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!
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Thursday, July 17, 2008
French mistakes
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)”.
“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!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Summer update
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.
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.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Watermelon qui pro quo...
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!)
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!)
Monday, May 26, 2008
English definitely peeking through and other episodes
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!)
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!)
Monday, December 10, 2007
MTK generation
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.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Lingusitic milestones: when the French “r” strikes…
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!
Thursday, May 04, 2006
The great French leap forward…
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!
“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!
Friday, September 02, 2005
Meet Yannis & Dominique
I was on a flight from Paris to Torino, Italy last week and my seat neighbors were two lovely mulatto rascals aged 6 and 7, traveling with their mum. We begun the conversation in French, language that they were using among one another; as I pointed out to them that we were flying over the Mont Blanc glacier, something in the way I pronounced the word «glacier» gave away my nationality: the two boys looked at each other and instantly switched to perfect Italian:
« Ma é italiana! »* Said Yannis, the youngest.
From that moment on, we continued the conversation in Italian, and even among themselves they kept speaking the tongue of the peninsula. They turned out to have an Italian father while their mum is from French Guyana.
« Nobody knows where the French Guyana is, in Italy! I always have to show them on the map! » said Dominique. It is true, Italians are not strong on French overseas territories…
Their mum woke up shortly after:
«T’a dormi bien, maman ?»** Asked Yannis.
«T’a bien dormi, tu veut dire !» replied their mum, correcting the syntax.
This seems to be a recurrent issue with bilingual kids: they often translate in one language using the syntax of the other. I wonder if this phenomenon has been identified and classified by linguists.
Yannis and Dominique attend the French School in Torino, where most courses are taught in French, but they also learn Italian and some English. However, I noticed that, once they switched language, even with their mum they kept speaking Italian.
Their accent (or, rather, lack of) was that of a native, with a soft inflection of torinese. Even their enthusiasm was that of an Italian boy when they noticed that we were flying over a soccer field! They immediately told me about their favorite team and players in the Italian league.
Before leaving the baggage claim, Dominique sighed:
«I cannot wait to see my room again and sleep in my own bed…I miss my bed!»
Something common to every culture: the notion of 'home sweet home!'
* «But she is Italian!»
** The equivalent phrase in Italian is: "Hai dormito bene?". It would be as if he asked:
«Did you well sleep, mum ?» instead of « Did you sleep well ?»
« Ma é italiana! »* Said Yannis, the youngest.
From that moment on, we continued the conversation in Italian, and even among themselves they kept speaking the tongue of the peninsula. They turned out to have an Italian father while their mum is from French Guyana.
« Nobody knows where the French Guyana is, in Italy! I always have to show them on the map! » said Dominique. It is true, Italians are not strong on French overseas territories…
Their mum woke up shortly after:
«T’a dormi bien, maman ?»** Asked Yannis.
«T’a bien dormi, tu veut dire !» replied their mum, correcting the syntax.
This seems to be a recurrent issue with bilingual kids: they often translate in one language using the syntax of the other. I wonder if this phenomenon has been identified and classified by linguists.
Yannis and Dominique attend the French School in Torino, where most courses are taught in French, but they also learn Italian and some English. However, I noticed that, once they switched language, even with their mum they kept speaking Italian.
Their accent (or, rather, lack of) was that of a native, with a soft inflection of torinese. Even their enthusiasm was that of an Italian boy when they noticed that we were flying over a soccer field! They immediately told me about their favorite team and players in the Italian league.
Before leaving the baggage claim, Dominique sighed:
«I cannot wait to see my room again and sleep in my own bed…I miss my bed!»
Something common to every culture: the notion of 'home sweet home!'
* «But she is Italian!»
** The equivalent phrase in Italian is: "Hai dormito bene?". It would be as if he asked:
«Did you well sleep, mum ?» instead of « Did you sleep well ?»
Monday, August 22, 2005
What are we going to speak for dinner ?!
My concern for my son's language development solidified when I started to wonder which one, if any, will become our family language.
At the moment, we decided to apply the "one person, one language" method:
At the moment, we decided to apply the "one person, one language" method:
- I address Milo exclusively in Italian
- his father speaks to him in Dutch only
- the nanny speaks to him in French (and this is, at the moment, the language he hears the most, in quantitative terms, being also the language of the environment)
- he regularly hears English passively, since this is the language his parents use among each other and with several friends
But in a few years, when, let's say, he'll be 3 or 4, which language will we speak once we are all sitting at the dinner table? Are we going to keep on switching according to our interlocutor? Will English eventually take over? Or French?
To give you also a better understanding of the complexity of our situation:
- I speak fluently Italian, English and French, but I do not understand Dutch
- Milo's dad, on the contrary is fluent in English, French, Dutch and has a very good understanding of Italian
We spent the weekend in Brussels visiting our friend David, who's Flemish (hence Dutch speaking), married to a Turkish woman; they communicate in French and their 2 1/2 years old daughter is growing up trilingual. Until now, they also have stuck each to his own language, and their girl seems to understand very well all three languages. David seems convinced that none of the three languages will prevail as a family one, and they will keep on switching: a perspective I find fascinating, but also somewhat schizophrenic!
Friday, August 19, 2005
AUTO, A BOIR, and GRAZIE
My son Milo is 16 months old, and, to date, his vocabulary consist primarily of these three words:
- "Auto" which we believe is pronounced in Dutch and he has learned from his Flemish father;
- "A boir" (that is "to drink" in French), which he has learned from his Moroccan nanny;
- and a very polite "Grazie" in my own mother tongue.
He's the son of an Italian and a Flemish (Belgian) living in Paris, France. To add spice to the menage, Mum and Dad speak English to each other! Hence, he is surrounded by 4 languages every day.
Milo has several little buddies with parents of different nationalities, who are confronted daily with multi-linguism; a task which can develop great assets for this generation, but that can also mine their language learning process. It is not unusual for bilingual kids to start speaking slightly later than monolingual ones.
My curiosity as Milo's mum and as woman, inspired me to start this blog, in which I will monitor his language development, hoping to share some useful insights!
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