My 29 Month Old Daughter Just Corrected My French!!!

Well, it was always going to happen. But so soon...... well, I wasn't quite expecting it just yet.

Poppette was just racing around the living room and fell over with an almightly clatter. She came running over to me clutching her elbow and we had the following exchange:

Poppette : Mal (hurt)

Me: Tu t'es fait mal à la coude?* (Did you hurt your elbow).

Poppette: Oui, mal au coude. (Yes hurt elbow).

It just shows how grammar is hardwired into a native speakers brain.

Obviously, I'm telling myself that I must have got the grammar right a million times before in order for Poppette to learn it in the first place .

Poppette the grammar teacher.

* For any of you that aren't French speakers, the word for elbow i.e. le coude is a masculine word ... I mistakenly made it feminine!

Language and My Little Man

Little Man is now eleven months old and is constantly "talking".

In and amongst his lovely baby chatter he has a selection of words, some of which he has been using for a good month or so and others which have just started to appear ... all English so far ... So,. it's time to start taking a note so I don't forget!

So far he says the following:

Mama
Papa
Nana
Grandad
There
Bye Bye

I've also heard him say yes and no but he doesn't use either regularly as yet.

People have actually been telling me for over a month now that they have heard Little Man say certain words but I haven’t always been there to hear them. I've been quite surprised really as I had a secret fear that he would start to speak late because I haven't felt that I have had the opportunity to talk him enough. It's not as easy with your second child as you just don't get the same amount of one on one time as you did with your first. Another whip to lash myself with... except for the fact that it turns out my worries were unfounded...Phew.

He definitely understands French. e.g.

Va chercher ton ballon [Go get your ball]
Assieds-toi [Sit down]
Tu veux manger? [Would you like something to eat?]
Viens ici [Come here]
Non! [No!]

Now I'm just hoping that my other worry i.e. the fact that I don't have huge amounts of time to speak French with him apart from on a weekend (and him being in English speaking nursery five days a week), won't be detrimental and stop him from speaking French. Friends have pointed out that, as he has heard me speaking to Poppette in French since he was born and also hears the French cartoons that Poppette watches etc, that he has quite a robust French environment so will be picking up more than I think.

Fingers crossed.

All Aboard the Language Rollercoaster

Raising bilingual children can be a real rollercoaster. I've heard countless stories of children refusing to speak their minority language for a whole host of reasons, not least because they just 'prefer' the majority language.

Sometimes things seem to be going so well that I feel like I'm flying...On the days where my language skills feel on point, when Little Man (11 months) shows me that he understands what I'm saying when I speak to him in French and when Poppette (28.5 months) chatters away with me in French, singing impromptu French nursery rhymes and repeating lines from her favourite French cartoons.

On other days, that same rollercoaster has me down in the doldrums... self critiquing my every spoken word and my accent and questioning the very reason we pursue this bilingual goal for our family.

Now that Poppette expresses her own opinions and desires more and more, this creates another language rollercoaster.....the big dip last week came one evening when she point blank refused to let me read to her in French - "Pas français, Maman. Anglais! Non! Anglais!".... I capitulated and then spent the next few days panicking that this was the beginning of some slippery slope which would culminate, somewhere down the line, in Poppette refusing to speak French.

Looking back with a more objective mind, perhaps it was just another case of her expressing her individuality and right to make a choice just like she does everyday when she refuses to eat whatever was her favoutire food the day before or to wear what was, until that point, her favourite t-shirt.

Who knows!

Since then we've been on an extraordinary up ! So much so that I've been having to pinch myself every now and again.

Poppette has been really upping her French with me to the point of about 95% of all our communications. She even comes bounding in from English speaking nursery and switches immediately into speaking to me in French.

The morning after her insistence upon an English story, Poppette was watching Jake et les Pirates du Pays Imaginaire (Jake and the Neverland Pirates) and exclaimed "Oh Oh Maman, Crochet a piqué le coquillage d'Issey" [Oh oh Mummy, Captain Hook has pinched Issey's shell"].... I breathed a sigh of relief that it may not all be over just yet and gave her a big old hug.

I was really quite amazed this weekend when Poppette, who was really quite ill with a sickness bug, still maintained her French with me. I would have expected her to perhaps slip into English.... possibly because that's what I wanted to do in the first instance. In fact, when she first became ill, I actually spoke to her for a few moments in English, just to satisfy myself that I knew what was going on and that she was ok. I don't think I need have bothered. She is quite capable of telling me (and often in full sentences these days) what's going on.

Another indication that Poppette really does understand the fact that she is surrounded by two languages came this weekend when I was reading Mireille l'Abeille (Thanks for the recommendation Tallulah) to her. She pointed at the words on the page, looked up at Papa and said (in English) "It's French look! Papa can't read it" :D





I have resolved to try and be less reactive to these ups and downs and to remember that everything is a phase and that just as it's not helpful to let the downs dent my confidence nor is it a great idea to let the highs make me complacent because as sure as eggs is eggs there will be more tests around the corner!

Non-Native Treasure Trove: La Vie de Mon Doudou

Poppette loves her doudou.

For her second birthday (a few months ago now but I’ve only just got around to writing this post) Papa and I thought it would be a great idea to buy her a book in which Doudou was the star attraction.

Step forward La Vie de Mon Doudou - a brilliant French website that creates books in French where either your child or their doudou are the main protagonist.

In the interests of total honesty, I definitely think that Papa and I rate the whole idea far higher than Poppette herself. She seemed a little sceptical about the fact that it really was her Doudou. We picked the jungle theme which shows Doudou frolicking with various jungle animals in their natural habitat. Poppette must, and quite rightly too, have wondered how on earth Doudou could have made such a trip when he is never away from her side.

It's not the cheapest of gifts....and I did find myself wondering if I couldn't have created something of similar quality myself with Photoshop and a little patience!!! Still, it’s definitely worth thinking about as a gift if you want something highly personalised and original and your Photoshop skills are as lacking as mine.

Non-Native Thought for the Day #5

One remarkable and definitely enviable thing about learning languages consecutively from birth is that the words come with no baggage, no preconceived ideas about what does and doesn't sound right and no mental blocks around the pronunciation of certain sounds.

The languages simply are what they are.

What a wonderful way to be able to see the world. From a position of acceptance, free of questions, doubts and insecurities.

I often get a reminder of this wonderful phenomenon when I listen to Poppette speak. She often freely uses words that I remember finding either hard to learn or perhaps ones that in the past I had avoided using as they just sounded odd to someone who's brain is hard wired first and foremost to the sounds of the English language.

This morning was a great example. Poppette (28 months) bounded out of the front door and exclaimed " [ Il ] fait [ du ] brouillard [it's foggy]. Now you don't get many words less English sounding and, therefore, more technically difficult to grasp as a starting French language learner than brouillard!

When words and phrases like this jump out of her mouth it makes me very happy that we chose to teach her both her languages together. It reminds me that there are so many benefits to doing it this way.

Another very handy benefit is never having to learn the gender of nouns! Oh what a delight... imagine just knowing that, regardless of whether it's a boy or a girl, a baby is un bébé and that an apple is une pomme whilst a grape is un raisin. I am so happy that my children will never have to grapple with genders because they will just instinctively know....

The flip side of that is, of course, that I need to be darned careful about making mistakes just in case they become hardwired into their little brains....grrrr.....more revision then!

That's My Girl

Poppette, who just turned 28 months old, came out with a corker today. We were sat in her room reading bedtime stories and she picked a new Lucy Cousins book Hooray for Fish which Papa had read to her for the past couple of days in English.

I started to translate on the hoof and Poppette looked up immediately and we had the following exchange:-

Poppette: Anglais [English]

Me: Tu veux que je te lise en anglais? [Do you want me to read to you in English?]

Poppette: Non. Papa anglais, Maman français. [No. Daddy English, Mummy French]

That's my girl :-D

Stumbling Block

I'm feeling a little at sea today and would really appreciate any guidance any of you guys might have.

I've been flirting with the idea of teaching Poppette her alphabet. Not in a formal drill table type way but through crafts and colouring and the like. I had initially intended to teach her the French alphabet whilst letting Papa and nursery teach her the English one. Then I started to worry a little; what if learning both at the same time was just plain confusing? Also... how do the French teach their alphabet? I know the English alphabet is taught using phonics these days... I'd need to do some research into how it works in France if I were to go ahead.

Anyhow, today I called Poppette's nursery and asked when and how they go about it. It appears that I'm a little ahead of the curve and that typically they wouldn't start teaching Poppette (who is now 27.5 months) for roughly 6 months and, even, then it would be a very slow introduction. That said, they did say that if a child shows interest then it's great to let them learn earlier but the danger is that, if they don't like it, it could put them off good and proper!

What to do?

What do other people do?

What do you do?

Today is one of those days where I need to reach out and ask for your advice or even just some information about how it works in your family.