Maman, en français, c'est La Reine des Neiges

“Maman, en français c'est la reine des neiges” [Mama, in French its the snow queen i.e. the name of the Frozen movie in French] proclaimed Poppette yesterday afternoon as she sat around a table with her young English friends singing 'Do you want to build a snowman' and generally getting giddy about the Disney Frozen movie.

Just a few words but so very telling.

Being totally honest and laying my cards on the table, I am at a stage where I am extremely grateful for these small reminders that my children can and do speak French this being despite me and my best efforts to sabbotage the whole thing. Seriously. Over the past two years I have been far from consistent. I take full responsibility as little by little more and more English conversations have sneaked into our life. Partly because of being so busy, partly due to tiredness and laziness and perhaps also a lack of conviction. I remember a chat I had a few months ago with Belgian Maman (those of you who have been following our adventure for a while will recall that Belgian Maman is native French speaker who speaks only English with her two little ones) during which she pointed out the problem I was having was that having allowed a little English to creep in now and again, over time this had snowballed and it had become to feel the norm. I should really be more aware of this as I do tend to have an all or nothing personality. Routine and consistency are key for me.

It seems to be fairly widely acknowledged within the bilingual community that bilingual life can be tiring and takes real commitment even when using ones native language. Going the non-native route is likely to be a little trickier now and again because it’s not just the commitment and consistency that you have to battle with, it’s the lack of words at certain times. I think that, because of this, I have perhaps slipped into letting myself off the hook a little. I’ve used it as an excuse to “cut myself some slack” when, in reality all I have been doing is allowing myself to wander further and further away from my goal.

Crazy.

I implore you not to do the same.

It is not too late for us to recover from this. I know this simply because my children have proved that even though I dropped the ball, they picked it up and ran with it for me.

There are millions of little moments that remind me that they can and do speak French and that they are proud to do so. Such as when they comment on a French story I have just read to them, or when they drop obscure French words into conversation that I may have only used with them once or twice previously, or when we are in the car and they play who knows the most French words, or when one of them proclaims, "Mama, I know how to speak French but X doesn't" or when they are watching French TV and repeat whatever they have just heard even though I would have sworn blind that they weren’t listening. There are so many of these little moments that wouldn’t arise had we not had this dream of a bilingual household.

There are other occasions, however, when there is some resistance. Poppette, for example now refuses to join in with her weekly French class at pre-school. This doesn’t worry me as I think that it’s a boredom issue (chatting about colours and animals and foods etc. each week) although I had hoped she would enjoy the group interaction and signing. She has also started to pretend not to understand something when she clearly does. I’m not sure what makes her do this. She asks questions like “What is cinq [five]?”. I don’t give in to it as I know she knows but it’s a reminder to me that I can’t get away with the lack of consistency in my approach to their language acquisition forever.

Already I know that had I been as consistent over the past two years as I had been over the first two years, then our current language environment would be different. That’s part of the reason for me stepping up to the keyboard today. To share the reality of where our non-native adventure is at the moment and also to set my stall out about where that adventure will lead us next.

In this vein, I came across a great book recently called “The One Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. The premise of the book is that you should choose the one thing in life (or in each area of life) that is of most importance to you and that every decision or choice you make is based on whether or not it brings you closer to that goal. All of a sudden you can begin to see how a myriad of small choices you are making daily serve no real purpose and in no way lead you where you want to be heading. It’s all about being more intentional.

In fact, there’s a great short story that Poppette loves right now that really grabbed my attention recently. It begins “Je suis une petite graine plantee dans la terre….” [I’m a little seed planted in the ground...”]. As I acted the story out with her, doing the actions to represent this tiny seed, uncoiling, growing and stretching towards the sun, I realised that this language that I am sharing with my children is like that little seed. If I water and nurture it, it will most likely become la plus belle fleur du monde [the most beautiful flower in the world] and if I neglect it, deprioritise it and use our majority language instead… that poor little grain is likely to wither and die.

What a shame that would be after four and a half years of effort from our little family.

Poppette corrects Little Man's French

Poppette corrected Little Man's French last night.

I didn't know what to do first...(a) star jumps or (b) run for a pen and a scrap of paper before I forgot the details of their little exchange.

Guess what I went with lol

The conversation (which may lose a little in translation as the pronunciation is quite key here) went like this:

Little Man: "My chaussonzzz" (chaussons i.e.my slippers) - in French the 'S' here is silent but Little Man went all English on us and pronounced the 'S' :-)

Poppette: "No, they're 'chaussons'"

(She did this with a silent 'S' and in a pefect little French accent)

Swoon.

One happy mama.

Maman, Le Monsieur Tond Le Gazon

Something Poppette (aged 3 ½) said to me recently spurred me on immensely. We were lounging around in the garden on a sunny Sunday afternoon when we heard the sudden roar of the neighbour’s lawnmower.

“Maman” exclaimed Poppette “Le monsuier tond le gazon” (Mummy, the man is mowing the lawn). Seriously, this just ticks all the boxes. Not only had my daughter just spoken an entire, grammatically correct sentence to me in French but it was something so random and unexpected that it made me understand that she is just absorbing everything like a sponge.

Poppette’s language use at the moment can be summed up as being a real mix. She speaks English with English people, a mix of English and French with me and mainly English with Papa and Little Man with random bits of French thrown in. She very rarely uses full French sentences (although it appears that she can when she wants to). She comes out with things that surprise and impress me in equal measure.

I think the issue here is that I look at language acquisition from the perspective of a monolingual English speaker who learnt other languages through school etc and because of this, I have a subconscious sense that the words or grammatical structures I (and scores of my classmates) grappled with will also be tricky for her. This is not true. In reality, every French word is as easy or difficult as the next in the mind of a bilingual child or infant language learner. A word is just a word. A good example would be the fact that many English speakers struggle at first to differentiate between les chevaux (horses) and les cheveux (hair). Poppette proved to me that this is very much not the case for her recently as we drove past a field of horses and she exclaimed “Oh, des chevaux!” (oh, horses). She will never confuse the two. So the lesson here for me is that I need to stop projecting my weaknesses or concerns onto her and just continue to speak.

Little Man is also progressing in leaps and bounds. He has been a very chatty Little Man for a long time. By the age of 18 months he could put three (English) words together and has always had a really good understanding of the concepts of me and I etc which I think sometimes children don’t quite grasp at first. Now, at 25 months old, he chatters away quite merrily in both English and French although, in French he uses single words rather than sentences.

There are, in fact, some words that my children never say in English, at least, I’ve never heard them use the English word. Such as salon (living room), salle de jouets (play room), calîn (cuddle), essuie-tout (kitchen roll), linge (laundry), douche (shower) and serviette (towel). Also, there are a few terms that cause immense confusion when we have visitors... particularly the fact that Noddy is known as Oui-Oui (pronounced wee-wee in French) and he is Little Man’s favourite cartoon character... when Little Man wants the potty he tells us he wants to do a pipi.

So, I definitely feel things are moving along steadily in the right direction, DESPITE me having had the several wobbles over the past 12 months or so and DESPITE the fact that rather than speaking 100% French I speak more like 80% French with them right now and..... horror of horrors ..sometimes read books to them and sing to them in English too.

Back on the blogging horse

Wow, has it really been nearly five months since I wrote anything here on my beloved blog. Seriously, I can't believe it. Life has been a total whirlwind with my feet very rarely touching the floor for long enough for me to keep on top of everyday life, let alone indulge in the luxury of writing a blog post.

The last few times I wrote, I was most definitely feeling unsure as to whether I wanted to carry on speaking French with Poppette and Little Man. Knowing we were due a family holiday to France this August, however, I told myself that I would be a fool to stop before then as I ought at the very least give my children the opportunity to explore what they know (and, of course, show me and hopefully nip all my fears in the bud) whilst totally immersed.

I was right to wait.

Whoever spoke to Poppette, in what ever environment, be it in the local supermarket or pharmacy, the ticket lady on the merry-go-round, our French friends, our next door neighbours, she understood and spoke back to them. It was a crazy feeling to realise that my daughter (who will be 3 years old in less then two month's time) really speaks French and that, had I not pushed myself through the doubting and spoken to to her in French all this time, we would have arrived on holiday and she would have understood 'rien'! Likewise, for Little Man (now 17 months old) who, although he still only has a few French words in his spoken vocabulary, clearly understands French when it is spoken to him.

The holiday was amazing on many levels - I mean, put me in France and watch me float - just being there makes me happy. But to watch my children just fall into being a part of it all. Wow! Watching them play in French with our friends' two little boys (who are French and also French/ English bilinguals) was just brilliant... The game un, deux, trois soleil for one really seems to have stuck with both Poppette and Little Man who still cover their eyes every time they hear the words. Also, our friends spoke only French with my little ones which was priceless.

One day whilst in France, Poppette came to me and said "Maman, je veux manger" [Mummy, I would like something to eat] - until that point, she had always said "Maman, I want manger" so, in my eyes this was a huuuuge step..... the minority language immersion environment helped push the majority language out.

She's gone right back to saying "Maman, I want manger", now were home, but at least I know now that there are words in her head just waiting for the right opportunity to come back out and that this will be just the same with Little Man.

It's back to that old chestnut of just having faith. Believe it will work and it will. Keep working towards your goal. It's not always easy (far from it, at times, to be honest!!) but.... well, the proof is in the pudding.

No Mummy! Speak French!

I'm still really struggling with my own thoughts around carrying on with our bilingual endeavour. I'm pretty tired with all that's going on at work and at home so it doesn't leave huge amounts of time to sit and think all this through rationally! One thing I have decided though, is that I must keep going unless and until I decide to stop. By that I mean, it doesn't make sense to stop speaking French to my children whilst I grapple with whether or not to continue since, if I do plump for continuing, I will have wasted time and potentially confused my children into the bargain.

That said, I have let myself speak English on a few occasions with both children recently. Apart from the nagging pang of guilt that I am letting them and myself down, it actually feels pretty liberating!

However, Poppette (who is now 31 months old) really doesn't seem to like me speaking English with her.

In fact, she positively resists it.

On the few occasions over recent weeks where, for one reason or another, I have chosen to speak English with her she hasn't accepted it at all.

On one of those occasions, I needed to carefully explain to her why what she had done was wrong (as in why it was not good behaviour) and that she shouldn't do it again. I switched to English because of my own fears of not getting the message across right and not wanting to cock up the lesson for her.

Another time it was because she picked up an English language book at story time and, quite honestly, I just didn't have the energy to translate so I started reading in English.

This morning, it was because she asked me a question in English "What's that Mummy?" she said, pointing at a traffic sign. I had a blank... what on earth is traffic sign in French. eek... "It's a sign, baby", I said.

"Non, Maman! Parle en français" [No, Mummy! Speak French!] she demanded just as she had done on each previous occasion.

Obviously I'm pleased! I mean, even when she chooses to speak in English to me, she still wants and expects me to reply in French. I am rather astounded though.

I remember reading somewhere long ago, when I was first weighing up whether I dare embark on our non-native journey towards bilingualism, that bilingual children tend to identify people by the initial language they speak with them and can feel uncomfortable when that person changes language with them. I guess that in Poppette's mind, mummy equals French.

Language Mixing & Code Switching

Poppette is now 30.5 months old and, the more her language skills develop and the more able she is to speak in full sentences, I notice her substituting words from one language for another.

I can't honestly say what influences her choice as, often times, she knows the appropriate word in both of her languages.

The interesting thing for me is how she always manages to construct grammatically correct sentences even when mixing the two languages together.

I want to capture these so I can look back and smile, so I'm going to add them to my "Poppette & Little Man" page.

A couple of cute examples are:-

Pas go au lit [Je ne veux pas aller au lit]

Don't want it, go au lit. [Je ne veux pas aller au lit]

Ça va très fast [Ça va très vite]

Ça move [Ça bouge]

She also has some cute language quirks where she uses the structure from one language when speaking the other such as calling orange juice 'juice orange' [jus d'orange] or like this morning when she proudly announced "I make big sleep" [j'ai fais gros dodo] i.e. I had a big sleep!

The Subjunctive and Other Delights

Poppette is now 30 months old and her grammar skills in both English and French are developing a pace. Each day she uses words and sentence structures that I have not heard her use before. Watching her learn to express her inner thoughts really is a marvel.

The subjunctive just keeps popping out of her mouth ...Yes! The subjunctive... so many French language students grapple with that throughout their studies..... and my two year old can use it correctly because learning a language from birth is clearly a fabulous way to learn.

Like many toddlers, Poppette is a real creature of habit and creates routines left right and centre. Her new rule is that, at bed time, she can’t go to sleep unless Maman or Papa lay beside her bed, on her flower mat, under a blanket and go to sleep too! I am determined to break this routine.... as it's starting to take longer and longer for her to actually go to sleep as distracted as she is by the novelty of having a roommate!

Last night, I laid down obediently and waited for her to drop off but she was shifting around and around for what seemed like forever.... So, I piped up "Tu fais quoi, ma princesse?" [what are you doing, my princess]. To which Poppette immediately retorted..."Chut Maman, il faut qu'on dorme. [Ne] parle pas!" [Shhh mummy, we've got to go to sleep. Don't talk!"]. A perfect little subjunctive! Of course I was so damned excited about the French grammar bit that I promptly forgot about the fact that it was 10pm, I was starving and essentially barricaded in my two year old's bedroom!

Little Man (12 months) is showing continued signs of understanding and has added a new word to his list "more". He hasn't said anything in French yet (apart from doudou, which he has now been saying for a couple of days). I live in hope that more French words will follow. I need more time with him. I feel like he hears so little French compared to the intensive English environment they provide him with at nursery.