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!)

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!)

New year's multilingual thoughts

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!

Milo teaches Italian to his Dad

[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!"

Milo’s first cross-linguistic jocke!

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'

All by myself

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...

Mujita, maestro!

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?”

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

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!

How to talk to an Italian dog

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!

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!

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 ?»

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:

• 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!

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!