease everywhere and nowhere at the same time?
I guess, for the time being, the best I can do is teach them also the European anthem, the beautiful 'Ode to joy' (Beehtoven's 9th Synphony) . I'll choose the Latin lyrics, though!

It's Carnival time!

2009-11-26T08:28:00.000Z

Check out the multilingual blogging carnival, a monthly get-together for all interested in bilingualism and in raising bilingual children and an opportunity to share experiences, info and best practices.

Organized by Bilingual for Fun, this month the carnival is hosted by Jan at Babelkid. Enjoy!

Zeno and his gift for synthesis...

2009-11-23T12:33:00.002Z

Milo and the Belgianite were having this lenghty conversation in Dutch about a kite-surfer who lost his kite during a lesson; they kept going back and forth and, at some point, I lost track of it and could not understand anymore.
Zeno was playing alongside with his Lego.
I snuck up to him and whispered:
"Zeno, cosa ha detto Milo?" (Whad did Milo say?)
and he replied:
"Ha detto kite-surf!" (He said kite-surf)

Juggling four languages daily (how to stay zen when a pink flamingo becomes a pink Flemish!)

2009-11-17T10:29:00.002Z

We spent a couple of days on the Cote d' Azur last week, to escape the first winter blues and to take a little deserved break. I purposely focused on our family exchanges and listened carefully to my kids, to what they were saying and how they were saying it. And for the first time I could grasp the depth of the puzzled looks we often generate when communicating in public places: I have indeed noticed in parks, on trains, at restaurants, bystanders after a few minutes stare at us or raise the one eye-brow, after having tried to decode our linguistic arrangements. Some give up and keep their puzzled look until we leave. Some brave ones manage to ask the question: "How many languages do your kids speak?"

This has been inevitable ever since our boys have been around. I, as an Italian native, could not speak anything other than Italian to them. But today, five years later, I sometimes address them or reply to them in French. The Belgianite, man of the North, stuck to his native Nederlands (Dutch). But since he learnt Italian in the meantime, he often does not realize being addressed by the kids in Italian (and replying in Italian as well). And the two of us having met in English, we have kept speaking in English to each other, despite having settled in Paris, France.

A random restaurant conversation can go something like this:

Me to Zeno (IT): "Zeno, vuoi mangiare lo steack haché con le patatine?"
Zeno to me (IT): "Siiiii, tante fritjes!"
Milo to me (IT): “A me solo fritjes, niente carne"
Belgianite to Milo (NL): "Nen, heeft u teveel frietjes gegeten!"
Milo to Belgianite (NL): "Maar ik houd slechts van gebraden gerechten"
Me to Milo (IT): “Non vuoi mangiare del jambon, allora?”
Zeno to me (IT): “Ioooo, iooo il jambon! Anzi, salame! Io voglio il salame!”
Milo to Zeno (IT) "Ohhh Zeno, ma mangi sempre il salame tu!"
Zeno to Milo (IT): “Se vuoi ti do due patatine!"
Zeno to me (IT): “Mamma…mamma….”
Me to Zeno (IT): “Sssshhh, non gridare!”
Me to Belgianite (ENG): “What are you gonna have?
Zeno to me (IT): “Mammaaaa…MAMMAAA!!! Mi hai interromputo!”
Belgianite to Zeno (NL): “Hoorde u wat de mamma's zeiden? Gil niet!”
Me to Zeno (IT): “Si dice interrotto, amore; cosa c’é?”
Belgianite to me (ENG): “I'm hesitating between the fish soup and the aioli"
Milo to Belgianite (IT): “Fish...hai detto fish papa'?”
Belgianite to Milo (NL): “Ja, fish betekent vis”
Milo to Belgianite (NL): “Ah, ja, de vis! Leker vis!”
Me to waiter (FR): “On peut avovir de l'eau petillante, s'il vous plait?”
Zeno to me (FR/IT): “Moi j'ame l'eau petillante! Con le bollicine!”

The waiter in the meantime has started to make drawings on his note-pad and is getting a headache! As much as our family multilingualism has become a natural status for us, I am realizing for the first time how, in the eyes of the observer, we are simply crazy. And no matter how much eventually the kids showcase a perfect French (or Italian or Dutch) diction and competence, we often receive the odd remark: "Aren't they confused with all these languages?"

I have asked myself the question several times in the last five years. And despite being reassured by the studies and literature on multilingualism, which are slowly becoming available to the general public, I cannot help wondering sometimes if we aren't overdoing it. A very nice lady recently commented on the positive effects that such a mental gymnastic must have on the brain, in the long term. I surely hope so, while on most evenings, by the time I go to bed, I am myself lost in all these languages and sometimes, under stressful conditions, I do not find my words in any of them.

The boys, however, seem to be doing fine: they have perfectly integrated all these languages, which was essential for us. We are also lucky that in our complex arrangement, our countries of birth are neighbouring France, our country of choice. Hence, frequent trips to our native Italy and Belgium have certainly contributed to the successful development of our respective languages for Milo and Zeno. Their schooling in French public schools guarantees a solid command of their French, which to this day is impeccable.
Of course their output in Italian and Dutch is not 100% perfect: in Italian they often create odd versions of the past participle tense of irregular verbs (interromputo instead of 'interrotto,' prenduto instead of 'preso,' etc.), and they sometimes make literal translations from the French (“Ho visto un fiammingo rosa,” instead of ‘fenicottero’(pink flamingo), translating literally from the French flamant rose – but actually translating flamand=Flemish!). But they have a good vocabulary and a solid grammar structure (they conjugate the subjunctive form correctly at 3 and 5, while it’s not the case with most Italian adults!), and once corrected, they immediately integrate the proper word. In Dutch their vocabulary is certainly limited and they do make up a lot of words from the French and the Italian, a phenomenon which, however, inevitably phases out with each trip to Belgium.

But no, they are not confused: they know perfectly well who speaks these languages and with whom they can use them; they are even intrigued in learning new ones.

Prunes scientifically proved to be helpful in English learning

2009-11-08T18:07:00.002Z

A qualitative study conducted this month in our household has proved that the regular consumption of dried prunes is beneficial to English learning.

The study was conducted on a sample of two male specimen aged 3 and 5, regularly exposed to passive oral English and fed with dried prunes.

The following conversation was witnessed earlier this week:

Zeno (savouring a bowl of dried prunes): "Mmmmh. Delicious!"
Me (eyeing the Belgianite in disbelief!): "...!!!!!"
Milo: "Ti piacciono le prugne, Zeno?" (do you like prunes?)
Zeno: "Si! Tantissimo!" (Yes, very much)
Milo: " Mamma, come si dice prugne in Inglese?" (Mum, how do you say prunes in English?)
Me: "Si dice prunes"
Milo: "Zeno, devi dire prunes is delicious!"
Zeno: "Prunes is delicious!"
Me: "Braaaavi!"
Milo: "Good!"

For details on the miracolous prunes' specific brand, please email: multitonguekids@yahoo.com

English pops up...

2009-11-05T13:23:00.001Z

We lit some candles on Halloween night, and we were peacefully observing their flickering lights in the dark after dinner, when Milo whispered sweetly:
"That's so cute!"
Literally. In English! This has been happening more and more frequently: from the "What's up, dude-mamma?" thrown in at the oddest times (thank you Carlo B. for teaching my kids!), to the occasional "Come on!", Milo surprises us with a willingness to express himself which we found very moving (Zeno then repeats it out of emulation of his beloved big brother, but to his advantage since he's 2 years ahead of time!).
From time to time he misses the shot (I asked the Belgianite if he could pass me a spoon and Milo asked me: "Is that a sponge?" since 'sponge' in Italian is 'spugna'!), but for the most part he gets what we are talking about and he's taking more and more action!

Therefore I updated again our Family Language Diagram, which is getting more and more cluttered by the month:

The debate online

2009-11-04T07:54:00.000Z

For those of you francophones interested in the subject, here's the official website of the
French Debate on National Identity.

National Identity debate

2009-10-28T10:50:00.009Z

French Immigration minister Eric Besson has declared on Sunday that he will re-launch a nation-wide debate for the next couple of months on national identity. He wants to re-assess and re-define 'what does it mean today to be French, what are the values that unify the French people, what is the nature of the link which makes them French and that they should be proud of.' (Good luck!).
The theme of national identity was a pillar of Nicolas Sarkozy' electoral campaign, and keeps on re-emerging throughout his mandate. Immigration has profoundly affected the French society in the last 40 years. In 2003, after having doubled in 8 years, France has seen 256 600 'regular entries' and 82 000 political asylum request. This is without taking into considerations children, illigal immigrants, second and third generation immigrants. The French national institute of statistics INSEE estimated that 4.9 million foreign-born immigrants live in France in 2006 (8% of the country's population). The number of French citizens with foreign origins is generally thought to be around 6.7 million, according to the 1999 Census conducted by INSEE, which ultimately represents one tenth of the country's population. (Ranked by the largest national groups, above 60,000 persons).

Mouvements of this amplitude unfortunately at some point translate into fragmentation and ghettisation of the population, of these new citizens, a substantial majority of which often arrive in desperate conditions from far and empoverished countries. That is why the government sees at risk its national unity and keeps re-launching the debate on national identity.

As an Italian native residing in France now for 8 years, I am often amused by the different approaches of these two countries to the issue of immigration. For instance, France embraces and professes laicism, while tolerating the observance of religions privatly. But you can be sure that you will never see any religious symbol in a French public school. A huge mediatic debate took place in 2008 when the European Court supported the French justice for having suspended in 1999 two muslim students from their public school, who had refused to remove their foulard at school. The very same Eric Besson is currently expressing strong views against the burqa in public, claiming its wearing is antithetic to the essence of French values.

Meanwhile, in Italy, the national birth rate is barely 0.8% and any population growthis entirely due to immigration (negative natural balance of -7 000 individuals in 2007), and in the classrooms we hardly have any Italian students, but a plethora of Roumanians, Albanians, Marocans, Chinese, Ukrainian, Filipino, Polish, Indian (source: Caritas/Migrantes, Immigrazione Dossier Statistico 2008); the gouvernment is currently having violent and animated discussions following a proposal (supported even by the Vatican) by the Vice Minister of Economic Development to introduce an hour of Islam teaching in the Italian public schools, where the teaching of "Religion," that is the history of the Catholic religion, has been the norm. The distance of these two particular examples doesn't stop to puzzle me. And yet, what ensures a proper integration? Where do we set the limits exactly to the right to observe one's faith or to live his/her own traditions democratically and the respect toward the local customs/values like laicism in France? To what extend do we need laws and to what extent do we need to reform our civic education?

One of the initiatives that the French ministry of immigration insists on, is the requirement of a certian level of fluency in French for immigrants upon entering the country, and the organization of free courses for new arrivals. I think that is is a fair requirement; language is an essential tool for integration and for human interaction and allowing the new-comers to better understand and better express themselves is definitely a step forward toward a successful integration. Yet, to get back to the original theme of this post, do immigrants need to adhere to the national identity definition as well? Is it necessary for them to feel French? Is it even possible? As long as I will live here, I will always feel Italian. Even though I pay my taxes in France, I abide by the French laws, I embrace the local lifestyle, customs and traditions (I looooove champagne! And oysters!), I respect and recognize the French authorithies, I cannot possibly feel French! I ask this question to every multi-lingual/expatriate/international profile I encounter: what do you feel, in terms of nationality? And more often the not, the answer reflects the place where we have spent a substantial part of our youth, regardless of the mother-tongue or the nationality of the parents.

As immigration evolves, as third culture kids increase, as the new generation of multilingual and multinationals spans borders and melts the pots, does it still make sense to talk about national identity? When foreign-borns in a country like France will reach 50%, will it still make sense? Will it still be needed?

And regardless of immigration, if we consider just the geographic vastity of a country like France and its richness in regional climates, cultures and customs, can we still talk about national identity? Because the way someone from Marseille might feel French is quite different form the definition you would get from a resident of Neuilly-Sur-Seine (the chic suburb of Paris) or a Breton, for instance. Let us not forget that regional dialects were suppressed (unfortunately) shortly after the French Revolution. Abbé Grégoire is notorious for writing his "Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language," which he presented on June 4, 1794 to the National Convention. According to his own findings, a vast majority of people in France spoke one of 33 dialects patois and he argued that French had to be imposed on the population and all other dialects eradicated. Suddenly, not only Occitan, but also Catalan, Basque, Breton, and several other ancient languages were discouraged and actively suppressed. School pupils were punished well within living memory for speaking their native language on school premises. Regional identities were sacrified for the benefit of an alleged national one...but did it ever exist?

I already wrote about national identity here, and I also wrote a brief article for the (*sigh!*) last issue of Multilingual Living, which should be issued soon (will post when it will be out and about). The debate in France promises to be a...colorful one! Stay tuned for further reporting...

PS: Eric Besson has evoked the possibility to have the young French students sing the French national anthom at some occasion thoughout the school year, as a way to restore national pride and belonging.
I'm working on a post on the role of national anthoms today for multicultural communities. See the new poll on the right-hand side and feel free to take part!

The "r" issue

2009-10-22T12:55:00.004Z

Milo is now 5 and a half and his pronunciation in Italian is flawless, except for the "r." From the very beginning, he has had a hard time rolling it properly. He adopted different strategies in different phases: when he begun speaking, he would skip it (saying fommaggio instad of 'formaggio,' for instance). Then, for a brief period, he would pronounce it the French way; but that did not last long. He has now developed a way of pronouncing it softly, without rolling it. He'd say: "Ghiazie, mamma!" instead of grazie.
In technical linguistic terms, this is called the approximant labiodental i.e. a consonant represented by the symbol [ʋ] in the international phonetic alphabet (IPA). The phenomenon is apparently widespread among monolingual Italian kids, and is usually left unaddressed until the kid reaches the age of 7-8. After that, a few sessions with a logopedist (i.e. speech therapist) can rectify the situation, if needed.

This summer my dad tried stubbornly to train the kids:

Grandpa: "Prova a ripetere....quattro!" (try to repeat: four)
Milo: "Quattio!"
Grandpa: "RRRRoma!"
Milo: "IIIIoma!"
Grandpa: "Carote! Carrrrote!
Milo: "Caiote!"
Zeno: "A me non mi piacciono le caiote!" (Me I don't like carrots)
Grandpa: "Si dice: A me non piacciono" (you should say: 'I don't like carrots')
Zeno: "Si, ma a me non mi piacciono le caiote!" (yes but I still don't like them)
Grandpa: "Concentratevi bene, ragazzi: crosta! Crrrrosta!" (concentrate! Crust!)
Milo: "Chiosta!"
Zeno: "Cos'e la chiosta?" (what is crust?)

...and so on. Milo became rather self-counscious and frustrated, eventually we summoned my dad to leave him alone but, despite my several efforts to reassure him, he remains aware.

Last night Milo asked me to spell for him the word inverno (winter), as he wanted to writer it over a drawing he had made.

Then I heard him say: "IN-VE-NNO! Eh gia', non riesco a dirla tanto bene la"r"...pero' la so scrivere benissimo, vero mamma?" (I can't pronounce the "r" very well, but I can write it just fine, right mum?!)

It's never too early to become multilingual!

2009-10-20T12:45:00.008Z

My friend Martina left me an interesting question in the comments to my previous post:

"We are a one-language family (Italian) but we would like our 1 y.o. son to learn English asap. What do you suggest? Letting him settle his Italian first (he already says around 20 words and he understands a lot) and then start him in an english Kindergarden at 3 y.o or start sooner? Some have told us to start not too soon to avoid him getting confused..."

As many experts often have written, there is no unique, failure-free recepee to grow our children multilingual. Each family has to find a strategy that works more or less painlessly for them, and stick to it! Determination and motivation are certainly fundamental ingredients when we decide to embrace a bilingual lifestyle.

One thing that I would like to stress for Martina , is that it is neve too early to start! On the contrary, research has shown that the first three years of life are the most fertile ones for children to learn multiple languages at once. Tracey Takuhama-Espinosa in her book "Raising Multilingual Children," describes 3 windows of opportunities, the first one being between 0 and 9 months, and second one between 1 and 6 years of age, during which languages are learnt with an ease that is progressively lost, and with the capability to reproduce sounds like natives (while, at a later stage, we develop accents). Infants exposed to multiple languages regularly do not get confused: if it is part of their environment, they just develop simultaneously the proper linguistic codes to reproduce the languages they hear.

So, Martina, if you wish your son to grow bilingual, you need to find a proper vehicle to introduce English in your son's life: whether it is a bilingual day-care, or an English mother-tongue baby-sitter who spends time with him regularly and addresses him exclusively in English. You can then complement this activities with play-groups with other English speaking children, or by playing little songs in English at home, or, later on with little trips to the UK. But regular interaction with an English speaker is the key for your son to start assimilating the sounds, the grammar structure and the vocabulary of another language.

Unfortunaltey it is rare to find pediatricians or other child-care professionals who are properly informed on multilingualism, in mono-cultural countries like Italy or France, for the matter. However, you will not let them discourage you with your project; there are a numbers of books on bilingualism and resources available on the internet (check out the Multilingual Help Desk on the right-hand side bar). But remember: you need to find what works for you!

Almost-quadrilingual family check up!

2009-10-04T10:10:00.001Z

This year I haven't mananged to blog much, real life with its inevitable intense course just took over, yet so much happened linguistically in our family.

The main developement is that at age 3, Zeno is an official 'speaker:' he makes full sentences in Italian, French or Dutch, depending upon the need; he does not mix anymore, nor screams! He finally feels he can express himself, and he feels listened to and understood.

Milo and Zeno's development of their 3 main languages has been constant and solid. Incidentally, their personality shifts a little with each language too, which is something very peculiar to witness. They tend to be softer in Italian, and a little rougher in French, the language of play and school mates. Milo also has a new trilingual Dutch- speaking class mate (Dutch dad, American mum), and we are excited at this new opportunity of interaction, to further strenghten his Dutch vocabulary.

Milo has increasingly been paying attention to the English exchanges of us, parents, and has been delighting himself in detecting the meaning of words and expressions, sometimes by asking directly ("Mamma, cosa vuol dire "It's ready!" ?), some times just by using his own deducing skills and by replying to me in English at the oddest moments "Thank you, mamma!"). American friends visiting us have increased his curiosity and need to grasp the language in order to express himself. I still feel reluctant to introduce a formal training in English; I have been thinking about play groups , or watching DVDs together more consistently. But, honestly, I have my time filled just by handling the Italian, the French and the Dutch and making sure the kids learn the same vocabulary in all three languages harmoniously...for the moment their English learning activities it's just their daily passive exposure to my conversations with the Belgianite, an occasional conversation, a book read first in Italian then in English, etc.

Another language has been tickling the fancy of my two mini-polyglots: Spanish. Ever since we took a trip to Valencia last year to visit some friends, they have been very curious. We have DVDs, CDs with songs, books and we know a few Spanish speakers: one of Milo's classmates Mum, one of our baby-sitters, a neighbour, etc. Milo often asks me how do we say this and that in Spanish and loooooves singing some songs (the current favourite is dancing hit 'Cada vez que te veo"!)

Zeno is still very much in emulation of his brother and benefits of much of his curiosity. His French last year has developed flawlessly; he occasionally makes up words with the Italian or Dutch roots when he does not know the equivalent in French, but in general his mixing habit have progressively melted away. And frequent trips to Italy and Belgium have helped tons. He has definitely a musical ear: when he hears music, even at a distance, he's captured and feels an irresistible need to dance and move. This, I am convinced, is another ingredient for success in multilingualism; he differs from Milo in this who has built his personal multilingualism on priviledged individual attention. Zeno lacked at least 50% of the time we spent reading and talking alone to Milo, but his musical hear supplied for that.

He started kindergarden this year, he's in the same school as Milo and I am often moved when I pick them up in the evening and they tell me : "We have seen each other at the cafeteria today and we said CIAO CIAO to each other!" Surprisingly, their main language of interaction is still Italian, although I assume this year French will rapidly take over, and Dutch is also used when playing with Dad .

As for my Dutch learning, I am slowly getting there, a word at a time! Despite my doubts in a previous post and the impressive results of the poll on the right hand side bar, where 84% of you advised I should learn Dutch formally, I never took a course (so far!). "I just don't have the time," seems to be the most plausible excuse! But...I am listenting. Just as my kids are listening to English every day, I am listening to Dutch, and I am understanding more and more each day!
Sometimes, when I am alone with the boys, I try out on them a little sentence in Dutch...at first Milo would look at me bewildered and would ask me shortly to just speak Italian! Now they are growing more tolerant of us crossing boundaries (The Belgianite speaking Italian, me speaking French or Dutch) and they just limit themelves to correct my (pitiful) pronunciation. The last time I was even congratulated: "Not bad mum!" (I was talking about balletjes, some meatballs they love to eat in Belgium).

I always thought that our little crazy family one day would settle naturally on one lingua franca...maybe Italian, on really good days...maybe French, on more realistic ones...or English, if I felt particularly daring! I am now witnessing a gradual softening of the OPOL practice and am starting to feel that, perhaps, our 4 languages are such an essence of our nucleus, that they will all be used by all members at some point, and I must admit: I like this scenario. It's who we are, it's how we are. That we might be able to express a certain feeling or opinion in a certain language because we think it captures its essence, and we might be understood bt the other members of the family, is a huge luxury and freedom.

Learning through playing

2009-09-28T07:47:00.006Z

One of the tools that we, as parents of multilingual children, have to foster and strenghten the minority language in our household, is to set up play groups with families who speak the language we need to reinforce.

Setting up a playgroup can greatly vary in difficulty depending upon the location: large, cosmopolitan cities might provide more opportunities than smaller urban centers, however on the internet we can find all sorts of websites helping us locating families near us with the same lingusitic needs.

Anna Stevanato Le Marchand, a fellow Italian mum here in Paris, has recently founded an organization to help multilingual parents in this direction: the Association des Familles Multilingues organizes playgroups in Italian, Spanish and English for kids aged 2 to 7.

German and Russian playgroups are also in the planning. The objective is to have kids strenghten and practice their second language in a playful atmosphere and outside the family environment. The results and the progress are often outstanding!

Multilingual kids despite it all - survival of the fittest

2009-08-25T02:33:00.000Z

This post is about a few families I have had the chance to observe, where the kids turn out multilingual despite the counter efforts of their parents.

When Milo was born and I started digging into multilingualism, I developed a true passion for the subject. A passion that was primarily alimented by the call of blood, that is by the desire to succeed my child linguistic development. I naively thought that all parents in our situation, that is having to juggle more than one language, would feel the same preoccupation and would feel compelled seeking information on the topic. But along the line I met very relaxed multilingual families who worried more about other aspects of their childrens' life, and lived their multilingualism as a casual expression of their family, like hair color or size, rather than a very specific asset.

One lesson quickly learnt was: not everyone considers multilingualism as an asset, and not everyone is willing to go the extra step to ensure success.

But then I also met a few expat families with obvious integration difficulties, where the mothers were unvoluntarily inhibiting their kids' multilingualism.

Story #1 pertains an American family who's dad is a multilingual originally from a middle-eastern country. When the kids reached age 3 and 5 the dad was expatriated to France for his travel-intensive job. The mother did not speak French at the time and found herself in a new country, with two small children and often alone, as the husbands travelled frequently. The kids were scholarized and underwent a certain degree of culture-shock; but eventually picked up French, while the mother for years kept feeling unhappy and bashing everything French, hanging out almost exclusively with anglophones, creating a piece of America in her household where only US TV, media and food were allowed; the kids were obviously for a long time torn between the curiosity toward the environment and the desire to play with their new French classmates, and their mum's refusal for the new environment. They eventually became perfectly fluent and are today perfectly integrated, although they continue living the American way at home.

Family #2 comes from literally the other side of the planet, let's say Australia. The father speaks also French and has been expatriated in France for a two years period. The mum had a very similar reaction of the previous mum: instead of taking the opportunity to learn another language and discover together with her children another country, she locked up. As a consequence, her first child refused completely to utter a French word. He attended the French public kindergarden, and at his second year his teacher had still not heard his voice. When asked about it (in English) he would say that he simply would not speak French. The smaller child apparently is impermeable to his brother's stuborness and is starting to babble away in French.

Part of me can understand the hardship of these mums had to endure: it's not easy to find yourself in a new place where you do not speak the language, with small children. I lived through that, although before having kids, and I know how depressing feeling isolated can be.
However, as parents I feel we have an obligation to make an effort at some point and start trying to grasp this new environment. If we do not do it, how can we expect the children to adapt, to ease into the world?

So these mums did not choose a family language strategy, refused to embrace te environmental language, kept of bashing the outside French world, were consistent only at keeping a strictly monocultural environment at home, and despite this counter psychological efforts, 3 out of the 4 above mentioned kids turned out perfectly bilingual, in French and English. Which only confirms that the environmental language at some point sneaks in and takes over, whether we like it or not!

How things change: Family Language Diagram (updated)

2009-02-24T05:03:00.005Z

I just updated our family language diagram and was startled by the changes that have occured in only one and a half years! (See the original diagram in the right-hand side bar).

The first diagram was depicting especially the desired situation, while this one is a more concrete and objective picture of what goes really on in our family. Although the Belgianite and myself are returning strictly to OPOL, the circumstances and social interactions are such that all of the other languages are inevitably spoken by us around the kids as well.

The good new is that Milo (now almost 5) and Zeno (just over 2 and 1/2) seem to be developing their main three languages very harmoniously and clealry. I am constantly reassured by Milo's maitresse and by Zeno's day-care personnell about their excellent proficiency in French; their Italian is up to the standards of kids their age, with tiny mistakes every once in a while (past participles, cannott roll the 'r' fully), but similar to their same age Italian counterparts; as for the Dutch, I am the last one to be able to judge, but the Belgianite assures me they are up to speed and have no trouble whatsoever in communicating when in Begium. Milo has been indeed more and more disciplined in addressing his dad in Dutch direclty, even in my presence.

One thing they do not like, though, is us transgressing the rules: they do not like me reading a book in French or Dutch. There are some books they accept in English, though, but for the most part they want Italian from me.

Zeno's meta liguistic awareness is also coming along. Little conversation witnessed yesterday:

Me: "Allora, in che lingua lo volete vedere questo DVD? C'è in Francese, Olandese , Inglese e Spagnolo" (which language do you want to watch this DVD in?)
Zeno: "In Francese! In Francese!" (French)
Milo (whom, up to this point, amused himself by watching this particular DVD in Spanish, for some reason, but is sensistive to his little brother's request): "Sei sicuro, Zeno?" (are you sure?)
Zen: "Si, in Francese" (yes)
Milo: "Ma lo capisci il Francese, Zeno?" (but do you understand French?)
Zeno: "Si, si." (yes)
Milo: "Alla crèche parlate Francese?" (do you speak French in daycare?)
Zeno: "Si, in Francese." (yes)

Multilingualism Literature

2009-02-21T23:00:00.006Z

SmE from Tampa Bay, Florida as well as Hanna, a young Swedish mum residing in Brussels, have been asking me for books to advise on multilingualism. I don't have a long extensive list, but I did come across some useful sources in the last few years and I'm happy to share them.

When pregnant with my first son, I begun my quest for information on multilingualism, as in France I could not find much support from the childcare specialists nor the pediatricians. Thanks to the Internet, I stumbled across some amazing blogs from other multilingual families. Then we found out about the BBFN, which then produced Multilingual Living magazine. I also corresponded by email with some pediatricians from Canada, Belgium and Switzerland (all multilingual countries). Finally I read a few books. Among all of these sources, I was able to draw some conclusions and come up with some sort of family language(s) strategy, a concept which I think is very important and at the same time should remain flexible, suiting the family evolution.

There are two books that were particularly helpful in the process: the first I read was "Raising Multilingual Children," by Tracey Takuhama-Espinosa; although I found it more taylored for an American readership (whether in the USA or abroad), it offered a very broad and well organized vision of all the elements that can contribute to a successful multilingual child, from an academic/pychologic/linguistics as well as personal point of view (Tracey is married to an Ecuadorian, and with their three children they have lived in the US, Japan, in Ecuador and in Switzerland; her personal experience is very refreshing throughout the book). The book is very pertinent for a bilingual family as well as a multilingual one (trilingual or more). The author identifies specific time windows of opportunities from birth to old age, which should be used purposefully in passing on the family languages; she also introduces variables such as the child personal aptitude, the siblings ranking, gender and even hand use as all having a strong influence on the end result, that is given that a proper strategy, motivation and consistency from the parents have been in place, wisely mixed with the environmental opportunities to strenghten the language skills. Although I never found my particular family scheme quite spelled out in the book, I did retained several notions that helped me considerably throughout Milo's first 4 years.

Another book which was very fulfilling and provided an endeless array of case studies is "The One-Parent-One-Language Approach, Language strategies for bilingual families," by Suzanne Barron Hauwaert. We did choose the OPOL method and if that is your case, this book is THE source on how to apply it, but not only: where did it came from, the pre-school years vs the schooling years, interaction between family members etc. All brillianty supported by surveys and case studies, making it all very accessible and full of common sense. The author is coming out very soon with another book on siblings comunications within multilingual families, which I'm very eager to read.

If you are starting out with your first child, there is a book which I would recommend that has nothing to do with multilingualism, but that has been of immense help to me: "How to parent," by Fitzhugh Dodson, a 1970 classic on pedagogy (I read it in French and I love the prophetic title in the French translation: "Tout se joue avant 6 ans," that is all is defined before age 6). There are a lot of hands on advices on how to anticipate the challenges linked with each age, and how to maximise the potential of the child at each stage. There's a lot of attention to language. And despite the fact that it was written almost 40 years ago, I did not sense at all a generational gap, it all makes perfect sense for our contemporary crazy life.

Another good source of information is the editor Multilingual Matters, which issues a quarterly newsletter called the Bilingual Family Newsletter, collecting several case studies and providing answers from experts. You can dowload a free past issue sample from their site.

Finally, the last issue of Multilingual Living is focused on trilingualism. If this pertains to you, check out Alice Lapuerta's interview to Xiao Lei Weng, author of the lastest book on trilingualism "Growing up with three languages." Haven't read it yet, but I loved the interview!

Should you readers have any particular book you found helpful that you'd like to share, don't hesitate to write me at multitonguekids@yahoo.com , would love to know what you guys are reading!

Tid bits

2009-02-13T09:24:00.009Z

Zeno (2.8) at his daycare
A little girl tells him:
"Mon cousin s'appelle Ilan" (My cousin's name is Ilan)
Zeno replies: "Mon cousin s'appelle Spider Man!" (My cousin's name is Spider Man!)

Milo (4.10) on the metro

We were flipping through a magazine on our way to a movie when we saw
this picture, illustrating an expo on Darwin and the Evolutionary Theory.

He looks at it curiously, and so I explain him the theory in very simple terms. He looks at me with a smirk and says:" Nooo, non funziona mamma: quest'uomo da piccolo era un
bebé, non una scimmia!" (It does not work like this: this man ,when he was
little, he was a baby, not a monkey!"

It's all about trilingualism!

2009-02-12T21:34:00.005Z

The new Winter issue of Multilingual Living is out and about!
You can subscribe to it on the BBFN website, and learn all there is to know about trilingualism.

Meeting a mirror multilingual family

2009-01-19T17:08:00.004Z

This weekend we went to the birthday party of a charming Italian boy who lives in our neighborhood. The parents are both Italian and they have been living in Paris for a decade. Italian is spoken at home, and French at school. The boy is perfectly bilingual and shows no French accent when speaking Italian (the family frequently travels to Italy for holidays or long weekends).

At the gathering we met several other fellow Italian women, one married to a French man, another to an Indian man and... even one to a Flemish! We were exstatic to have found a mirror family! The mother is Italian and the father is Flemish. They have two lovely girls, younger than my kids (6 months and 2 and 1/2). The main difference (linguistically speaking!) is that they speak Italian at home! Italian is indeed their family language. The father speaks Dutch with the girls, but only in one-to-one situations. So far they haven't had any problems and their first girl seem to be fluent in both Italian, French and Dutch (they also travel regularly to Belgium and Italy). What triggered the choice of their family language was that the father already spoke Italian when they met and they lived in Italy for a few years.

The Italian-Indian family was also very intriguing. Their three gorgeous kids (aged 9, 7 and 2) speak fluently Italian, French and Marati, the father's language. The father is also fluent in Italian, which ends up again being the family language. The kids pick up on Marati on summer trips to India.

Languages and cultural affiliation took up much of the conversation that afternoon; there was an ease in recognizing each other, we all shared, as parents of multilingual kids, the same pride and concerns. The kids all played harmoniously and happily, speaking...all of their languages!

Olympic pride and hints of national identity

2009-01-18T21:42:00.003Z

Last summer we watched the Beijing Olympic Games; we were vacationing on the Italian Alps and every evening, coming back from a long day spent hiking, we enjoyed chilling out by watching some great sports event. It was useful also to introduce Milo and Zeno to some sports that are not frequently accessible and televised, like swimming , martial arts, volleyball etc.

As we were in Italy, RAI broadcasted primarily the competitions featuring Italian athletes, therefore I was enthusiastically cheering for someone at any given event; the Belgianite had not much chance to support his country, and so he'd fall onto the USA. The kids were amused, and rivaled at recognizing each flag.

On one swimming sprinting event in which both Italy, Belgium, and France were competing, Milo spontaneously picked....France, leaving us speechless and, yes, feeling somewhat betrayed! It wasn't just out of imitation of us, I sensed that in the French flag he saw a symbol in which he identified at some level (the French flag is not as visible in France as the American one is in the USA, but we do see one from our apartment, and there is one at the entrance of Milo's school), the same way he's keen to recognize Sarkozy on magazines' covers, ever since I pointed out to him that he's France's President and his picture does reign in his school main hall).

Another related episode concerns a Spanish song we have been singing all summer in the morning: "Buenos dias, hermanos, pasatelo bien hoy" (good morning brothers, have a nice day). One day I was trying to get Milo and Zeno motivated to get in the bat thub and called them 'hermanos' (brothers in Spanish); Milo immediately replied: "But we are not Spanish!"

The notion of national identity in multicultural kids is truly fascinating, and scarce research is available. I posted before about TCKs and the way they are true citizens of the world, at ease everywhere, and at the same time often lacking specific roots... and I often wonder whether my kids will inevitably feel a stronger affiliation to France and the French culture, or if they will also have some emotional root in my native Italy. My main concern not being one over the other, but rather the concretization of a sense of root, which, I imagine, on one hand will depend greatly upon how long we will live here and how often we will move.
National identity is not just limited to a passport, a flag, a spoken language; it's a tightly-knit, complex bundle of sounds, music, flavours, traditions, scents, values we feel part of...and this is the fiber of the patrimony I'm keen on passing on, and that I wish my kids one day will also identify with. Because..."A country's culture and language have a habit of seeping in through an expat's pores. But becoming a parent, brings home the need to remember your national identity."(Expatica website)

When translating is an inevitable part of the game

2009-01-11T21:23:00.004Z

During the Christmas break we visited with family in Italy and Belgium. Milo brought along his kindergarden school book, a scrap book where his teacher keeps his drawings, classroom work and text of songs and poetry he learns. He was eager to show it off to his grandparents and, although rather shy when asked by me to sing these songs, he gave a full show to the Italian side of the family. What was truly impressive was that, while singing in French, he was also simultaneously translating the lyrics in Italian for his audience, adding also some explanation remarks! It would have been an exhausting exercise for any adult, but he seamlessly sang his way though dozens of French Christmas carrols!

* * *

Last night we were playing a game at the dinner table: Milo and I prepared a veggie soup and the Belgianite was to guess the secret ingredient, which was 'white beans' (fagioli in Italian and witte bonen in Dutch); we often play these type of games, where we both give the respective version of an item, plus the English version. the conversation went something like this:

Me (in English to the B.): "So, what do you think is in the soup, papa?!"
Belgianite: "Broccoli...potatoes?"
Milo (in Dutch to the B.): "Nen Papa, daar arent potatos in de soep!"
Me (in It. to Milo): "No, no, niente patate!"
Belgianite: "Wortelenjes?"
Milo: "Ja, ja!"
Me (in English to the B.): "And what else?!"
Belgianite (in Dutch to Milo): "Uien... knoflook..."
Milo: "Nen!"
Me (in It. to Milo): "Si Milo! Ti ricordi? All' inizio abbiamo messo le cipolle e l'aglio..."
Milo (in It. to me): "Ah si, mi ero dimenticato!"
Belgianite: "Green beens?"
Me (in English to the B.):"No! By the way, how do you say green beens in Dutch?"
Belgianite (In English, to me): "Groenen bonen. There is also a type called princes bonen"
Milo (in It. to me): "Cosa sono?"
Me (in It. to Milo): "I fagiolini, quelli verdi e lunghi..."

Milo was dying to suggest his dad what was the missing ingridient, and so I defyied him:

Me (in It. to Milo): "Puoi solo dirlo se lo sai in Olandese!" (You can only say it in Dutch!)
Milo hestated a little than said: "Dat is the kleine fagiolini!"

Me: "I fagioli! Sono i fagioli!"
Belgianite: "Ah, Milo, dat is the witte bonen!"

* * *

Recently Milo has asked me to watch a DVD ( which he has seen a half a dozen times in English or Dutch) in the...Spanish version. He was amused to recognize quite a few words from a CD we used to play last year with Spanish children songs...but especially, at the crucial points of the story, he would turn to me and say: "Perchè, mamma, in Inglese dicono Santa Claus e in Olandese de Kerstman !" (In English it's Santa Claus and in Dutch it's de Kerstman), somehow feeling I needed to be filled in on the plot!

Wishing for a family language...

2009-01-09T16:14:00.007Z

Perhaps it's the Siberian cold that has been enveloping Northern Europe in the last few weeks, or perhaps it' s the post-holiday depression syndrome, but I am starting this new year with a lot of doubts and few ideas about my little multilingual family.
Don't get me wrong: I feel generally lucky as no major problem is really the matter. Milo is now 4 and a half years old and fully trilingual, and Zeno, at 2 and a half, is tagging along with honor. The trips to Italy and Belgium during the holidays were fatiguing for the Belgianite and myself, but I realize now how important they are for the kids, a unique opportunity to cement their language structure in Italian and Dutch, to increase their vocabulary and provide that environmental extra stimulation we lack in Paris. Zeno's vocabulary skyrocketed in the last few weeks, and his mixing, although still in place, has significantly reduced.

However, once back in our Parisian routine, I cannot help but wandering if, by sticking stubbornly to the OPOL method, we are not missing something of a more harmonious way of being together. Our dinners, for instance, have become something rather erratic, filled with interrupted conversations, attempts at translating, misunderstandings and so on. The kids are visibly intrigued but bugged by the Englsh the Beliganite and I use to communicate. And so each time we begin talking, they either ask us what are we saying or they interrupt with another subject. When the Belgianite addresses the kids, half of the time I don't understand him (my fault!I should have studied Dutch earlier, I know!). Things are not dramatic, but sometimes I really wish we had a family language. If given the choice then, I would lean toward Italian, since it's the language which is understood and spoken by every member.

I tried to visualize us speaking Italian at home, and realized that Dutch would be gradually heavily sacrificed; the kids are less exposed to it, due to the few hours they manage to spend with the Belgianite. Another feature that would disappear would be the passive English they have been absorbing over the years. Although we never address the kids in English, it is spoken daily around the house and the kids' understanding is evident. Right before the holidays for instance, Milo insisted on singing 'Jingle Bells' in English in his kindergarden chorale, by himself in front of the whole chorale! Apparently he was appalled by the French version! The teacher was quite amused when she told me!

When I heard this, my motivation to continue with our current quadrilingual setting refueled. I tell myself that, in any case, the situation will eventually evolve: we might see the day where our kids refuse speaking anything but French; or English might indeed raise to the status of lingua franca. Or, indeed, we will continue with our schizophrenic switching back and forth during our dinners, until the day it will simply feel the most natural way of communicating...

Something is going on...

2008-12-12T08:27:00.005Z

In the last few weeks some major shift has occurred in my kids' use of languages: after returning to a certain strictness with OPOL, Zeno's habit of mixing has been restrained and he is now more aware of what-word-belongs-to-what-language. It's amazing how it only took a few weeks to rectify the situation. He still mixes certain items: if he's saying a negative sentence, he would use the French "pas" even if he's speaking in Italian ("Pas dormire, io! Pas cadere, io!"). But overall, there has been a major improvement.

On the other hand Milo is suddenly doing what I've been reading in most manuals and books on multilingualism, that is....starting to speak French at all times! It began in the afternoon when I would pick him up from school, and I have been tolerating it, knowing that MTKs often have a better time relaying what happened in school in the school/environment language. But now it is systematic, he speaks French all the time at home! I asked him gently why, and he said it's easier for him. Luckily we're soon off to Italy for the holidays, and that should reinject his motivation to keep Italian and Dutch up and running!

The challenge of choosing the perfect multilingual-baby name

2008-12-11T09:11:00.002Z

Thi is an article I wrote for the column Eurapsody, featured in 'Multilingual Living Magazine' in March 2006. I am posting it today with a special dedication to my friend Holger, a German native living in Japan, who's going to be soon father of another Multi Tongue Kid!

Choosing a name for a (future) multilingual kid can be quite a task. There are issues of pronunciation in both parents' languages, eventual meaning in each of the parents' culture, personal taste, tradition, etc. For out first child, coming up with his name was an ordeal: we felt the responsibility of choosing an identity we (and he) will have to live with for a long time, but, especially, an identity which worked in several cultures. We were so concerned about the name that the poor kid remained nameless for the first three days of his life!

In our case, the criteria were multiple: we needed a short name, since the father's last name is quite long. We also needed a name that could be pronounced in Dutch, Italian and French, and that could make sense in English too. The initial draft list was huge, and so many names we liked had to be scratched for one of the above incompatibilities!

-Dad liked Kaan, but it sounded like cane (dog in Italian).
-Mum liked Matilde (for girl), but the reference to the homonymous Belgian princess was too much to bear for Dad.
-Mum and Dad liked Vyn/Vin, but in French it would have been mistaken for Bacchus' juice (wine!).
-Many Flemish names would have simply been unpronounceable for the Italian side of the family
-We even dared Vancouver, on the list! But it was too cacophonic with the last name (which starts with "Van" as well).

After long discussions, Milo (pronounced mee-lo) and Sander were the chosen finalists. Somehow we thought that Milo would have been perfect for a dark, Mediterranean boy while Sander would have fit well a blond, Scandinavian type. It was Milo the blond, in the end!

So, here are 8 tips on things to consider when choosing a name for a future multilingual baby:

1. Consider carefully the pronunciation of the chosen name in all the languages involved in your life, and make sure that the name does not carry an undesired hidden meaning.

2. Make sure the name is easily pronounceable in the language of the environment, and by all the relatives/friends who will be part of the baby's life.

3. Make sure the chosen name correctly reflects the sex of the baby in all the languages you will be involved with (Andrea is a feminine name in the USA, but masculine in Italy).

4. Don't be afraid to be creative and to reflect the baby's multicultural background! However, think carefully how fun or hard it is going to be for him/her to be too much original and singled out.

5. Consider the initials: make sure they also don't spell out undesired meanings.

6. Consider carefully family traditions (like naming the child after the grandfather or an uncle, for instance): make sure other living relatives are not currently carrying the same name, avoid homonymy, if possible. Reserve such names for the middle names.

7. If you're considering original names, be wary of commercial products that might carry them. Perform a Google search for the name, just in case! (We found out afterwards that Milo is also the name of a milk drink popular in Australia...luckily it is not distributed in Europe).

8. Consider any nickname that might derive by your chosen name, and submit the nickname as well to the cultural/linguistic analysis of both parents' languages.

Of Languages mixing, or when OPOL is harder with the second child ...

2008-11-29T20:20:00.002Z

"Pas male, ik!" claimed proudly little Zeno (now 29 months old), using all of his three active languages in one sentence. This has been happening more often than not, and it is quite striking the difference with his older brother Milo, who had a similar vocabuary at his age, but did not mix.

Zeno learns a handful of new words each day, but seems to have a harder time at sorting out in which linguistic pool they belong. His mixing takes place mostly at home and especially when Milo is around. At his daycare they reassured me that he has long ceased speaking Italian, and his French level is perfectly comparable to that of monolinguals his own age.
But once he' s at home, his linguisting boundaries vanish and anything can happen!

One reason I can trace is that we ourselves have been less strict than before with OPOL; I catch myself replying in French to Milo when he uses French to tell me something about school; or, when he's tired he'd squeeze some French words into an Italian sentence ( "Mamma, i trois petits cochons hanno catturato il lupo e l'hanno messo nella marmitte"; "Non si deve mangiare i bocconi grossi se no le...joues...esplodono"). Milo often makes mixed setences (IT/DU) when talking to his dad, using Italian when he does not know the corresponding Dutch (ex: "Papa', perché metti de lenzen in de ogen?"). The Belgianite also might reply in Italian to Milo. And we code-switch frequently mid-sentence, inadvertly...

Secondly, Zeno looks very much up to his older brother, who uses indiscriminatingly all of the three languages throughout the day at his own will and need; therefore, Zeno has been lacking some strict parameters and boundaries.

Milo addresses him less and less in Italian, and more in Dutch and French depending totally upon environmental circumstances and topics. Zeno follows the flow and always replies in the right language. Within the day, their exchanges are equally spread among the three languages and they can switch back and forth from one to another within a matter of minutes, depending upon who's with them and the topic of their conversation. Zeno's meta-linguistic awareness however is lower compared to that of Milo's at the same age. Personality-wise he is much more outgoing, open and communicative than Milo at his age, he also benefits of his brother's established social network; as a result, he just goofs around in whatever language comes to his mind!

We have decided to pay more attention and came up with a few guidelines for this phase:

1/ We are back to strictly usig OPOL and doing our best not to mix anymore
2/ When Zeno addresses us in French I make sure I provide him with the proper corresponding vocabulary in Italian, and the Belgianite does the same for Dutch
3/ I try to read a book in Italian to Zeno alone every day
4/ The Belgianite and I try to spend some time alone with Zeno, especially during the weekend, in order to clar the semantic confusion in his head, and provide him with some solid and fluid blocks of time where Italian and Dutch are spoken only, by us respectively and specifically with him.
5/We begun naming languages for him again (In Italiano we say...in French they say...etc.)

On the positive side, Zeno seems to be more at ease with us speaking the other languages, while Milo used to be uncomfartable when I'd speak French to him in a public situation (that is when I needed to be understood by the people present). In general I dare to say that it is just harder to provide the same quality time and stimulation to the second child: the time is just not there...but that is not an excuse to fail our second MTK!

My boys and the girls...

2008-11-20T20:42:00.008Z

This post has nothing to do with languages but rather behaviour between young males (in this case my boys) and the women of the future!
Milo has always been very popular, both in daycare and at the maternelle, with his female classmates; he's cute and kind, he's taller than everyone else and very protective toward everyone; on top of it, he applies strictly the rule thta says that in love wins the one who fleed! Girls just drop like flies. I cannot recount how many times we'd be strolling at a nearby shopping street and, all of a sudden, from the opposite siedewalk, I would spot a little girl waving and screaming "Miloooo! Miloooo!", to which Milo would react with total indifference, making sure it's clear he has not seen nor heard the girl! If the girl happens to be on the same sidewalk and dares to walk up to him and say "HI," he'd reply dryily: "Arret de me parler!" (Stop talking to me!) and walk even faster...at this point Zeno would step in and offer his best smile to the older, broken-hearted girl, he would pull one of his funny smirks and make her laugh while I jocke with the occasional mum, eventually taking the hands of the girl and beginning some playful dance; in a few years I can see him whispering: "Let me explain you about my brother, he's not like you and me..."

A few days back, upon arriving at Milo's school in the afternoon, one of his classmates ran to me and asked if she could marry Milo! Amused and surprised I told her that it was up to him; at that point Milo arrived and she basically cornered him, telling that they had become engaged that very same day, they were in love and they wanted to get married; I just looked at my boy and said: "Ah si, Milo?" providing him a way out, should he need one... but he was already blushing and said yes, the kind of yes one says when pulled by the hair!

The next morning as soon as we arrived at school, he tracked the poor girl down ans greeted her with the harsh news: " Je ne suis plus d'acord pour me marier"( literally: I don' agree to marriage anymore). That is how he set the record straight! The girl looked at me in disbelief, and all I could do was giving her a symphatetic gaze while squeezing my shoulders, denying any responsibility...deep inside I was releived: he is still MY little boy...but for how much longer?!

Multilingual Living

2008-10-15T15:55:00.005Z

The latest issue of Multilingual Living has just been released and it' s a bomb!
Corey Heller and Alice Lapuerta are doing a fantastic job at gathering extremely valuable content from experts and volunteers from around the world and packaging it in a sleak, useful and stimulating manner; I salute their efforts on a purely volunteer basis and overcoming among other obstacles that of a few time zones, as they operate respectively from Seatle, USA and Austria!
I contributed an article on the way multilingualism is being cherished in Milo's kindergarden.
Check it out at the BBFN site!

Back issues (again)...

2008-10-13T11:35:00.004Z

I have been dealing with a hernia in my lower back for the last two years, alternating bearable periods with unbearabl ones. This summer I reached the last drop of unbearableness, and upon our return to Paris from the holidays I have been finally operated. The operation per se is rather common and not particularly complicated...the immediate afterwards I do not wish to my worse enemy...and then I had to simply lay in bed and rest as much as possible, not an unwelcomed recommendation, but one that has once again deprived me from my blogging activities, not to mention complicated unnecessarily our daily life and organization; the good news is that I am doing much better, the pain is gone and I hope to resume to a normal life very soon. With lots of insights on my blooming MTKs!

The Nanny Horror Picture show (is finally OVER!)

2008-07-21T14:14:00.006Z

I blogged in the past about Milo’s garde partagée with another little boy, a very frequent solution for the Parisian working parents who are often denied day care because there simply aren’t enough.
Milo’s garde lasted almost 2 years, and ended when Zeno was born, I went back to work and the nanny refused to look after Zeno as well. Milo was then 2 and a half, so he went to a private day care for 6 months, before starting kinder garden. Despite the abrupt conclusion of this first experience, we enthusiastically tried the same system with Zeno, together with a neighbour family living in the same building, parents of a little girl same age as Zeno. We got along well and there were all the premises for a successful venture (especially since living in the same building made things MUCH easier from a logistical point of view). This time around bad luck stroke in finding the right nanny. We changed 4 nannies during the first 5 months, which was simply traumatising (for us, as the kids did not seem to mind the carousel of care-givers), and I will spare you the appalling reasons for which we had each time to start from scratch. Those were awful months where I spent ALL of my free time dealing with this: making phone calls, arranging interviews, dedicating time to trials, consulting with the other mum at least 5 times a day on any of the above, getting to know someone new, opening our house and life to them to just, after a few weeks, throw it all away.…I was exhausted and was getting really hopeless.
Nanny number 4 seemed finally a decent bet: in her early 40s, gay personality, mother of 4 older children, hence all of the experience we could possibly desire. After a good start, the lady, nevertheless, took some serious risks during the first few months, despite the fact that we had discussed in detail our expectations as well as undesired behaviours. But, above all, she begun collecting mysterious illnesses at the rate of a week per month, never justified by any doctor. Every time she did not show up, it would devastate our work week: the Belgianite and I had to take time off alternatively and repeatedly, to the point that it was getting simply ridiculous; I was paying dearly someone, to end up being with my kids! I burned my holidays for the year by April and things at work were getting tense. Not to mention, I was a nervous wrack! It was just not worth it. So, after 13 months, we called it the quits and decided to put Zeno in the same day care Milo went to. This took a lot of consideration and pondering, as we did not want to leave the other family abruptly (they, however, had 2 sets of grandparents nearby that could always jump in when needed). We observed the firing procedure and gave them a month notice. The news were far from being well received.

The bitter-sweet aftertaste of this experience is due to the fact that none of these people (the nannies and the parents) we were in very close contact with for over 2 years, seem to have understood the amount of stress this whole ordeal has meant to us; it also baffles me that keeping in touch does not seem to be on their agenda. Our kids have grown up together, shared daily life, games, meals, important milestones of their early development. These nannies have seen them crawl, then walk, then talk, have received much of their affection (not to mention much of our money...). But for the nannies it is just a job and for the other families we were probably just a mean to save money. This coldness, in retrospective, is quite disturbing.

Perhaps the system is just too complicated to guarantee everybody's happiness; despite what I have been reading on parenting magazines, in reality all the people I have met that had engaged in the garde partagée have experienced some level of frustration and discomfort. I was ready to pay that price (a little). but I wasn't expecting all the doors to shut closed once the adventure was over. Is it the big city individualistic attitude? Is it a facet of culture shock? The French distance vs. the Italian relational bonanza? One thing is certain: I am done with it!

I feel very reliefed we found a way out eventually and I’m very comfortable with the new arrangement. Zeno adapted in no time to the new day care, loving the plurality of interaction and all of the additional activities. His French is skyrocketing too (the last nanny was a foreigner and her French was not very easy to understand.)

In the meantime we met Sofie, a bright, young motivated student who has a gift for dealing with kids. She picks up Milo and Zeno from school during the week and plays with them until I get home. Milo and Zeno fell in love with her instantly, it all flows naturally. I say we deserve her!

Multilingual dreaming

2008-07-17T10:06:00.005Z

Milo is starting to recall his dreams in the morning; usually he would tell them to me, while cuddling in our big bed for a few minutes before getting up for breakfast, and he would tell them in Italian…like last week:

Milo: “Ho fatto un sogno stranissimo, mamma: Zeno ha preso il mio doudou e l’ha buttato nel mare. Poi papa é entrato in acqua e l’ha cercato. Ma…alla fine sono andato io a cercarlo e l’ho trovato, l’acqua non era profonda.”

(I made a really strange dream: Zeno had thrown my teddy bear in the sea, Papa went to look for it, and then finally it was me who found it, in the shallow waters).

This morning for the first time he told us of his first bilingual dream:

Milo: “Ho sognato che chiedevo a papa:
“Papa mi dai un cerotto?”
E lui mi diceva: “Wacht en betje! Ik moet geven medicament van Zeno!”

(In Italian: I dreamt that I asked papa for a bandage and he replied (switching now to Dutch): Wait a little! I am giving Zeno his medicine!)

Let’s leave aside any interpretation and let’s stick to the linguistic issues!
He totally imitated the Belgianite while relaying his line; he seemed amused and proud to have remembered his dream and when we asked him to say it one more time, he repeated it exactly the same. We cracked up at his cuteness, but also felt somewhat reassured: his multilingualism must be pretty deep anchored if his unconscious releases it so faithfully in his dreams.

I made me remember that when I moved to the USA at age 19, with a very shacky English baggage, it took me about 3-4 months to gain fluency and I felt so consciously the day I recalled my first dream in English.

I haven't had time to research this but I wonder f there is any scientific study conducted on the way languages we speak are reflected in our dreams. Any clue, readers?

French mistakes

2008-07-17T09:47:00.002Z

Yesterday we ate salmon and I explained Milo that the salmon is a very strong fish that likes to swim upstream. This morning he was eager to share this new bit of knowledge with his nanny Sofie, but he lacked some vocabulary. I heard him say:

“Tu sais, Sofie, le salmón (instead of saumon) est un poisson très fort, et…et…l’eau vais comme ça et lui il nage comme ça (he mimics with his hands the fish going in the opposite direction of the water)”.

Sofie was changing Zeno’s pamper, an activity that requires much attention as Zeno makes it as easy as trying to put a diaper to a wild octopus…so between that and Milo’s metaphors, she was not getting at all what he was talking about, which frustrated him. So I decided to jump in to give him a little hand, and I said in French:

“Oui, Milo, le saumon est très fort et il nage contre la courant …”

Sofie got the picture and once she managed to put the octopus down, she picked up on the conversation. I was then summoned by the Belgianite in the bathroom, to learn that it’s ‘le courant,’ i.e. masculine and not feminine, as I pronounced it (I admit I was uncounsciously translating from the Italian ‘la corrente,’ which is indeed feminine).

As much I am fluent in French, I am aware that I still make the occasional mistake…should I be more restrictive with my use of French around the kids ? Somehow I feel Milo already has a strong enough base, and in terms of the pronunciation, he does not hesitate to correct me if I miss a nasal « e » or « oi » sound ; however I hear the Belgianite, we need to be careful not to pass on our mistakes!

Summer update

2008-07-15T08:20:00.001Z

Zeno is literally exploding linguistically: on one hand he repeats almost everything he hears, in any language; on the other he is visibly trying to make sense out of his (multi)linguistic surroundings.

On his second birthday we sang 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' in Italian, then in Dutch and finally in English (we left the French for his friends at the day-care). The next day he was singing to himself: "Atta-nanna to youuuuu, atta-nanna to youuuuuu!"

He is producing a few mixed sentences:
capelli mouillées (IT/FR)
ancora bigol (IT/DU)
merci mamma (FR/IT)
guarda Milo: cassé (IT/FR)

but also some good ones in any of his three languages:
"guarda mamma, vieni: dudu caduto!"
"pas ca, pas ca, fini!"
"piace podódoio” " (for non mi piace il pomodoro= I don't like tomatoes)
and the everlasting: "Cos'é mamma? Cos'é?" (What is it?)
"Dov'é Milo?" (Where is Milo).

His exchanges with Milo are 70% in Italian, with the rest in Dutch, if they're playing next to Papa, or in French at the park or during the day with the nanny.
Milo is clearly setting the language and deciding when to switch; Zeno tags along.

He obviously understands it all, but he is finally trying to sort each word and put it in the right linguistic basket.

Milo's encounter with another set of American friends reinforced his interest in English; they brought him some CDs with kids’ songs and we've been listening to Old MacDonald and other great classics! He made less of an effort to speak, this time, but he picked up several words and showed off a laconic thank you and goodbye a few times! I'm thinking of finding a playgroup for him in the fall, but it has to be something he can attend without me, otherwise he won't speak up.

School is over and my little MTKs are spending now their days with their new babysitter, a Franco-Spanish languages student. We could not find a better fit! She's intrigued with the Italian spoken by the kids and at the same time Milo is intrigued with her Spanish. So they feed each other language items all day long, using French as a common base. Milo has been asking me, on her days off, how we say this and that in Spanish! But yesterday, on my day off work, at some point he said full of melancholy: "I feel like speaking in French to Sofie…”

His meta-linguisitic awareness keep blowing me away: yesterday I was cleaning up the toys in the kids’ room and Milo spontaneously joined me to help; he was trying to tell me something but I was so absorbed in the task (and tired) that I did not realize I replied in English:

Milo: “ Mamma…”
Me: “…yes?”
Milo: “ Mamma!!!”
Me: “…yes?! What?”
Milo: “ Mamma: ti voglio parlare in Italiano!” (I want to speak Italian with you!)

So later I randomly asked him:
Me: “Milo pensi che ci parleremo in Inglese un giorno?” (do you think one day we’ll speak English with one another?)
Milo: “Non credo…a meno che non ci sposiamo, ma tu sei gia’ con Papa’…non possiamo sposarci.” (I don’t think so, unless we get married, which we cannot because you are with Dad)
Me: “Ma Milo, le lingue non c’entrano con l’amore…” (but languages have nothing to do with love…)
Milo: “Ma si, sposiamo le lingue!” (yes, let’s marry the languages)

I just left it at that, it was too cute and intricated to get into…It’s pretty obvious that Milo thinks that the Belgianite and I speak English because we are in love!

He’s been very playful with languages and has increasingly accepted me speaking French, to the point that we have a little game when I prepare dinner: he plays a traveller arriving in a restaurant, and I’m the French chef. So I greet him, ask him where he’s been and if he’s hungry and he tells me all about his recent trip to Italy to visit his grandparents. All this in French and with an obvious acting tone to it, both of us enjoying the role playing. Then I offer him to stay for the night, if he does not mind sharing the room with another fellow traveller, little Rascal Zeno (who in the meantime gets the gist of the travelling conversation and shows up with his back pack, thinking we are about to go somewhere!).

Apart from these occasional playful moments, Milo is strict with using Italian with me; on rare occasions he has been using French to tell me something related to school, which apparently is fairly common with bilingual kids. He code-switches automatically within the conversation. I let him express his thoughts and then I simply rephrase them in Italian, but so far it must have happened only a handful of times.

Watermelon qui pro quo...

2008-06-26T11:32:00.005Z

Walking home from school in a warm mid-june afternoon:

Me: Cosa avete mangiato oggi a pranzo? (What did you have today for lunch?)
Milo: Il pollo, il riso e la pastecca, ma non l'ho mangiata, non mi piace. [Chicken, rice and pastecca (from the French 'pasteque') but I did not eat it, I don't like it.]
Me: Si dice anguria... (We say watermelon)
Milo: Quale? (What?)
Me: In Italiano si dice 'anguria,' non pastecca. (In Italian we say watermelon and not pastecca)
Milo: Ma si, la pastecca! (Wathever, pastecca!)
Me: Ti piace dire pastecca? Ti piace quella parola? (Do you like saying pastecca? you like the sound of that world?)
Milo: Ma no, ma se ti ho detto che non l'ho mangiata che non mi piace!!!! (But Mum, I just told you: I did not like it and I did not eat it!)

The Language of Love

2008-06-10T07:26:00.003Z

Milo: "Mamma, ho detto thank you a papa', ma non sono innamorato di lui!!!"
[I said thank you (in English) to papa, but I'm not in love with him].

Should I learn Dutch?

2008-06-06T09:07:00.005Z

When I first met the Belgianite at an international media conference in Cannes, France, we spoke English to each other, the only language in each’ linguistic arsenal we shared. It remained our common language over the years.

We moved to France a few years later and I had to work hard to improve my very rustic French. I can now say I feel much more comfortable and can proudly declare myself fluent in French as well; the Belgianite was already fluent in French when we met, but somehow we use this language only socially, when in presence of other franco-phones, out of politeness; as he often says, we don’t recognize each other in French!

When Milo was born we decided to adopt the OPOL method; so I begun speaking more Italian at home to Milo and the Belgianite unveiled his Nederlands-spoken persona, while keeping English for each other. Thanks to his French basis, personal acumen, constant exposure to me speaking to Milo and encouragement from my family, the Belgianite achieved also a pretty good understanding and fluency in Italian; you’d think that it would gradually become the family language, but the Belgianite is a jazzy cat, no pop material, and so, as much as he is captivated by the Italian language, culture and lifestyle, he does not like speaking Italian with me, for the same reason that we fell in love with each others’ English speaking facet (...and/or for fear of being corrected when making mistakes?). However, Milo quickly grasped on his fluency and sometimes addresses his dad in Italian (mainly out of lazyness, when he does not know the corresponding vocabulary in Dutch); the funny thing is that the Belgianite does not realizes that on these occasions he replies in Italian!

I never really needed to learn Dutch, in the sense that during trips to Belgium and with the Belgianite’s friends and family I can communicate easily using French and English; and even when I would tease the Belgianite and ask him to teach me the bad or loving words in Dutch, he never really felt at ease or particularly motivated. To this day, I still have to hear an
“Ik houd van u” (I love you): I never got it in Dutch! And when I did whisper that to him, he replied with a smirk: “You sound weird.” (I told you he’s atypical! That does not mean that he’s not affectionate, on the contrary, but curiously he does not like to use any other language but English with me).

I instinctively find Dutch a difficult language, with many unfamiliar guttural sounds and little common roots with any of the other languages I speak; I tried several times to actively learn vocabulary using some kid books we have that labels pictures in both Dutch and French, but got discouraged by terms such as 'gelukkige verjaardag' ( happy birthday, try singing that without twisting your tongue), 'vreugde' (joy), 'brandweerlieden' (fire men), to name a few…
Nevertheless, daily exposure and repetition worked wonders, forging a very useful mini-baby vocabulary which I manage to use with the monolingual toddlers each time with meet up with Belgian friends.

So far so good with our intricated linguistic arrangement….however, Milo is developing quite fast his Dutch fluency and I realize now that when he has a lenghty conversation with friends or the Belgianite, I grasp less and less. I hate having to ask: "What did he say?", he being my very own son! I mean, the way things are I’m headed to miss out on about 30% of my son(s) verbal output in the coming years and I don’t like it.

On the other hand I wonder if the kids would appreciate it at this stage: I still remember a few months back I once addressed Milo in Dutch saying one of those little sentences I know: 'zit je niere op je poop' (sit well on your butt); he looked at me in disbelief, his look meaning something along the lines of: "Are you totally insane? What the heck are you doing, you awful OPOL betrayer?!?!” He clearly was not amused by it.

So here is the big question: should I set myself to formally learn Dutch, once and for all?
The poll for my dear readers is open on the right-end side bar, feel free also to express your opinion in the comments section. Tot straks (catch you later)…

English definitely peeking through and other episodes

2008-05-26T09:27:00.003Z

Yesterday in the park, Zeno got scolded by the park guardian for stepping over the flowers bed.
Milo suddenly asked the Belgianite (in Italian):
Milo: "Papá come si dice in Olandese 'guardiano del parco’ ?" (Papa, how do you say in Dutch park guard ?)
Belgianite: "Dat is en bewaker" (the literal translation of bewaker is someone waiting rather than watching over)
Milo puzzled: “Ma no, papa, ho detto IL GUAR-DIA-NO!!” (I said THE GUARDIAN, papa!)
Belgianite: “Ja, Milo, dat is en park bewaker!”
Milo shrugs his shoulders as if saying to himself “bullshit!”

This has happened often lately; Milo’s Dutch has improved a lot, but he realizes that he does not know certain words , so he asks his dad the translation, often from the Italian. However he is very sensitive to the literal meaning of the words, and from one language to the next it might not be always the same…

One evening last week during dinner, we were doing our usual mix of languages: me in Italian with the kids and the Belgianite in Dutch; during a rare pause we exchanged a few items in English and Milo, very pensive, looked at us and said:
“Mamma e papá, perche voi parlate in Inglese?” (why do you guys speak English?)
It’s not the first time Milo has asked us an explanation to this strange arrangement. His meta-lingusitic awareness has been incredibly sharp form very early on; lately one morning he also proceeded to claim: “Noi abbiamo tre paesi e tre lingue: a Parigi in Francia, parliamo Francese; in Belgio l’ Olandese e in Italia l’Italiano” (We have 3 countries and 3 languages).

Going back to our dinner discussion, I proceeded to explain him:
“We speak English because when Papa and I met many years ago, we spoke English to each other and it remained our language.”
This time Milo added a new dimension to the discussion:
Milo: “Ma perché parlate Inglese quando potete parlare Italiano e Olandese?”
(why do you speak English while you can use dutch AND Italian?), meaning he figured it out that we do have a certain fluency in each other’s language (especially the Belgianite in Italian, since my Dutch is still very rustic and childish).
Chapeau Milo! I aknowledged his point but explained him that English was easier for us; I asked him, as I did in the past, if it bugged him that much that we spoke English and why. He said he preferred us to speak Italian and Dutch, simply. But when I proposed him to speak French at home (as a provocation, I did not really mean it), he firmly replied "Ahh no ! No francese!” French has become for him clearly the language of school, friends and the park, it has a clear geographical and social delimitations.

Milo feels frustrated when he cannot understand us in English. He has developed by now a pretty basic understanding (he associates it with Dutch, mainly); when some American friends visited recently, he would reply to the basic questions in Dutch. However he is lacking vocabulary, as we never actively addressed him in English; and he is definitely intrigued by it. He is requesting more and more to watch some of his favourite DVDs in English ('Cars' is an all time classic chez nous) and he asks me the meaning of some words/phrases he catches. He also has several books in English and he asks me to read them in Italian first and then in English. Sometimes he jumpstarts a role-play mode and wants to speak English, but not as Milo, he needs to project himself in another character...so I play with him, such as when he pretends to be a sailor leaving for a long trip..

Milo: “Good bye, mamma, good bye!
Me: “Good bye Captain Milo, have a nice trip!" I tell him, speaking very slowly and repeating several times the sentence.“Where are you going Milo?”
Milo: “America!”
Me: “Wow, that’s far away…”
Milo “Yes, far away! Zeno…come…met (‘with’ in Dutch) the boat to America !”
Me: “Are you going with your boat?”
Milo “Yes, with the boat!”

I can sense that he’s proud and happy to finally crack the code and use also the language that has been for so long just mama and papa’s; but there is also a genuine fun element in learning another language. The Belgianite has been weary and feels we should wait until he gets to learn it at school. I instinctively feel that we are just responding to a demand coming from his essence; I am not imposing the 4th language, it belongs to our environment and it’s only natural that Milo shows interest; he sees that it’s useful to communicate with some of our friends and I simply nourish his hunger for vocabulary and understanding. And I’m happy he’s the first one to make it a game, by entering his English speaking persona of the sailor.

Milo’s best friend at school is also bi-national, his dad being French and his mum English. Victor is not fluent in English but he understands it fully, while he replies to his mum mainly in French. One day Milo came back from school and told us repeatedly that at lunch Victor and himself said several times “Seventy-four” (in English). We could not figure out what they were referring to exactly but clearly they were playing with English…

He has also developed a fun relationship with Spanish, which is very accessible thanks to his Italian. Since our trip to Valencia this spring, where he met some of my friends and kids his age, he’s been intrigued. I bought him some books ad a CD with Spanish kid songs, which had become an all time favourite. He learnt a few sentences (pescado frito, buenas noches, despiertate, levantate, quieres mantequilla para desajunar); he is aware that it’s another language all together (and in his class there are 2 franco-spanish kids) but there’s this playful aura around it. There also, I do not push any structure, I let him play with is and retain what he likes, but I admit I am deeply very pleased with his ease and curiosity for it.

Mr. Zeno, in the meantime has fast reached the old age of 23 months, and the last 6 ones have been very eventful for his language development. He went through 3 distinct phrases: he begun speaking quite a bit in French, since he was looked after a nanny during the day.
"Are you hungry Zeno?" I would ask him in Italian back in Janaury.
“Ouiiiiiiiiiii! Faim, faim!" he would reply enthusiastically in French.

Then my back got worse again and the Belgianite took a lot care of him directly over a period of time. I was there but could not hold him in my arms standing up, nor carry him anywhere. This coupled with a few trips to Beglium that I could not make, translated in a rapid development of Dutch. For a while all we heard from little Zeno was Ja, brook, kjek,broot, etc.

The during the spring holidays we went to Italy for a week, and there Italian took over as his primary language, although he has not lost the Dutch vocabulary. In the meantime he has joined a daycare, where they tell me he’s speaking primarily Italian, although his comprehension of French is full. For the moment it seems that, at a first comparison with Milo at the same age, he concentrates on one language at the time and is not as versatile in switching from one t0 the next. At the park last week he was fascinated with a tiny dog in a lady’s lap. “Cane, Cane,” he kept on screaming! The lady replied in French: "Oui mon cheri, c’est un chien, c’est ca!”
“No, CANE!” replied Zeno, firmly…

Milo addresses Zeno 80% of the times in Italian and 20% in Dutch, almost rarely in French. Zeno replies accordingly. The interactions between the 2 little multilingual rascals are often hilarious. Luckily they get along great and love each other, and the level of complicity is already amazing.

One night Milo did not want to go to bed and kept on coming up with excuses, one of his favourite being the fear for wolves. After having reassured him about 375 times that there were no wolves in the house, we sent him to bed rather sharply, menacing him to close the door of their room if he would dare to get up again. Few minutes later we hear his angelic voice calling out:

" Mamma e papá, Zeno dice di avere paura dei lupi!" (Zeno says HE's scared of wolves)
We giggled and decided not to reply.
then Zeno confirmed:
"Neno lupi...neno lupi" and then he added: "Milo paura!" (Milo is afraid)
...at that point big brother set the record straight:
"No, sei tu TU che hai paura dei lupi!" (YOU are afraid of wolves, not me!)

6 things I enjoy doing (MEME)

2008-05-26T09:08:00.004Z

It's been a long time I have been tagged for a meme...altough I often resist because I try to focus and writing only about my kids' lingusistic development, I will give in to the temptation this time and reply to Vera's request:

1/ Taking Milo to school and picking him up
2/ Writing
3/ Talking on the phone, especially with far away family and friends
4/ Going as a family to an expo
5/ Weekend brunches in an open air retaurant or pic-nics
6/ Doing little creative projects with the kids (drawing together, etc.)

I wrote them spontaneusly and as I re-read them I realized how dull I must come across and how far I've come...only a few years back my list it would have been something like this:

1/ Traveling to far and unknown countries
2/ Meeting new people from all over the world
3/ Attending art vernissages, receptions, parties, events
4/ Working in an international environment on iternational projects very late hours
5/ Spending a weekend at a spa taking care of myself
6/ Reading, going to art expos, attending concerts, etc.

It's not that I do not enjoy these things anymore, but times have changed, and I don't have the time to indulge in most of them...but, honestly, I like that my list has changed and I hope it will keep on changing!

And who am I tagging now ? Lilian, Dalian , Giovanni and Santi !

About this blog

2008-05-26T09:01:00.000Z

I disapper from time to time and it’s not out of lazyness or lack of material, on the contrary. But real life simply takes over sometimes, and at the end of the day I have no more energy to type up the numerous amazing episodes of Milo and Zeno’s multilingual development. I try to take hand written notes and I hope one day to resume these six important months during which they both said so many fantastic things. Unfortunately I have had again my share of back pain, and between work and a missing nanny, we’ve been running around much of the time. I hope to keep coming back posting regularly. Thank you to the faitful readers who keep coming back and solicitating me, it really touches me! I also would love to hear more about YOUR multilingual kids and experiences ! Do write me at multitonguekids@yahoo.com.

New year's multilingual thoughts

2008-01-15T11:16:00.000Z

We spent some time in Italy during the holidays, and Milo seemed much more relaxed than usual, as if the fact that he had to deal with just one language (the Belgianite speaks mainly Italian when we are there, even with me) released him from some tension. He picked up on a lot of vocabulary and impressed all of the family with his conversational skills!

However, he did spoke in Dutch to Zeno on a few occasions. They were pretending to be at sea and I heard Milo saying: " Kijk!, Zeno, een kleine haai!" (Look, a small shark).

He also would sing his French Xmas songs by himself from time to time. So his two other languages remained active, and at the same time he fully enjoyed the full immersion in Italian.

He's very adorable and responsible, perhaps an innate characteristic of first borns; while traveling he kept on checking on Zeno (Are you comfortable Zeno? Everyhting ok?)

Zeno on the other hand is exploding linguistically, he adds a few words every day, mainly in Italian and French. He seems to be extremely attentive to what Milo says, and repeats it all. He has a rather nasal way of pronouncing certain words, especially starting with labial sounds. I remember Milo also took some time before pronouncing correctly certain sounds, and he still does not have a rolling "r" in Italian (and probably never will):

he says fommaggio instead of formaggio, while in French he says impeccably fromage;
he has a hard time with the sound "st" (in French he'd say ouittiti instead of ouistiti, in Italian la ttazione instead of la stazione)
he has a hard time with the sound "sw" in Dutch (Watte Piet instead of Swarte Piet).

Zeno also has a fantastic ear for music, as soon as he hears a tune, he's gotta dance. He's the 'Happy Feet' of the family!

Meta-linguistic awareness

2008-01-14T22:51:00.000Z

Milo is becoming increasingly aware of the existance of different languages, not only within his entourage. And he's curious to find out who speaks what:

Yesterday I was on the phone with one of his baby-sitters. Once I hung up, he asked me
Milo: "Who was it?"
Me: "It was Sabine."
Milo: "She speaks French, right? She does not speak Italian..."

Another day:
Milo: "Who did you have lunch with today, Mum?"
Me: "I had lunch with my colleague Frederique"
Milo: "Avete parlato Francese?" (Did you speak in French?)

The fist day of school after the holidays, on the way to school we were reviewing the nice two weeks we just had in Belgium and Italy, and Milo was keen to retell his teacher all about it; it seemed to me he was already mentally translating some of the stuff we were talking about. In fact, when I reminded him of the visit of the Befana, which on January 6th filled his sock with sweets and candies, he asked me:
Milo: "Come si dice Befana in Francese?" (How do you say Befana in French?)
I had to think about it a second.
Me: "I'm afraid it does not exist in France, Milo, you'll have to say...la Befaná!"

Milo's first letter to Santa

2007-12-14T09:18:00.000Z

Caro Babbo Natale,

quest'anno sono stato bene, ho giocato, ho fatto tante belle cose; poi tu vieni a mi comprare tutte le cose perche' Zeno non puo' avere dei cadoci, e' troppo piccolo e li puo' rompere, i giocattoli, Babbo Natale.

Puoi entrare da 3 camini, se vuoi puoi passare da quello nella nostra cameretta.

Per favore, Babbo Natale, io vorrei tre cose: 1 barca, 1 mappamondo, e 1 calendario di Cars. Puoi portare un Peter Pan a Zeno?
E vorrei anche un Spiderman per Mamma e Papa' , Babbo Natale.

Buon viaggio, salutaci le renne, e grazie mille che mi porti 3 cadoci per me e 1 Peter Pan per Zeno.

Milo (3 and 1/2)

***************************************************************************

Dear Santa,

this year I've been well, I played and I did many great things. Then you come to get us all the toys, because Zeno cannot have presents yet: he's too tiny and he can break the toys, Santa.

We have 3 fireplaces you can enter from; if you wish, you can use the one in my room.

Please Santa, I'd like 3 things: 1 boat, 1 worldplan and 1 Cars calender.

Can you please bring a Peter Pan for Zeno? and also a Spiderman for Mum and Dad, Santa.

Have a nice trip, say "Hi" to the raindeers, and thank you very much for bringing 3 gifts for me and 1 Peter Pan for Zeno.

Milo

MTK generation

2007-12-10T15:32:00.000Z

This weekend we met up with Milo's godfather, who's Flemish and married to a Turkish woman; they live in Belgium, and their 5 years old daughter Dilara is also growing up trilingual (Dutch, Turkish and French), while starting English at school. They've been a great case study, giving us confidence in our multilingual project! Unfortunately this past year we haven't managed to meet as often as we'd like, but Milo and Dilara are good friends and were happy to see each other. I observed the interaction attentively; Milo takes his tame to warm up in this type of situations. At first he would not utter much, he'd reply with his head to questions in Dutch, to signal 'yes' or 'no'. But as the day unfolded, the two little rascals begun a curious exchange in..both Dutch and French! I'd say Dilara was mainly solicitating Milo in Dutch and he was mainly solicitating Dilara in French. But they had no trouble in communicating and come up with all sorts of tricks! Among the parents we were using Dutch (the fathers among themselves), French (me and Dilara's mum) and English (me and Dilara's dad); was some how this influencing Milo's choice of language? Does he associate French with playing? He did speak Dutch as well, mainly to his beloved godfather. I just can't help but smiling thinking that in 10 years Milo and Dilara will be able to choose among French, Dutch and English to communicate and will probaly use all three depending upon the situation and the mood.

Regarding Sinterklaas and a fascinating test

2007-12-06T01:32:00.000Z

One of the undiscussed advantages of a trans-national family is that every month there is something to celebrate, coming from une culture or another! Today is Sinterklaas in Belgium and the Netherlands; tonight we will sing along the rhyme below while we will set the little shoes by the fireplace, before going to bed, hoping that Sinterklaas will fill them with sweets...

Sinterklaas Kapoentje
Gooi wat in mijn schoentje,
gooi wat in mijn laarsje
dank u, Sinterklaasje.

Nicholas I beg of you
Drop into my little shoe
Something sweet or sweeter,
Thank you, Saint and Peter

Although I love this tradition and the Sinterklaas figure (who's none but the ancestral figure of Saint Nicholas, hence Santa Klaus's grandfather), I am always a little wary of the illustrations featuring Zwarte Piet, Sinterklaas' morish helper. In this day in age, should we start censoring traditions and bed-stories and make them politically correct? I would instinctively not think so, but then again, I just read something that might change my mind: the Belgianite has recently given me a fascinating book called "Blink," by Malcolm Gladwell. One chapter introduces the The Implicit Association Test (IAT) , a mind-blowing experiment developed by Harvard University, to measures implicit attitudes and beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report. One of the tests associates images of white and/or black people to words which belong to either 'good' or 'bad' categories. Testers are asked to respond rapidly to different sets of associations, and the categories are alternatively associated to the white or the black race. It turnes out that 75-80% of self-identified Whites and Asians taking the test, show an implicit preference for racial White relative to Black. In other words, as Gladwell brilliantly puts it, even if we do not consider ourselves racist, we are somehow wired or brainwashed to associate negative words, sentiments, elements to black people, as well as the good ones to the white race.
One of the items that the test measures is also the attitude toward uniculturalism and multiculturalism. Similarly, pictures of multicultaral and unicultural groups are showed alternativel together with the category 'good' and 'bad', and a series of words have to be associated accordingly. I took the test confidently, thinking that my passion for multilingualism and multiculturalism would certainly have defeated any trick that those Harvard brains could have come up with. And sure enough, the astonishing response was:

" Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Unicultural compared to Multicultural. The interpretation is described as 'automatic preference for Multicultural' if you responded faster when items representing Multicultural and Good were classified with the same key than when items representing Unicultural and Good were classified with the same key. Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic preference may be described as 'slight', 'moderate', 'strong', or 'little to no preference'.

I invite you to take the test as well, and let me know what do you think about this. As for me, I'm just hoping Sinterklaas will leave me some more open mindness in my shoes tonight...

The war against English

2007-12-03T08:21:00.000Z

It was an interesting weekend form the linguistic point of view. First Milo officially forbid me to speak to him in French, which I do mainly when we are around French people. Sometimes at home I would sing along some of the French songs, and somehow he does not like my accent in French!

Then during the day he spoke English randomly...while drawing together with his Dad he suddenly shouted: "I do it!" He often simply picks up on my conversation with the Belgianite and then replicate the word at will, but very pertinently.

He heard me saying: "Amore, do you want to jump in the shower?" and he immediately mimicked me: "Amoooone, du-yu-wanna-jump-inna-shawah?" , and then he asked me in Italian: "Che cos'e' jump-inna-shawah?" I explained him and he then looked at me pensively and asked me if I just took a shower, and if I actually have been jumping in it!

Later in the day he managed to interrupt yet another conversation I was having in English with the Belgianite, and he tolds us straight out: "In Italianooo, per favore, parlate in Italiano!"
We had to address it. I asked him in Italian if he was bugged by the fact that he did not understand English, and he sais 'yes.' I proposed him to teach him English, but this time he was less inspired. I asked him if he'd prefer us speaking in French at home, and he enthusiastically said YES. We told him that from time to time we'd make an effort, but that he could learn English very easily and that would allow him to communicate and play with many more kids. He wasn't impressed.

Post 101

2007-11-29T17:28:00.001Z

...I missed marking my first and my second year of blogging...but here is to my first 100 posts, to the amazing fellow bloggers I've got to know, to the whole multilingual community, and most of all to the source of my inspiration, that is my kids! Cin Cin!

Siblings talk

2007-11-26T18:27:00.000Z

This weekend I tuned in to Milo and Zeno's exchanges. The Belgian grandparents were visiting, so Milo had the chance to boost up his Dutch big time: in two days he picked up a good 25 new words or so, not to mention new songs. For the fisrt time I also heard him address Zeno in Dutch, during an intricated game involving boats and commanders and other naval items. It is mainly in Italian otherwise, especially if I am around. And on some occasions, when Milo is playing by himself and is concentrated in his game, he would sometime mumble in French (perhaps repeating some of the games from kindergarden) and if Zeno wants to get involved, Milo would typically try to distance him in French.

Zeno seem to speak more clearly with us, the parents, when we solicitate a direct exchange on a specific topic. I make him repeat a lot of words when we eat, or when we read and look at pictures. With Milo the exchange is mainly very physical, he seeks his attention by stealing Milo's toys and running away, for instance. Yesterday also for the first time he tried to call Milo by his name: he woke up from the nap and I heard him from the crib calling out :" Mooooo!". Milo was rather amused. If you're interested in the subject, Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert, author of abook on OPOL and bilingual parenting, is currently researching case studies from multilingual families on siblings communications. Her blog describes her project and has a poll as well.

Back issues...

2007-11-20T01:19:00.000Z

I have disappeared again, I know, and without even leaving an explanation note...my apologies to my faithful handful fo readers, not to mention family, friends and supporters of Multi Tongue Kids. I've just been hammered with a nasty disc hernia which had me laying in bed pretty much all summer, and I'm just recovering. Not that I am trying to move you or get your empathy, but I was really unable to type (nor to think about) any post...the good news is that I took notes and I am back in action. Back with my back. And with lots of interesting insights, as Mr. Milo is now 3 and a half and has a very talkative personality, while Mr. Zeno is barely 17 months and is picking up fast the multilingual heritage!

Milo's French is impeccable and up-to-speed to his age level.

His Italian is perhaps a tiny bit more sophisticated, however he does make certain mistakes: he does not know all of the irregular past participle (he'd say prenduto instead of preso) and has an awkward use of the reflexive mode (devo mi lavare le manine). But he can entertain family and friends with pretty elaborate conversations!

His Dutch is lagging behind in vocabulary, and also he seems to wanting more and more speak Italian with the Belgianite. The latter is inflexible and keeps steering him back to Dutch, but Milo at one point said clearly "I prefer speaking Italian." I assume it's just a matter of (lack of) exposure, hence less motivation. In February they'll go skiing together with some Belgian friends, and that should help his Dutch to progress.

His understanding of English has become impressive, and he really tunes in into our conversations and then asks the meaning of words. He has expressed the desire to learn it, so I picked a children book and randomly teach him sayings , colors and a little vocabulary. We are not doing this systematically or academically, just for fun, but I imagine that the daily exposure plays quite a role in cementing the words in his memory.

He is aware all together of the existance of different languages and loves to learn little words or phrases in Spanish from Zeno's nanny, or in Japanese (we met a Japanese woman on a flight to Italy, recently).

Zeno, on his side is another interesting case because he not only has a mum who speaks Italian, a father who speaks Dutch, a nanny who speaks mostly French, and his parents speaking English with each other: he also has an older brother switching back and forth among all of the above. And his brother is THE main point of reference when it comes to interplay, talk, communications. He seeks tremendously his attention. Zeno has a very playful personality and is very expressive, but I have a feeling that at the same age Milo said more.

He says a lot of bisillabic words (Mama, Papa, Dada, Lulu, Doudou, Dodo, nonno, nonna) and a few words that he picks up here and there ( ciao ciao, seduto, uva, auto, acqua) but he does not use them systematically.
He recently sapent 10 days alone with his dad and he picked up several monosillabic Dutch words as well (kjek, dag).

Milo speaks to Zeno mostly in Italian and has nicknamed him Zelol, or he calls him occasionally 'Piccolino'; from time to time , when he is playing alone, Milo would switch to French and he then occasionally addresses Zeno in French as well.

The most challenging of it all, as I predicted in one of my early entries, is keeping a fluid conversation at dinner; frankly, all the switching back and forth gives me headackes. Uncounsciously, I am addressing the Belgianite more and more in Italian directly, and he oftens replies in Italian to the kids as well. So, without any preconceived strategy, it's my language which is becoming the lingua franca of this euro-puzzled family, instead of the initial equilizer, that is English. But the wind can change fast...stay tuned for more anectodes of my two little polyglots in the making!

2007-07-09T04:33:00.000Z

I saw this in several publications, articles and blog entries regarding multilingualism, and it helps 'mapping out' our situation from time to time. I think I'll review it yearly to see if new arrows and/or new colors enter the diagram.

Milo teaches Italian to his Dad

2007-07-09T04:00:00.000Z

[This is a year-old entry from when Zeno was born, which I never got to publish...but it has become part of the family lexicon, so here it is!]

During my 'leave of absence' at the clinic following Zeno's birth, Milo and his dad got to spend a lot of time together. A heat wave stroke in those days and the Belgianite was preoccupied with the liquid intake of his son, proposing him all sorts of drinks regularly. One of the house summer favourite is mint syrup dissolved in water, a classic from my childhood. We call it simply 'acqua e menta.'

The Belgianite kept on proposing to Milo:
"Wilt u acqua e mente?" (which, from the original do you want water and mint, suddenly becomes water and mind or water and (he) lies !)
Milo said a few times: "Ja, papa, acqua e menta."
"Did you like your acqua e mente?" replied once again the Belgianite.
Milo looked at him seriously and stressed: "Papa: acqua e men...TA!"

Creativity...within the lines...(or why Jackson Pollock could have never been French)

2007-07-05T09:44:00.000Z

This weekend I had my periodical clash with the Parisian (and I choose voluntarily to avoid a generalization to the French) mentality. We took the kids to a lovely parc where each summer they hold a fun Summer Festival, geared toward young families: contemporary art installations are displayed throughout the park, a DJ provides ambience through the day, fresh fruits are distributed for free, and a series of activities engage parents and children in what it is supposed to be an initiation to art and creativity, one of these being a huge pre-print wall paper, which kids and parents are invited to color.

Milo and Zeno simply love to draw and ran toward the FlyingColorWall, as it is called. A few minutes later Milo comes back visibly upset, crying with huge tears, claiming a guy scolded him. As I did not witnessed the scene, I imagined perhaps some older kids just pushed him away, so I minimized the affair and invited him to join me again to the wall. He was scared to go back! So I took my time and eventually convinced him that there was no reason to be scared, and we both joined the wall again. Few seconds later a young man from the staff dealing with the festival organization, came up to me and told me that he had tried to explain to Milo that he was not supposed to draw wherever he wanted, but he had to color the existing drawings. I took a deep breath, and calmly addressed the young man:

" I understand this is a coloriage, but my son is only 3 and he was just drawing a little airplane in a corner there, don't you think you are exaggerating?"

" But drawing is not the objective here!" replies snobbily the young man.
"And making children cry is?" I defy him.
"But if everyone begins coloring all over the place..."
"..then you should not allow children to color this wall, I thought this was to initiate kids to color and art and expressing themself, not some sort of boot camp!"

The conversation continued purposelessly until I had to mention that I work for one of the main sponsors of the festival, and I did not find his attitude very constructive. He suddenly disappeared.

Perhaps we just stumbled across the wrong guy. Perhaps I keep being too pre-conceived about things here. Or perhaps I am simply an over-protecting Italian mum! But I found the episode alarming, filled with a conceptual contradiction which I will never get used to. I eventually explained Milo that we were supposed to color inside the drawing, which he eventually did. But I also made a point to tell him that his drawings were really lovely and I found them more interesting than the pre-print ones. And that we are not at all always obliged to color (especially to color!) within pre-set lines...

Multilingual Living Summer issue is available!

2007-07-05T09:11:00.000Z

Don't forget to take with you your summer issue of Multilingual Living for a pleasant and educational reading during your holidays! Sign up at the Bilingual Bicultural Family Network for your yearly subscription.

...and what about Mr. Zeno?

2007-07-05T04:28:00.000Z

I have barely written about my MTK #2, Mr. Zeno, but his arrival and presence has enriched our lives so much! Zeno started out as a quiet baby, he never cried, he slept a lot, he was ever smiling ans rather silent...until around the age of 6-7 months, when his real persona came out all of a sudden!

'Patented rascal' is the nickname he's earned so far! Zeno is slightly more precocious than his older brother Milo, he sat earleir, he stood up earlier, he walked earlier...and he is uttering his first (multilingual?!) words a little earlier too. All this probably mostly thanks to the extra stimulation he's receiving by Milo. He's also much more 'active' compared to Milo at the same age: ever since he's learnt how to walk, he's been unstoppable: there is no corner of the apartment he hasn't searched, examined and thoroughly manipulated yet! All this translates in endless trails of clothes, books, toys, and various objects I keep finding in any given room at any given moment!!! He's got a very developed sense of laughter and humor too, and he's definitely a greagarious type: he loves beeing with Milo or other kids at the park. His daily playing companion is a lovely girl his age named Louise, and I'm glad he's having this early exposure to a feminine world! Milo and Zeno get along great, Milo has naturally had some impulses of jealousy at one point, but I'd say his sense of protection and attachment to his little brother prevails! But it is actually Zeno who drags Milo into crazy adventures, often implying hiding in weird spots or making some creative mess... Zeno seems also to be gifted with the same unextinguishable endurance and when it comes to bed time, we now have two mongrowl to neutralize: they never fall asleep before 10:30, despite all of our efforts and strategies to keep them calm and quiet, reading happy stories, playing soft music, etc.

Zeno turned one last week, it seems hardly yesterday we came home with him...his vocabulary so far consists of Mamma, Papa, Dada (how he calls the nanny), Computer, and a few other syllables. He can't say 'no' yet, but he shakes vigorously and unmistakenly his head when he does not agree with something!

Milo talks to him primarily in Italian so far, although he sometimes uses Dutch if they are playing with the Belgianite.

The double last name backfires !

2007-06-19T10:36:00.000Z

It was exactly a year ago, right before Zeno was born, that I was pondering if I should have jumped on the opportunity to add my last name to my sons, as the French law just changed to allow that. Your comments and shared experiences on the topic helped me substantiating my gut feeling, and right before the deadline expired, I decided to go for it. In the meantime, for every day life, I have been using mainly the Belgianite’s last name (for the kids’ doctor appointment, etc.), just as I thought. Milo’s application for his kindergarden is the first official document showcasing the double last name, and I haven’t had the slightest trouble fitting both in.

But the unthinkable just happened: as I realized that my passeport is about to expire, I asked the Belgianite to add the children on his passport as well, just to be on the safe side for summer travel. And then we smacked against the fantastic wall of pan-European legal discrepancies: the double last names are not legally recognized in Belgium! An operator at the Belgian embassy kindly offered the unbelievable piece of information:

from www.diplomatie.be

Conformément au Code de la Nationalité Belge, "est Belge l'enfant né à l'étranger :
d'un auteur belge né en Belgique ;

"Double nom"

La possibilité prévue par la loi française de choisir, pour l'enfant, le nom de la mère, du père ou celui de ses deux parents n'existe pas en droit belge.

Le fonctionnaire d'état civil français doit appliquer la loi belge en matière de nom de l'enfant.

Si l'un des parents est français et transmet sa nationalité à l'enfant, il sera possible de choisir le nom de famille dans l'acte de naissance. Cependant, ce nom ne sera pas reconnu selon la loi belge s'il n'est pas conforme aux règles du code civil belge. L'enfant portera alors deux noms différents selon sa nationalité. Ceci posera des problèmes tôt ou tard, puisque le nom sur les documents belges sera différent de celui sur l'acte de naissance et autres documents français.

A couple of days later I learnt that Italy as well does not recognize the double last name!
As Italy and Belgium allow multiple nationalities, the kids have both, but in theory we should need to issue a separate individual Italian and Belgian passeport for them with only the father’s last name (with all the potential risks of further confusion in creating another identity). And apparantly, it is all the 'fault' of the French clerks at the city hall, who should have known this (or at least checked on it) and should have forbid us to add my last name!

So, for the moment they stay on my passport, while we are hoping that the double last name regulation will be harmonized among European countries in a near future. I don't regret my choice, but I am afraid that the hassle has just begun...

Zeno 's first word!

2007-06-19T10:27:00.000Z

I haven't written much about Zeno in his first year...he's been an adorable baby. He played it very cool his first six months, and then came out of his shell! He's a precocious walker, at 11 months (he actually took his first steps on my birthday! Attaboy!), and a fond explorer of the apartment! Sweet, smiling but stubborn, just like his brother! He's been singing a lot, saying the occasional ma-ma or pa-pa...but the other day, while observing very attentively his dad's laptop, the Belgianite challenged him:

Belgianite: " Zeno, dat is het computer...computer!"

And there he uttered his first intelligible word:

Zeno: "...computer..." (with a Flemish pronunciation)

Milo was amazed as well!

Milo: " Mamma, mamma, Zeno ha detto computer!"

More on mixing languages

2007-06-17T09:15:00.000Z

It's starting to happen more frequently: Milo's Italian is polluted by the Fench, hence confirming the theory that the environmental language becomes gradually the strongest.

He's been saying things like:

Milo: " Il faut mangiare...il faut mettere a posto le auto...." [we need (in french) to eat (in italian)]

Me: " Si dice ' bisogna mangiare,' Milo!

Milo: "Il faut bisogna mangiare..."

Milo: " Guarda, mamma, non marcia piu'!" (Look, it does not work anymore)

Me: " Nooo, si dice 'non funziona' !"

Milo: "Questo aereo e' cassato..." (This plane is broken)

Me: " Si dice rotto, cassato non esiste in Italiano."

In Italian he also has a hard time with the irregular forms of the past participle: he says prenduto instead of preso, romputo instead of rotto, which is kind of amusing because it means that somewhere his brain has retained the rule and knows the verb, but he hasn't been exposed enough to the actual correct past participle form.

On a personality note, I am always baffled by his acute and active sense of observation; we took the bus on Saturday, it was his first time, and as soon as he was seated he asked me alarmed:

" Mamma, ma sull' autobus non ci sono le cinture di sicurezza?"
(How come there are no security belts on the bus?)

Milo’s first cross-linguistic jocke!

2007-06-12T08:45:00.000Z

Prologue:
The sound ‘mooh’ in Italian is the equivalent of the cows’ sound ; in Dutch it corresponds to the adjective ‘moe’, which means tired.

Bedtime coversation:

The Belgianite: "Milo, betje moe ?" (Milo are you getting sleepy?)
Milo: "Ma papa, solo le mucche fanno mooh !" (Daddy, only the cows say mooh!) (He replies in Italian to his dad)

PS : The Belgian cows say 'boo'

Cafe Bilingue: tales form a multilingual French revolution

2007-05-29T09:00:00.000Z

As posted here, my latest contribution to Multilingual Living was an article with an overview of multilingualism today in France. One of the best initiatives I wrote about is the parisian Cafe Bilingue, a series of periodical meetings held in Paris, allowing parents to exchange information and occasionally ask questions to experts. The founder is a remarkable woman by the name of Barbara Abdelilah-Bauer, a published author and an extremely active and convinced multilingualist! The article is kindly reproduced by the Familles Bilingues site (in English). I missed the last Cafe Bilingue since we were in Italy, but I count on attending the July 1st multilingual pique nique at the feet of the Eiffel tower! Will tell you all about it...

Counting...in English!

2007-05-24T07:26:00.000Z

When we received the Chicco's bilingual farm in Italian and English, Milo was barely 1 years-old. I was thrilled at first, hoping that the toy would have been a smart ally to introduce Milo softly to speaking English. But over time I realized that he was mostly interested in the animal's sounds, and did not seem to be so aware of the two different linguistic registers available. I should have been more patient: the toy has been around for two years now, and these past couple of weeks he suddenly begun repeating the numbers in English. All by himself, without us prompting him! And he leart to count 1 to 10 in English! This has been a real door opener because now he is more keen in repeating other English sentences I occasionally present to him, or that he hears in the DVD 'Cars' (I cracked up at Santi's entry on the very same topic!). It would be the ideal moment to set up an English play group for him...but unfortunatelty I am lacking the most essential ingredient: time.

Milo's first mixed sentences!

2007-05-22T12:29:00.001Z

It hapenned while we were in Italy: one morning Milo was looking for his teddy-bear and asked me:

"Mamma, dov'e' mon doudou?"

At first I thought the French possessive adjective 'mon' ad been sucked in by the French word he uses to call his teddy-bear (doudou). However, later on I noticed that he substitues the French possessive adjectives in Italian for all kind of nouns:

Milo: "Dov'e' ma macchinina?"
Me: "Si dice ' la mia macchinina'!"

Milo: "Quella e' ma copertina!"
Me: " Vuoi dire 'la mia copertina'!"

Generally once corrected he retains the concept. But from time to time he still sneaks a French one in the sentence!

His staffilococcus fight is not over yet, he is still taking antibiotics and one of the wounds is still open and secreting pus. He is overall rather lively and hasn't lost his appetite, but I cannot wait for this to be over, and so does he...

Staffilococcus II

2007-05-12T13:41:00.001Z

Poor little Milo had to be operated again yesterday, as the left side had swollened as well to a very unhealthy size, filled with pus. This time I asked that he'd be sedated, to spare him the stress and the fear (not to mention the excruciating pain) he had experienced the first time last week. And the only possible sedation was full anesthesia...I will never forget the tight knot in my stomack when I saw him entering the surgery room, with his green gown, sitting up on the stretcher, white as a ghost, his eyes filled with terror. It all went very fast and within 40 minutes he was out and sleeping in his room. He woke up within few hours and recuperated his usual curiosity and energy level within the afternoon. We came home last night, reliefed and exhausted. We're going to have to go back daily to the hospital to drain the wound (it has been left open with a 'straw'), and it is going to take a few months before his lynphonodes resume to their ususal size and consistency; we still do not know exactly how he picked up this bacteria. We met a few children in the waiting room with the same problem, though. Milo has been very corageous, all considered. His mantra has become "non voglio più andare all' ospedale, basta punture" (I don't want to go to the hospital anymore, enough with the shots). He alternates it with "voglio andare a Parigi, devo andare a scuola" (I wanna go back to Paris, I gotta go to school). He's got a great bike as a reward, and he has immediately learnt how to enjoy it, riding it freely in my parents' courtyeard, reminding me of my carefree childhood summer afternoons...

Staffilococcus bonanza

2007-05-10T06:56:00.000Z

We are in Italy supposedly vacationing since 2 weeks ago, and instead we are held hostage by a nasty staffilococcus which has sneaked in Milo's neck lynphonodes, swollening them to the size of an apple. It happened all of a sudden the day we arrived...he woke up from his nap with an "apple" in his throat. Ever since we have been at the nearest pediatric hospital almost daily, and 10 days later we are stil not sure what it is. It's nerve wrecking. The poor boy who already didn't have much sympathy for doctors, has developed a monumental phobia of the white shirts men...he has been administered massive doses of antibiothics, he has been cut without anesthetics to evacuate the pus on one side, he has been taken blood samples and submitted to sonograms...today we should finally have the last results and understand why the antibiothics did not work until now and the swolening persists and appeared on the other side as well. The good news is that he can come home at night and does not have to eat that terrible hospital food.The Belgianite is in the US for business and Zeno is taken care of by my parents, thank God...and I am running out of good reasons to motivate Milo to get in the car to go back to the hospital, AGAIN...let's hope it will be all over very soon.

MULTILINGUAL LIVING May/June issue

2007-05-07T13:05:00.000Z

About a year ago a phenomenal project born out of the passion
shared by a few women scattered on the globe and heralded
by a vulcanic Corey Heller, founder of the Bilingual Bicultural Family Network, came to life: Multilingual Living Magazine, a digital magazine dedicated to the modern global multilingual parent. I have had the honor to contribute to the first issue, and then my maternity leave kept me away from the keyboard for a few seasons...but with great pleasure I've come back to write for Multilingual Living; on this issue I describe the new French Multilingual Revolution and talk about the Cafe Bilingue (I'll write a separate post on this intelligent intiative and its inspiring founder). A special "bravo!" and "thank you!" to Corey and Alice, for an amazing editing and coordinating job.

BUON COMPLEANNO, MILO!

2007-04-26T11:53:00.000Z

Tomorrow Milo turns 3! It's hard to believe how intense and fast his first three years of life have already been...We are really enjoying the preparation, anticipation and festivities, as it is the first time he realizes what it means! We celebrated with the Belgian grandparents last weekend, we are going to have a cake at his daycare tomorrow, we will celebrate in Italy this weekend and we are going to have an Indian-theme garden party with his friends and neighbours upon our return from Italy! What are we going to do when you turn 18, Milo?!?!?!?
Tanti tanti auguri al mio tesorino!

Mars & Venus

2007-04-19T01:55:00.000Z

I recently witnessed my first reassuring preview of my boy’s maleness; we went to the usual park one afternoon, where he met two lovely sisters he regularly plays with and gets along with just fine. This time Constance and Anne-Berangere were playing with another older girl, who was manipulating them into being bad witches. As Milo approached them to play along, they begun chasing him away repeatedly, blowing like kittens; I got closer to understand what was going on and I heard the older girl saying:

"On est les mechantes sorcieres, nous!" (We are the nasty witches! Watch out!)

To which Milo pulls a very aggressive face and replys:

"Et moi, j’ai deux moteurs!" (And I have two engines!)

The French girls, rather baffled, did not know much what to reply. I had no clue what he meant either, and I kept picking my brain, until I remebered that at the moment his favourite DVD is the Disney movie 'Cars' !

Men are definitely from Mars and women from Venus from the very beginning !

Zeno speaks Russian!

2007-04-06T03:31:00.000Z

You would not believe it, but the impossible has happened: my 9 months-old little Zeno has begun speaking...in Russian! Without having never heard it before! You don't believe me? Here is what he says:

" Da....da.....da....da...!"

HAPPY BELATED APRIL'FOOLS DAY!
AND HAPPY EASTER TO ALL OF YOU FROM MTK!

English peeking up...When Dutch isn't Dutch!

2007-03-20T13:38:00.000Z

Few days ago I overheard Milo singing by himself: “…Mister mamma… uduiufinkuaaaaah…”
It took me a couple of amusing seconds to figure out that he was mimicking me singing:
“Mister Milo…who do you think you are,” a parody itself of the great Aretha tune ‘Mr. Bigstuff.’

Milo is becoming increasingly aware of languages, and interested in the English he hears spoken between mum and dad. I have been wondering if this would not be a good time to introduce English more systematically, since he’s showing curiosity; he often repeats what we say, when he manages to decode it:

“Zeno woke up” he kept on saying this morning, after he heard me announcing it to the Belgianite.
“It’s ready!” he repeats every night, after I bring dinner to the table.

Somehow I think I should leverage off his curiosity, but I don’t want to add too much to the plate either. For the moment I let him fish for sounds and words and expressions.

A few months back I begun naming languages for him; up until then we had been using expressions like: "Mamma says cane and papa says hond; the nanny says chien..." One day I finally set the record straight:

"Milo: Mamma parla Italiano, e papa' parla Olandese” (Mum speaks Italian, while Dad speaks Dutch)

This statement caused a family riot, as the Belgianite jumped on his horses and almost got offended at the 'olandese' part. He immediately corrected me:
"No, I speak Nederlands."

What followed was a complex conversation:

Me: “Yes, but Nederlands in Italian is Olandese, just like in English you say Dutch.”

Belgianite: "You don't understand! Holland is a region of the Netherlands, and so Olandese, as you say it, is a dialect. In Flanders, as well as the offical language of the Netherlands is Nederlands."

Me: “But there is no equivalent in Italian! We still would say Olandese. Although, in French for instance you’d say Neerlandais, now that I think of it.”

Belgianite: “Can’t you say 'neerlandese' ?”

Me: “No in Italian it is Olandese, I’m sure. You’re gonna have to explain Milo the distinction with Nederlands in Dutch.”

At this point Milo, who has been following the ping-pong match among his parents, intervened in my favor:

"Papa, tu parli olandese!!! Ooooh!!" (you speak Dutch, and that’s it!)

(...attaboy!)

Lingusitic milestones: when the French “r” strikes…

2007-03-19T15:59:00.000Z

The moment I have been fearing has suddenly spooked up on me this past Friday. As I was walking home with Milo after picking him up at his daycare, he suddenly rolled his ‘r’…the French way!
“Mamma, quella é la caserrrma dei pompieri?” (is this the firemen's station?) he asked me. I dropped on my knees and asked him to repeat the word caserma a dozen times. He kept on pronouncing it with the french ‘r’, while just the day before he would have said ‘casemma’. I was partly mistified and partly horrified, the metamorphosis I had been witnessing in my italo/french friends' kids was suddenly happening in my own child as well. It was exciting as when a baby takes his first steps, and scary at the same time...What am I rumbling abut, you might be asking yourself? It all has to do with the following:

Pronounciation issues

Giovanni’s comment to my previous post was right on the spot on a subject I wanted to address: Milo is almost 3, and when he speaks Italian or Dutch he still has a hard time at reproducing certain consonants:

Like most Italian kids, he does not roll the “r”. He would say caiota, instead of carota, or ioma instead of Roma, pecché instead of perché, guadda instead of guarda etc. He has however reasorted to solve this creatively when he has to pronounce words starting with BR (like bravo, briciola, braccio: he forces the br sound on the lips, like when you want to make the sound of a motor or a car, or when you want to signal it is cold(brrrrrrrrrrrravo)!
The hard “c” (or k sound in English) is also tough for him: he substitutes it with the “t” or the “p” (Tavallo instead of cavallo, papelli instead of capelli, máttina instead of macchina, ciottolato instead of cioccolato, and in Dutch 'kek' becomes tet; the Belgianite constantly defies him :”k…k…konen” to which Milo replies: ”k..k…tonen!”
He says butandine instead of mutandine, but he says mucca correclty.

In French he does not seem to have this problem, he’s got a perfect French “r” and for the rest the Director of the day care he’s attending reassured me that he speaks very properly for his age and his vocabulary has nothing to envy to that of his monolingual class-mates (in some cases being even more evolved). In his class incidentally there are two other MTKs: a French/Spanish and a French/German boy.

For the moment I don’t stress, but I monitor the situation and I try to expose him daily to the proper pronounciation, waiting for the day it will all fall in its place. The parameters to evaluate the normal development of language in kids vary significantly from country to country, and sometimes even among clinical traditions. In Italian, pronunciation problems as the ones described above are known as ' dislalie,' and are considered normal until the age of 5, 51/2.

Until not long ago, Milo would call himself Mimio. Then one day he suddenly could say 'Milo,' and now when we call him 'Mimio' he gets mad! Go figure!

Milo ramps up his Dutch!

2007-02-26T03:05:00.000Z

Frustration is the name of the game: I have hundreds of episodes a week to chronicle about, and zero time to type them up and post them…here’s a brief recap of recent events!

Milo has spent a week on the Alps with his dad and some other Belgian friends (for a total of three fathers with a kid each). It’s winter school holidays season in France; I could not really take time off from work, and on top of it, I have a major hernia which is limiting my activities…but, above all, we thought that a week with Dad would be a good strategy to ramp up Milo’s Dutch, which was starting to lag behind his fluent French and Italian.

For one thing, he had figured out by now that daddy speaks and understands Italian, so most of the time he was addressing him in Italian. And even when the Belgianite would ask Milo a question in Dutch, he would reply in Italian. If invited to repeat the phrase in Dutch, he would supply to his lack of vocabulary by inserting “ye ye” in the place of (often) the verb he would not know…thus making his Dutch sentences very obscure. Alternatively, he would take the word in French or Italian and chop it short with a guttural sound: he would make the Dutch up himself! (‘de martel’ instead of ‘de hamer’; ‘de montagn’ instead of ‘de berg’).

The week went by fast, I missed him a lot! And I took advantage of my privileged time alone with little Zeno, who’s now 8 months, starts crawling and is so communicative!
We had daily telephone conversation with Milo who would tell me about the snowmen he made, or his performances on the snow, or his games with the other two Belgian girls.
Mission was accomplished: he leant how to ski, and came back with lots of new words and songs and games in Dutch! Lesson learnt: a full immersion here and there can only help.

Another interesting phenomenon is his use of Dutch when interacting with English speakers!
At this point, we still do not address him in English and he hears it passively when the Belgianite and I speak to each other. We sporadically meet with some American friends whose kids, slightly older than Milo, are bilingual (French/American). They often play in French, but I caught the girl explaining to Milo how to surf on the Disney website: she was speaking English to him (“click here, press the space bar there, right over Donald Duck, good job!”) and he would reply in Dutch – somehow he sees the link…

Yesterday when he arrived he was very happy to find Zeno back! And Zeno was also very excited that big bro had come back to liven'up the scenario…he was trying to attract his attention and showcased his first syllable sentences: "ta ta ta ta ta ta!” he screamed, right at Milo. Milo looked at me and asked: "Mamma, Zeno parla Francese?" (is Zeno speaking French?).
Hard to tell, for now!

6 months, 2 MTKs and many words later...

2007-01-16T14:43:00.000Z

Good night ritual conversation, last night:

Me: “Milo, sei il mio tesorino?!” (are you my little treasure?)
Milo: "Si! E tu…sei il mio tesoro!” (yes, and you are my treasure)
Me: "E papá?”
Milo: "E’ il tesorone!” (papa is the big treasure)
Me: "E Zeno?”
Milo: “….e’ un nanetto!” (he’s a dwarf)

So, my first MTK Milo who’s now 32 months, is entertaining us daily with all sorts of conversations, showcasing a fluent Italian and French, and a very proper Dutch.
He’s also showing increasingly interest in English, he repeats songs and little phrases he hears from me and his dad.

Particularly, he does not like to be “excluded” by our English conversations at dinner. Last night he interrupted us and asked us both, swinging his head from one to another, in Italian:
"Mamma e Papá, é andato bene il lavoro?” (mum, dad, did you have a good day at work?) , which melted us with joy…

The last six months have been of unrivalled intensity and I am very sad not to have been able to write …I probably missed some milestones of Milo’s language development. I did take a few notes here and there and I’ll try to resume some of the main anecdotes.

In the meantime, I’m glad to be back online and in blogosphere, and look forward to catching up with the whole world of multilingualism. A very joyful and multilingual 2007 to all!

Will be back soon....

2006-08-25T19:59:00.000Z

The last name saga

2006-07-07T13:49:00.000Z

Thank you all for the precious inputs and advise regarding the last name issue, they all helped me a great deal in my decision making process. So, finally I decided to go ahead and indeed attach my last name to the Belgianite's for the boys. Zeno is already registered with both and Milo is currently being modified. I hesitated until the last moment... and then, on June 30 in the morning, I simply saw it clearly in my head. The Belgianite ran to the city hall 15 minutes before deadline and made it! I love him dearly for that, too!

Another MTK on the block: welcome ZENO!

2006-07-07T07:48:00.000Z

He finally arrived last Thursday, June 29 at 7 am in the morning: Milo's brother saw the day after a very brief and pretty easy labor spent mostly at home! Zeno Maurice Pietro, a marvel of 3.9 kg and 52.5 cm has been blessing our days in the last week! He's so far the easiest of babies: sleeps a lot, eats a lot too (breast feeding kicked in in no time, he got it right away the little smarty!) and barely cries; when he does he sounds like a little angel, nothing to do with Milo's operatic performances!!! Milo has been a little overwhelmed by the event, he noticed I was gone for a few days and even if he came to the clinic regularly daily, I think was very apprehensive. On the other hand, he's been very affectionate with Zeno, lots of kisses from the very first encounter and every morning the first thing he asks is about the bebé...
I'm fatigued as every mom at this stage, but also pleasantly surprised by the ease of this second birth...have been itching to post in the last week but, as you can imagine, times are a little hectic! Luckily a hord of grand parents and siblings invaded Paris, bringing not only their love but also some serious support: a heartful thanks to my sister for jumping on the first plane and dedicating some quality time to Milo and sneaking the most decadent chocolate cakes into my room, and to my parents for taking such good care of us this week! The Belgianite and I are proud and melting with joy!

Living with long last names: a poll among the readers

2006-06-26T05:28:00.000Z

I have recently posted about a new law which allows French mums to transmit their last names too to their progeny. I have been thinking about adding my last name to Milo, and consequently to his coming brother. As the deadline for presenting the papers approaches (June 30), discussions have intensified with the Belgianite, who declares himself in agreement with the principle but is very skeptical on the fact that we both happen to bear pretty long last names, and is convinced we are condemning our kids to a series of impracticalities which will make they bureaucratic life a nightmare.

I can’t make my mind up: am I being too selfish? The main reason to add my last name is to give my children the option to pass it on the day they will have children, especially if they will choose to live in Italy. It is not about a narcissistic need to see my last name associated to their names daily: I’d be happy with them using the father’s last name in everyday life, however, a city hall officer confirmed that they will have to use both last names in every official documentation (from school registration to the bank, and so on).
The Belgianite flashed me a credit card, a social security card, a passport and said: “Look! There isn’t even enough space for our two last names!” (which, together, account for 20 letters). I suspect that his cold and rational approach do hid an emotional reason, somewhere in his unconscious…
Objectively, I think we are not going to be the only ones in this situation and the administrations will have to adapt their forms accordingly, if they haven’t already; also, as previously noted, in France the double last name is a custom already present among the old aristocracy, so we are certainly not the first ones with long and complex names; finally, technology is constantly evolving, by the time my boys will be 18 they won’t probably circulate with passports and ID cards anymore but all our data will be retrieved by the iris of our eye or a chip in-planted in our index, or via fingerprints.
The only painful view from the future that such a decision brings me is when I imagine the kids in elementary school, learning how to write their names and spending hours to spell out their full last names…
So, I ask my readers to manifest themselves with their opinion, especially the ones who have a long last name, those to happen to have a double one or know someone who do, and let me know if it has been really an handicap for them or not and to what extent it has been a pain in the neck (if anything) in their lives! Help me make the right choice!!!

All by myself

2006-06-24T21:08:00.000Z

Milo has been talking more and more, there is a peaking learning curve taking place, pretty harmoniously in French, Italian and Dutch simultaneously. He does feel the arrival of his brother imminent, he has noticed the changes in his room ( the cot has misteriously reappeared!), and we talk to him daily about it! He alternates stretches of anxiety in which he's glued to me, he behaves like a baby demanding milk bottles and pretending he is hurt all the time, to other phases in which he's proud to claim his independence: yesterday he managed to put his little sandals on by himself, I had not even realized he was trying, when I heard him saying: "Guarda mamma! Scarpine da solo!" ( Look, mum, shoes by myself!).

One of his character traits that is becoming pretty evident is his persistency: once he has something in mind, he does not let go (see the Mujita entry). This morning at the park he was running on the grass while I was sitting on a bench nearby. He lost one of his sandals, and he immediately called for me from across the field:
"Mammaaaaaa! Mammaaaaaa!"
I look at him and cannot see anything wrong, am not alarmed, I decide to wait for him to come to me. He stands still and screams louder:
"Mammaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Mammaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Guarda!!!!"
I can't think what could be wrong, as I am not the most agile of mums these days with my ready to explode belly, I keep on my bench and reply:
"What is it, my love? What happened?"
"Aletti! Mammaaaaa! Aletti!" (Aletti=sandaletti, that is little sandals)
I still don't feel too motivated to run over and hope he will simply come to me with his lost sandal...he looks at me as if I did not understand and so he screams:
"Scarpine!!! Mamma, scarpine cadute!!!!" (the shoes fell off)
He made it pretty damn clear for me! How could I not get it now!! We ended up meeting midway...

Numbers have a soul

2006-06-23T15:22:00.000Z

The Belgianite has been consistenly teaching Milo the numbers, since he was a fetus in the belly! First by simply counting up to five, then by showing him the equivalent fingers on the hand. About 3 months ago we bought a series of magnet numbers that adhere to the metal cover of the fireplace in the living room, and Milo has been loving playing with them and putting them in sequence. By now he recognizes them and knows their names in Italian, French and Dutch.

These numbers are also beginning to take a substantial shape in his imagination: one night we were chatting in the living room and he was playing with them by himself, when we noticed he had piled them up in a toy boat and was taking them for a ride…he called our attention to the fact that the numbers were leaving("Mamma, Papa: numi partiti!" that is, the numbers have left), so we waved good-bye and he also waved back on their behalf! Later on he asked us to be quiet because number 2 was going to sleep (“Shhhh! Due dodo!”)

Yesterday we were drawing together, me with the red marker and him with his inseparable light blue. I started jotting numbers here and there and he would paint them in blue, saying that they were taking a shower (“Mamma, numi doccia”).

A love & hate relationship

2006-06-22T09:07:00.000Z

Yesteday I ranted about Paris, today I want to render justice to the people and the things we love here: there ARE sympathetic shop keepers indeed, the pharmacist and the boulanger in our neighborhood are extremely friendly; our neighbours in our building have also been very nice, and they all have spontaneusly offered at one point to look after Milo should the birth occur at night; I have made some tue friends among my French colleagues at work...I have to be objective!

Last night it was the Fete de la Musique: like every year on June 21, France celebrates the summer solstice allowing musicians to perform in the streets of all its towns! The performances in Paris range from pop concerts with over 25 artists at La Defense to a little band performing at the brasserie around the corner. The athmosphere is just irresistible! We took a small tour around the neighborhood (can't walk much these days, unfortunately! We are at - 20 days to the due date and although I haven't gained much, a mere 10 kg, I have a limited distance range!) and enjoyed the small band at the brasserie...Milo was enthusiastic, and, for one night, like him several other toddlers were out and about with their parents...the city was envelopped in a sort of village-festival type of aura! On days like this, we love Paris!

“Put the dust back where you found it!” or, the surreality of Parisian manners.

2006-06-21T09:49:00.000Z

Regardless of the four years already spent in the land of the frogs, I experience culture shock daily, especially in my interaction with the shop keepers or public officials. I have come to a realization that Paris is a galaxy of its own, and not representative of the rest of the country, yet it’s easy to sum up my daily experiences under the stereotype classification of French rudeness.
The notion of customer care in France is a pure euphemism; coming from the US of A, where for the mere fact that you might spend you’re greeted with red carpets, it is quite a shock for any foreigner to set foot in any French bank and daring to ask information about opening an account with them! The impression you have, is that THEY are the client, and YOU have to win them over. This attitude ranges from a mere gestual, body language level to some pretty absurd verbal exchanges which often degenerate in altercations. I have had my share, and it is in France that I learnt the art of screaming in public, something I would have never imagined I was even capable of.

Some silly episodes follow to illustrate my point:

I enter a travel agency and, after waiting duly for my turn, I ask the agent some information about a trip they advertise in their window; I ask the availability within a month time frame. Reaction: the lady rolls the eyes, begins emitting one of those typical French puffs, and without saying a word, she types nervously on the computer. She suddenly turns around, looks at me straight in the eyes and blunts: “No, it’s not available.” Period. I wait a few seconds, expecting her to probe and find another date or proposing another solution, but nothing, she just stares at me, with an obviously unfriendly attitude…I ask the questions myself, then. She looks at me definitely bothered by my presence, she looks at her watch and then she vomits me the following sentence with the same lucidity of an assassin: “Look, lady, in 10 minutes it’s my lunch break and I have no intention of missing it.” She just failed to add Get Lost!
Rude waiters are legendary in Paris, from slamming the food on the table to ignoring patrons etc. The best I had was late on a summer night, out in the center, in a chic but deserted terrace of a trendy cafe; my beau and I sat next to one another. The waiter came as fast as an hawk, not to take our order but to harass us to seat in front of one another, because we were occupying too much space!!! So we left.
My favorite moment of negative karma is the weekly cold treatment I get from the cleaners where I drop off my boyfriend’s shirts. They have a subscription system where you can get a discount if you buy a certain number of slots of services. The thing is, they give you these paying vouchers which group the shirts by two. As a result, you should drop off and pick up shirts always in an even number, if not their system collapses and the cleaners’ people go nuts. Needless to say that there are 5 working days in a week…So the first time I went to pick up the 5 shirts I had dropped off, the lady literally screamed at me that it was nonsense and that I should have known better. I tried to argue and find an easy solution, she just kept getting angrier and angrier at me. I was in disbelief, I looked for sympathy in the eyes of other patrons present at the scene, and everyone looked away! Ever since, despite my efforts to keep the drop-off items in even numbers and be as polite as I can force myself to be when I enter the shop, that lady barely says hi or thank you, just handles the transaction as fast as she can without making eye contact. I sent my beau once and apparently she was very nice to him! I know what you wonder, why don’t I simply change venue. Price and location are still two good reasons to suck it up and take their rudeness.
Some musea in Paris are very child friendly and even organize children happening and art intro activities (Georges Pompidou, Gare D’Orsay, Palais de Tokyo to name a few), but some others are simply a kid-busting party-pooper venue (and I will mention them: Jacquemart André on top of the list, followed only by the Museum of Modern Art and the Grand Palais). Although these institutions do not mention anywhere in their website or publicity literature that small children are not accepted (it would be too easy), they make children and parents visits a hellish souvenir. The strollers are not allowed in, so you have to check them in and carry your 15-20 kilos of joy all the way. Guards in every room are ready to scold the kids before they even think of approaching the fire extinguisher (currently Milo’s passion) or if they dare climbing on the seats/couches with their shoes on. If kids dare expressing their appreciation of the art verbally (Milo is not shy about screaming “Ooooh, wow !” in front of bright colored canvases), it’s the parents that get dirty and insisting looks, together with a nasty ”Shhhhh!”…and if you think of keeping your toddler calmer by supplying him with a snack or fruit while visiting the galleries, forget about it: "No, No, No!" screams the guard, running toward you alarmed as if you just leaned against a Modigliani!

Some of these interactions are plain surreal; the best one occurred this week at the park: I was sitting on a bench with another mum and we were chatting away as out two sons were playing with a truck and a shovel not too far from us. The sand box was about 100 mts away from where we were sitting. A park guard came by and uttered: “Sorry Ladies, but the kids are not allowed to play with the dirt here.” We looked at him puzzled, not understanding what he meant…since when it’s forbidden to play with dirt in parks ? Also, the park was filled with kids everywhere… “They should play in the sand box, because we just re-landscape the park and they risk ruining it.” explained the park guard. We barely contained our laughter…I did not even bother arguing, such nonsense it was…but upon leaving we did ask the kids to put the grass back straight on the lawn and to pick up the leafs that had fallen from the tree and try to put them back on the branches!

This one won the gold medal for the Parisian Negative Karma Aggressive Public Behavior, which I hold responsible for the generalized Parisian gloomy atmosphere and for the fact that Parisians are stereotyped as snoddy, rude and not much fun. As a foreigner it is hard to come to terms with that: either you succumb and start acting the same way, replying aggressively and living every single day some sort of confrontation, and entering this karma circle where you receive the negativity and you put it back into the environment; or you build an emotional iron curtain to protect yourself and decide to just laugh about it, which after a while it’s simply very hard and eventually the snoddyness simply gets to you and you find yourself rumbling and nagging most of the day ; either way, it wears you out after a while…unless you resort to irony:

Same park, two days later; an old lady joins me on the bench, with her book. She delves into it and reads. Milo and his friends are running back and forth from the bench to the slide, screaming and making a lot of noise, as the other 500 kids in the park at that hour. The lady turns around and snaps:

"Can you please make your kid to saty silent?"

"Why would I do that?! We take him to the park so he can play!" I reply, calmly.

"I come to the park to relax and read and it is very very hard!" snaps back the French lady, obiously oblivous of the surrounding!

"Well, in that case I advise you the library, it's a much better place!" I said smiling back.

I didn't even have to get mad!

Pam at 'Blogher' digs MTK!

2006-06-15T21:03:00.000Z

'The Tower of Babble ' is a bright entry from SF writer Pam, which delves into multilingualism from an American perspective. "Multilingualism opens doors to relationships that might not otherwise be possible" writes rightfully Pam. Thanks for checking us out!

Mujita, maestro!

2006-06-14T15:16:00.000Z

There has been a heat wave in the last few days, shaking the semi-Siberian Parisian climate of May to a sub-equatorial one in June…last night the three of us were hanging out on the big bed enjoying the first evening breeze and fresh clean sheets, when a suddenly excited Milo looked at us as if he just had a great idea and begun asking:
“Mujita! Mujita!”
As it often happens, the Belgianite and I were clueless as to what he meant, and in which language he was speaking, but we tried our best to understand:
“What? What is mujita?”
An impatient Milo insisted: “Mujitaaaa, mujita, mujita, mamma!”, looking at me as if it was pretty obvious.
“…mu…jita? I don’t understand, Milo, what is it, show me.”
An increasingly frustrated Milo raised his voice, like adults do when speaking with foreigners, as if they were deaf!
“Mu-ji-ta!! Mujita!! Mujita, mujita, mujita, papá… (at least you should know this!)”
We were lost…we squeezed our brains, we tried our best, we looked around us, what in heaven was this kid asking for…he did not give up:
“Mujita, mujita, mujitaaaa…”
“Milo beetje moe?” asked the Belginite, concentrating on the sound (moe = ‘tired’ in Dutch)
“Ne, mujita mujita, mujita…” replied Milo, the expression on his face now clearly signifying 'these guys are useless'!
Somehow we both agreed that he must be using an Italian word, but I could not detect it, so the Belginite tried again:
“How does papa call that?”
“Mujita”
“.. !?...and the nanny? How does she call it?”
“Mujita... (What do you think?!)”
By now Milo really thinks we are a pair of brain-dead morons…how can we not possibly get it?
Finally a neuron sparked in my heat and pregnancy deflated head:
“You mean…musica?”
“Siiiiiiiiiii!!! Mujita!!! mujita!!!”
Hope was restored in what was beginnign to be an unjust world!

He wanted his papa to play the piano and put on some music, the party boy!
And when he finally did, he looked at me joyfully a couple of times stressing:
“Mujita, mamma, mujita!”
Like saying “Isn’t this great?! Do you get it now?”

Almost there...birthday thoughts

2006-06-12T11:42:00.000Z

- 28 days and the baby is definitely ready to be "launched"...I enjoyed a very warm and intense parisian weekend with a first wave of contractions which finally convinced me it's about time I stop running around and simply consacrate my time to lying down and doing nothing! The adreanline rush was pretty wild: I definitely need at least another couple of weeks, at least mentally! Today it's my birthday and I treated myself to a couple of books I wanted to read for a while (some recent Amelie Nothomb, some old Kundera and the latest Tabucchi), hopefully they'll keep me glued to the couch!

Milo feels the commotion that it's about to come...I keep telling him that one of these days his little brother will come home to live with us. He listens very carefully. The only item he retains is the gift that this brother is suppoed to bring him! He definitely got that!

This week English has taken a more active role in his linguistic development, to our amazement. We never address him directly in English, but he hears us all the time speaking it among one another. This weekend he wanted to hurry his dad to take him to the park and he yelled:
"Tome on, papa, tome on!" (for come on).

He also heard me replying "I don't know" to one question and he has replied so on a cuple of occasions, randomly.

At this time we don't hang out with any English speaking friends, and it's a shame because it could be a viable way to slowly build some bases for him...but then again I don't want to force too much on him, he has already his share with French, Italian and Dutch.

I also noticed that he is very talkative and chatty at home and among familiar people, while when we go to the park he turns a little shy. He is very tall for his age, although he's only two he's the size of a three year old, and kids are somehow puzzled by his lack of immediate verbal response. I caught several times older girls asking him impatiently is the toys he was playing with were his, and being frustrated at his lack of reply. I try to monitor him as much as possible and intervene if necessary, but he also needs to learn the playground rules...

On the other hand, now that he can communicate more, his carachter is softening- it's clear that he enjoys talking and expressing himself. And we don't miss his screaming! He's incredibly aware of words triple identity: without being asked, he often offers the three versions (IT, FR, DT) of any given item at hand!

It's gonna be a very quiet birthday, a little dinner tonight in a nearby restaurant, nothing wild...but with the best of presents on its way, what do you expect?!

The panacean effect of an Italian mum

2006-06-04T20:54:00.000Z

My mum came to Paris last week, she arrived like a magic fairy with lots of positive energy and drive! For a week I just let her baby me, I think it did both of us good: I needed it badly and I know it makes her feel great, although I cannot imagine how mums can possibly fear that they ever loose the central role in their kids' lives...it's true, we grow, we build families of our own, but mums are such a point of reference always...

We spent a great time together! She helped me with a bunch of homey tasks such as getting the wardrobe ready for the baby, dishing out Milo's old outfits and picking the ones that can be reused, preparing the luggage for the clinic etc. (Digression: last time I was going crazy looking for nightgowns that would be opened in the front, hence comfortable for breast feeding: all models available were suited for some old ladies in retiring homes... this time, as I will give birth in July and I hope it will be warm, I shopped some fantastic pajamas with sleeveless tops! It's all about experience!).

She cooked for us every day some succulent dinners and the mere scent of her cooking transported me back at home and made me feel happy!

Milo adored having his Nonna around, who played a lot with him, read him stories, taught him some more vocabulay in Italian, and made him laugh! Quite a change from a disciplinary nanny and a mum who has often been jumpy and tense these past months...

We also took off just the two of us a few times, sightseeing around Paris (something I have the feeling I will not get to do for a while!). We took the batobus and cruised along the Seine one day. We saw some great exhibits at the Grand Palais ('Italia Nova' , a panoramic review of paintings in Italy between 1900 and 1950 and one on contemporary French art, very very forward!). We had great lunches at lebanese and other ethnic restaurants, sharing some great talks. I am always amazed at her positivity and capability to take life with serenity...while I seem to worry a lot more.

She also baby-sat for us two nights, on one evening we had the neighbour's party and on another the Belgianite and I enjoyed a real date, dressing up and going for a Japanese dinner and a great movie (Volver by Almodovar, fresh from the Cannes festival). We hadn's gone out just the two of us in at least 6 months! It felt like a major event!

She left and I really miss her already; I wonder if with my two boys it will be the same when they will be grown, if I'll be up to the task and capable to give so much...and since the kitchen is certainly not my reign, I wonder if my boys will experience the same sensorial and memory bliss I did while my mum cooked...! I guess I have still some time to learn how to cook at least one good dish!

A few intense weeks

2006-06-04T20:31:00.000Z

I have diserted ‘blogosphere’ for a little while, busy with life around me…I missed blogging and I hope to post more regularly again, especially in the next month. We are at – 36 days to the big day (or ‘jour j’ as they say in French), that is the baby’s due date (July 10) and I feel at once that there is an eternity ahead of me and, at the same time I will never have enough time to have everything ready!

The greatest news is that I am finally on maternity leave! And it feels great! I am rather active and I like my professional life, but the stress was really getting to me, expressing itself with insomnia and palpitations, which have miraculously disappeared ever since I have been at home…

We have been busy trying to fix the apartment around, especially Milo’s room which had to be reorganized. I read on a French parenting magazine that 70% of parents wait until the last trimester of pregnancy to do this and purchase the necessary furniture and stuff; apparently it is recognized as the nest building syndrome! We meant getting a new bed for Milo this winter already, but we only got to it 2 weeks ago…the initial transition has been seamless, Milo felt rewarded to leave the ‘cage’, that is the bed with bars, and finally sleep in a normal bed. But it lasted too little. The problem now is simply convincing him to stay in it at sleeping time…it takes a loooooooong time to put him to sleep. He has never been a sleepy baby, but now that he can actually run away from the bed, evenings are rough.We try to stick to the ritual: bath, dinner, book reading, lullaby, lights off…but as soon as we’re gone he tiptoes to the living room a hundred times, and there is no argument, voice raising, scolding, sweet talking that works…He finally collapses around 11 pm, and so do we, after having spent the last two hours taking turns in chasing the rascal! In any case, at least he does sleep through the night, looking at the bright side! In a few weeks we will put his old bed back in his room, camouflaged with different draperies, ready for his little brother.

In the same week he also got his first haircut at the hairdresser! Up until now he got his hair cut only two or three times by his father; in fact, Milo’s hair was as long as that of a girl, which despite making him look very trendy and fashionable (AND a girl indeed), it was a pain the neck to wash and brush: it would tangle in rasta locks in his back and he’d refuse to have it combed. Every morning I had the impression to wake up a child version of Rod Stewart! So, after another first attempt by his father which resulted in the worse massacrating chop-work I have ever seen, the nanny and I took him on a rainy Monday morning to a tour of the neighborhood’s hairdressers, looking for the courageous one who would not be impressed with Milo’s screaming and fidgeting techniques and would go for the task. We found it shortly, and the experience was certainly not a gay one…no blood was shed, mission was accomplished but a lot of the other salon’s clients were troubled by his pulmonary capabilities (as in he screamed for dear life). The haircut completely changed his look and I still have a hard time recognizing him at the park…but bath time is much more fun now!

While at the hairdresser I was served my first “why does he not speak?” pep talk by an older French lady who was having her hair washed, and to whom Milo was explaining in Italian that the water was cold…she could not understand him and it frustrated her. When he finally uttered a comprehensible “pas chaud” to her, she looked at me and exclaimed “See! You can speak if you make an effort!” to which I could not resist replying:”Oh, but he does speak: in Italian, Dutch AND French!” The lady was simply amazed. (Alice docet!)

Last but not least I finally took Milo for a long due visit to yet another pediatrician, for a vaccination recall. In the last two years, I have consulted almost all of those in our neighborhood and I am coming to the conclusion that I am setting my expectations just too high each time. Every visit is simply diappointing. They always, inevitably prescribe heavy medications (antibiotics are as common as bread in France), they hardly explain what is wrong, and I simply cannot stand their lack of psychology and their indifference to Milo’s fear of them. This time I called the lady in advance to let her know about his sensitivity and asked her to be extra nice to him: she greeted him screaming to his face that no matter what, she would have visited him, that he could decide to cry, kick, whatever, it was not her problem: she WOULD have visited him, no matter what. Thanks a lot, bitch!!! If I hadn’t called in advance, would she have smacked us straight on the head?!As usual Milo cried during the visit and at the mere sight of the stetoscope, and really panicked when the shot was done; once it was all over he seemed ok. So I am back to the list of pediatricians…

Finally, we have had some doubts about the nanny. Milo and Antoine are now 2 and 2 and ½, an age which is certainly very peculiar, ‘the first adolescence’ as good old Fitzhugh Dodson defined it, and it seems she has reached her level of competences and has a very hard time handling them. She has been great as long as they have been babies, but boys are another affair: they need to be managed, anticipated, to be fed information, games, things to learn constantly, and she’s rather passively just making sure they don’t destroy the house too much and they don’t kill themselves. Milo has also started to express a certain independence, while Antoine starts being more and more physical and controlling. I have been thinking to sign up Milo in a local halte garderie (a part time day care) for a few mornings a week, as a start, to let him meet other kids and socialize and expand a little his social network. This garde partagé will end by December the latest anyway, and as we don’t have any family close by, I cannot imagine being home alone with a newborn and Milo at the same time, this summer. What depresses me is that I tried talking to the nanny about it, and while she recognizes herself that she’s a little lost with their capricious behaviour most of the time, she is not at all receptive to the numerous articles, books, activities I have presented her with and suggested. I am no expert, by no means, and I do understand her frustration, but I thought we could try to find, together, a strategy to get through this phase more harmoniously and for her it could have been a significant professional learning experience too. I am seriously considering getting a new one for the new baby, when the time will come.

Back on the blog, -38 days to the due date

2006-06-02T14:52:00.000Z

I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks, finally on my maternity leave and taking care of gazillion of things...the due date for the baby is approaching fast and I feel we still need to prepare so many details! Apart from a coup of fatigue the last few weeks, I'm in good health and the adrenaline is flowing freely! I'll start blogging regularly again and I have a lot to write about!

Milo has been talking up a storm, growing each day more and more into his own little amazing person! It's such a pleasure to witness his bloom daily, now that I am not working...here's a quick anectode for you from this week, during the visit of my mum, whom he calls 'Nonna' (grandma in Italian):

Coming back from the park with his Nonna, Milo craves for a milk bottle. As soon as they enter the apartment, he takes her by the hand and brings her to the kitchen:
"Vieni, Nonna, vieni..." (Come with me)
Once in the kitchen he declares his plan:
"Nonna, bibe, bibe latte!" (milk bottle)
As it is short before dinner time, she tries to discourage him by saying that she does not know how ta make a bibe...
Milo opens the fridge and pulls out his milk, gives it to his grandma with a very persuasive look and states:
"Latte, nonna!" (milk)
Nothing easier than making a milk bottle, isn't there?!?!?!

Have a lovely weekend!

Trilingualism at its best: interview with a linguist

2006-05-16T02:31:00.000Z

I had the pleasure to interview Jean-Marc Dewaele, a UK based Belgian linguist with a successfully raised 9 years-old trilingual daughter, and learn a little more on trilingualism. It’s published on the May (and first!) issue of Multilingual Living.

Republican Baptism: another outstanding French solution for areligious parents.

2006-05-15T12:35:00.000Z

This post is an article originally published in the Eurapsody column, hosted by the BBFN.

Like 99% of Italians of my generation, I was raised Catholic, received all the due sacraments, went regularly to catechism class and mass until adolescence hit me and started having my own doubts about a lot of issues. This is not a post about religion, so I won’t go further with my own experience with that. But when our son Milo was born, his dad and I had this discussion about how were we going to handle his spiritual education. He had also been raised Catholic and at one point decided to dissociate completely from the church and has ever since been a professed atheist. On top of it, we are not married, so a baptism in church was not in our plans, as it would have felt extremely hypocritical.

Milo’s birth and first few months were very intense and required all of our energies, so to the insistent demand of my side of the family (“Are you going to baptize him?”) we finally replied a simple “no, ” to the dismay of some older uncle and aunt! However, as his first anniversary approached I felt the need to have some sort of special celebration, to properly welcome him in our life, to formally introduce him to our dear ones, to mark the time. I stumbled across an article which talked about the decline of the Republican Baptism in France. A little research revealed that since 1794 this ceremony had been available to the lay French citizen who wanted another option to the Catholic ceremony.

In Paris one need only to contact its own district city hall and inquiry if the local mayor is available to celebrate the ceremony. Not all the 20 city halls of Paris administer it! Those whose political orientation is more traditional will tell you that the demand is so overwhelming that they have ceased administering it! However, we found 5 mairies who were available on the chosen date.

The ceremony is brief and entails a speech given by the mayor. The parents can nominate a godfather and a godmother, whose engagement is only moral and has no legal value should the kid remain orphan. A certificate is then issued to the parents and the godparents.We celebrated it on Milo’s first birthday, with both immediate families coming over from Belgium and Italy, and a few of the closest friends in Paris. It was indeed very moving: the mayor integrated in his speech the information I had forwarded on our specific situation and talked about a new generation of truly European kids, raised in a pluricultural setting; the godmother made also a very tear-provoking speech. Later we treated everyone to oysters and champagne in a nearby brasserie, and that same evening we hosted a full party at our place! We felt happy with the lovely souvenir we created for Milo and our loved ones, and look forward to repeat the experience with our second son.

Introducing Multilingual Living

2006-05-15T11:59:00.000Z

BBFN is launching its own online magazine called
Multilingual Living, "a trusted, intelligent resource for living multilingually and multiculturally." Don't miss the first issue!

How to talk to an Italian dog

2006-05-11T03:28:00.000Z

While visiting at my parents’ in Italy last weekend, Milo gave us a bright example of code switching, that is the ability that multilinguals have to switch from one language to another appropriately, according to the interlocutor.

His dad was showing off his dog educating skills with my parents’ dog Lillo, which is a nutcase cross between a Dalmatian and a Boxer, full of life and energy and impossible to get a hold of. The beast scares the life out of everyone and only my might 6'2" brother can possibly take him for a walk, not without coming back with some disclocated articulation.

Well, the Belgianite (a.k.a Milo’s dad) has this thing with animals, and while giving his commands in Dutch, he managed to have the dog seated and even laying down for about half an hour, gaining even more esteem and admiration from his in-laws, who did not fail to capture the miracle on camera!

Milo followed attentively the entire manouver and he fearlessly approached the dog at one point, looked at him straight in the eyes, lifted his little index finger and intimidated him with an undiscussable: "Seduto!" (that is be seated...in Italian)!

Because Lillo understands Dutch, surprisingly, but remains an Italian dog!

Blog of the month chez Expat-Blog

2006-05-05T02:50:00.000Z

I'm delighted to announce that Multi Tongue Kids snatched the Expat-blog 'blog of the month' mentioning!

Expat-blog is an "online multicultural community dedicated to expatriates and their adventures all around the world," featuring a worldwide expatriate blog directory. It also has a very useful and entertaining forum, and it is developing a knowledge database for people on the move who can find out more about their destination country. I wish it existed when I first expatriated back in 1989!

Check out and subscribe tpo their monthly newsletter for more information!

The great French leap forward…

2006-05-04T13:48:00.000Z

That’s it, French is becoming the main language for Milo. At barely two, the environmental language is taking over. This week I “caught” him a few times playing alone or watching outside the window and talking to himself…in French.

“Elle est ou la balle? Ah, elle est lá!” (Where’s the ball? Ah, it’s there!)
“Au revoir voiture…Au revoir pompiers…”(Goodbye car…good bye firemen)

In Italian he progresses steadily , especially when on the phone with the grand parents:
“Ciao Nonno! Tai?”( trying to say ‘Come stai?’, that is how are you).
“Papa bibi, papa dodo” (my dad is sick, he’s sleeping)
“Mamma uvette! Uvette! Pepapóve!” (Mummy (I want some ) raisins! Please!)

In Dutch he also has developed his vocabulary mainly around playing activities:
tekenings vliegtuig (to draw airplanes)
Auto maken (to build a car)
Genoeg, genoeg (enough!)

When I teach him new words, if he knows them in French already he makes sure to stress that the nanny calls them differently:
"Mamma Lumaca, Attatá escargot" (mum (says) snail (in Italian), Attattá (says) snail (in French)

We have also noticed that he’s imitating more and more the nanny, in her speech modulation, tone, inflection. We don’t always understand exactly what he’s saying, but it’s clear that he’s talking like she does with him (especially at the dinner table). Can’t wait to get the content too, it will be the best reality show-candid camera ever!

Seeing through their eyes

2006-04-19T14:35:00.000Z

Ever since Milo has entered our lives, I have been confronted with the inevitable fact that adulthood is intrinsically deprived, layer by layer, of the touching spontaneity and free imagination which inhabits childhood and makes life so beautiful.

I keep being astonished by things Milo notices in his surroundings which I have not even bothered registering. We were strolling on a shopping street the other day and I stopped to look at a shoe-shop window. He immediately lounged to the men's shoes section and was intensely looking at mens' soes for a good couple of minutes. When I finally started taking notice and finding a little odd that a two year-old could be entertained for so long by men's shoes, I finally realized that the whole window was decorated by antique car models, displayed among the shoes, as well as posterts etc. I had not even seen them at first, mingled with the shoes.

Yesterday we were coming home from another stroll and while his dad and I were chatting, he was looking up from his stroller into the sky and kept on pointing to an imaginary rocket:

"Razzo...mamma, razzo....razzo!" he kept on warning us.

When we finally bothered looking up ourselves, we realized that he was looking at this church's belltower, whose shape in effect resembles remarkably that of a rocket.

His sense of imagination and observation is so precious...I hope we'll be capable of preserving it and nurture it along the way. Apparently, this same characteristic is also typical of multilingual kids from early on. A paper by Jean Marc Dewaele on "Trilingual first language acquisition" (2000, La Chouette, 31, 77-86), claims that multilingual kids develop a sustained attention for content rather than form, and they are better aware of the arbitrary nature of language.

Hopefully, his multilingualism will also preserve some of this wonderful outlook on life and the ability of seeing beyond the obvious or expected.

The writing on the wall: a parental dilemma

2006-04-19T11:04:00.000Z

This week I have felt really bad about living in a rental apartment vs. in our own place; it all comes down to the walls.

Let me explain: Milo has been into drawing; he uses mainly fruit-scented water markers which he adores (although, curiously, he exclusively draws with the light blue, and gives us the others).
As the apartment walls are all white, the inevitable happened this week: on a rare moment in which he was left alone, he left his drawing table and went exploring bigger and greater surfaces! When I got back into the room and saw him so self absorbed in his wall decoration, I had this strong double-reaction: I instinctly gasped, but then again I was so moved by his artistic inspiration!

I needed to teach him not to do it anymore, which required some form of prohibition, hence scolding, and at the same time inside of me I felt there was nothing really wrong, and I wanted him to be able to express himself freely. I grew up drawing on the walls, my parents let me decorate my room however I wished and I am convinced this early freedom of expression was a precious grain for my creativity development.

But what am I to do? Even if the markers are water based, I can't spend evenings washing the walls...It's the first time I scolded my son without really meaning it.

Not all French boys are naughty!

2006-04-18T12:58:00.000Z

Overheard at the Tuleries gardens, on a sunny and spring-air-filled Easter Monday afternoon stroll. Two French boys aged somewhere between 7 and 10 climb the above portrayed statue entitled "Jeune fille allongée" by Aristide Maillol (1861-1944).

Boy 1: "Have you seen her breasts?!" asks, while grabbing them at the same time.
Boy 2: "Yeah, they are huge!!"
Boy 1: "She must be a mum..."

...and off they go.

Meanwhile, Milo could only reach the bronze toes of the statue and was trying stubbornly to bite them off.

Milo comes to grasp bebé is for real: a pregnancy update

2006-04-13T10:54:00.000Z

I’m 6 months into the pregnancy, the belly is round, plump and unmistakable by now. Even Milo has no doubt: he taps gently on it at any given chance. If he’s in a good mood, he greets it: “Ciao Bebé!” and blows kisses to his little brother-in-the-making. Most often he pokes it randomly and trys to ride it.

The other day his nanny tickled him on the belly while she was changing his diaper, and he responded severely:

“No! No! Bebé!” , pointing to his tummy!

We laughed with it on the moment, but later I found myself a little disturbed by the misunderstanding he has experienced. Is he really convinced that he has a baby in his belly as well?

We are trying to prepare him gradually: I tell him daily about his little brother in my belly and relay imaginary messages from him about the future games they’ll play together; we have a Barbapapa book which illustrates the arrival of a newborn and all the related paraphernalia (cradles, milk bottles etc.); I look at books about pregnancy and maternity together with him, he loves the pictures of new borns; I also draw a lot with him and have been drawing Milo holding hands with a newborn. He looks at it rather skeptically and the only comments he has been making so far are on the baby’s diaper, asking whether it’s full of pupu!

Next will come the room rearrangement: we need to get Milo a big bed and remove the bed with bars he’s currently sleeping in, to give him the time to adjust to his new status of “big boy” and forget about the cradle, before we start using it for the little brother.

I alternate states of euphoria, as the due date approaches, to pure panic and apprehension on how are we going to handle the day-to-day. I suppose it’s normal and I can blame most of the stress on the hormons. Also, I am now entering that phase when you simply cannot be as active as you were before: grocery shopping is super fatiguing, walking everywhere takes much longer, I can’t lift Milo all the time and bending over is also not an option…in all this, bebé moves and flips over all the time, he feels really tight in there: sometimes I have the feeling he is turning over seeking a more comfortable position, and I can see the silhouette of his cranium or elbow moving across my belly!

I recall when my baby brother was born: I was 4, older than Milo is today, and I took his arrival as my birthday present! At the time sonograms were not mainstream so we did not know the gender of my sibling. Thoughout the pregnancy we had nicknamed it Pippo (which is the Italian version of Disney’s Goofy) and toward the end I would make imaginary phone calls to Pippo in the belly, asking him how was life in there and if he was not tired to be stuck inside!

When I was pregnanat with Milo I reiterated the tradition and called him Pippo until the end. His little brother will remain the “bebé” for three more months!

That’s AmoNe!

2006-04-10T10:32:00.000Z

This weekend Milo’s dad and I celebrated our 6th anniversary*! When we started dating, I remember talking about how I felt allergic to loving pet names couples tend to give each other, like the honey, sweety, baby that are so popular among Americans. The French are somewhat poetic and figurative (cherie or darling, ma biche which means my hind, etc). Italians tend to be more on the creative side, I do know people who call each other publicly pulcione /pulciona (literally “my big flea” ?!?!). The most common would simply be amore.

So we began indeed calling each other ‘amore’, which was originally meant with a clear aura of irony. The days, months, years passed and it became exactly what I was afraid of, an affectionate alternative to the first name, which was loosing its meaning by the minute due to the excessive usage, just like a fabric loosing color after having been washed too many times.

But a funky turn to the issue has brought our attention to it, lately: our son Milo has noticed it, and has started to use it as well as a substitute for calling out Mamma or Papa! As he cannot roll the 'r' yet, he says “amone.”

And so, we were cracking up the other day when we entered the apartment coming back from running errands and he called out: "Amooooone!", as his dad does when he comes home!

I honestly felt relieved: at least all irony has not been lost!

* If you are curious to know how an Italian chick ended up in Paris with a Belgianite, check out the story “Love-struck at the technical desk: the sparkle of a euro-romance” I wrote for the BBFN section entitled “How Me Met” last month!

"Hola" from Gan Canaria: Milo learns some Spanish

2006-03-30T13:38:00.001Z

We have been on a very much needed and yet "eventful" holiday trip in warm Gran Canaria, about which I will write in detail next week. Just a quick blurb to record Milo's fast uptake of a few Spanish words: he greets everyone politely by saying HI or GOOD BYE ("Hola!", " Adios!"). And he is very aware of the compliments ("Que guapo") he gets from the very sweet and charismatic Spanish people we have been running into: "Guapo, guapo" he has been saying yesterday! His dad, initially convinced they were talking about him, is starting to get jealous!

Milo has been sick almost all last week, which made his verbal communications regressing a little and restrincting to tantrums, screaming and antichrist imitations at random hours of the day or of the night...but this week he´s much better, luckily, and catching up and recuperating fast. He´s finally making little sentences:

"Auto papa" (are we taking papa´s car?)
"Bimbo parti?" (is the kid gone?)
"Caduto per terra" (it fell on the floor)
" Via tutti!" (all gone, when throwing pebbles in the ocean)

Amazingly, he has been asking daily about his parisian friends: his nanny, his friend Antoine and other little friends he sees regularly. As if he wants to be reassured he wil see them again.

The multiple linguistic identity of words is becoming more clear and fluid by the day: we keep naming objects and things and we ask him: How does papa call that? How does mama say? And he replies correctly with the Italian , Dutch or French version of items.

And on a final note, English, which until now has been totally passive for him, starts creeping up!
He imitates us having arguments and he distinctly ends the phrases by saying" OK? OK?" (he actually pronounces it ooh-thei!), and last night when daddy asked him if he was ready to go to bed, he replied: " Yes!"

That´s all for now, gotta scoot to the pool and store some sunshine in my bones before we head back in tumultuous Paris...adios!