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!)

The Language of Love

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?

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...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

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...

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!

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

[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)

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!

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...and what about Mr. Zeno?

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.