Non-Native Thought for the Day #4

As I heard Poppette (25.5 months) "reading" out loud to herself in French recently, it struck me that there are ways in which her use of her minority language can be optimised. As you can imagine, this brought quite a smile to my face :D

When I say "reading", I mean that Poppette was telling herself the story from memory as she looked at the pages in her book. Toddler's memories are like sponges and Poppette has memorised loads of her favourite stories.

Some of Poppette and Little Man's books are in both languages, others are in just one. Where Poppette has only heard a story in French, naturally, when she "reads" it to herself, she does so in French.... and when I think about it, it's obviously the same for experiences that she has only experienced in French too such as un tour de manège [a ride on the merry go round] which she excitedly chatters about all the time at the moment.

So....my new non-native resolution is to try and step up the new experiences and language learning opportunities that we have and help Poppette to learn about these things in French first. I'm really hoping that this will help to keep the language as alive as possible, give Poppette a very good reason to continue to speak French and, hopefully, help to prevent the English immersion experience at nursery from overpowering our bilingual endeavour.

The Things They Say.....Hairy Noses :D

Poppette (25.5 months) is now talking in sentences using verbs, nouns and adjectives although she is not yet adding in the "he's, she's it's, the's or a's etc"....

Everyday she has me in stitches.

Everyday she makes my jaw drop with the words she knows.

Yesterday, I caught her tucking her Doudou into bed and saying saying "Fais [de] beaux rêves" [sweet dreams].

I've decided to start keeping a track of some of the classics so I don't forget. The children are growing and changing so quickly that it would be easy to forget some of these gems when others occur and take their place.

Yesterday morning, the first thing Poppette said to me when she woke was "X (name removed to protect the innocent :D ) poils nez, oui c'est ça" [X hairs nose, yes that's right]. The things they say !!! Honestly!!!

The background to this little phrase is that we had a visitor a few weeks ago and Poppette noticed the hairs in his nostrils. Being the curious little girl that she is this really caught her attention. The thing about Poppette is that she has a memory like an elephant. The hairs may be gone but the memory is deeply rooted :D

Guest Post for Ma Puce : Bilingualism and My Family

When an email dropped into my inbox recently from Luci McQuitty, the brains behind Ma Puce, asking me to do a guest post, I jumped at the chance.

Ma Puce is an online resource aimed at helping parents teach their 0 - 6 year old children French. It started out as Luci's way to focus her efforts on teaching her own daughter French and grew from there. It's a great place for non-native parents to get advice, resource ideas and honest product reviews and I hope that, by sharing my family's story, I can help Luci in her bid to help others find the confidence to take the plunge and speak French to their own children.

Head over to Ma Puce (by clicking here) to read my post about bilingualism and my family.

In the post, you will also find a link to a giveaway of Be Bilingual, a great new eguide on bilingualism which is due to be published shortly. 

The book is written by Annika  Bourgogne, a trilingual mother of two girls who is, like me, extremely passionate about bi/multilingualism. I recently read Annika's manuscript and it takes the top spot on the list of books that I have read on bilingualism (and i've read a few!!!). It summarises what the experts are saying and what actual bilingual families are saying and is packed full of tried and tested tips and resource ideas. You can read an excerpt of the book by clicking here.

Le soleil se cache derrière les nuages...The sun is hiding behind the clouds

Two weeks after her 2nd birthday, Poppette spoke her first gramatically correct four word sentence. She was happily drinking her milk first thing in the morning when Little Man started to grumble to let us know that he was also rather hungry....Poppette looked over to him and announced "Bébé boit milk too" i.e. Baby drinks milk too.

I was really pleased on two levels...obviously from a language perspective this is fab...she may have mixed up her languages but she did so perfectly!! and I was also chuffed to bits at the obvious care and concern Poppette has for her younger brother.

Poppette is now almost 25 months old and her language is coming on in leaps and bounds. Papa has actually said recently that Poppette now often says things in French that he cannot understand. This is not a problem for him as he feels it is a small price to pay in exchange for his children getting the gift of bilingualism. It does, however, indicate that Poppette is beggining to use more complex vocabulary.

Yesterday we were in the car when she exclaimed "soleil cache derrière nuages" i.e. le soleil se cache derrière les nuages [the sun is hiding behind the clouds]. To be honest, she couldn't have timed it better as I have been a little despondent about this whole bilingual endeavour over the past few weeks. It can be quite exhausting always trying to think around ways to chat about things that you may never have thought about before in your second language. It can feel like trying to cram for a test.....every day. Add to that the fact that research suggests that the more the majority language exposure increases at the expense of the minority language the more of an upward struggle you will have to maintain your child's bilingualism.....and, well, it can feel like you're onto a losing battle. Both Poppette and Little Man will be in nursery 5 days a week from January :(

Rather than wallow in the why it might not work blues.... I am writing this post as a reminder to myself of just how far we have come in the two short years since my daughter's birth.

Poppette can count to ten in both English and French and does so all the time. I'd love to peak inside her head to see what influences her decision to pick one language over the other when she is playing alone.

We are still working on colours in both languages.  She definitley knows rouge/red in both languages  - as for the other colours, some days she gets them right and other days she doesn't so sometimes I am unsure whether she may just have guessed really well :D. Her knowledge of colours is definitley stronger in English right now.

We have been having regular playdates with a really lovely little French girl (5 months Poppette's senior) over the past few months. They play so well together, running around holding hands and giggling. It's such a pleasure to watch their friendship blossom. I have been really happy to note that when this young girl's mum chats away in French with Poppette, she understands perfectly. A good friendship has blossomed between us mamans too. Unfortunately, a move back to France in on the cards for them next month so our get togethers will have to come to an end.

Poppette's favourite mot du jour since this weekend is d'accord [ok]. She just came out with it whilst we were chatting and has not stopped saying it since.... much better than her other favourite word "noooooooo"!!!

At the moment she vascilates between speaking loads of French with me (about 80/20) to speaking about 50/50. That said, she only seems to speak French to other people if she doesn't know a word in English or perhaps favours the French word. Her language with Papa in the main is English although, although she peppers her converstaions with him with French words and phrases...some of which Papa understands and others that he doesn't.

I am trying to lift my game as far as Little Man is concerned and try to speak to him exclusively in French now. It still feels a little alien at times but I know it felt just the same when Poppette was tiny too.

What Do You Love About Speaking Another Language?

If I were to ask any one of my language loving friends what they thought was the biggest benefit of speaking a second language, they would probably all give a different answer. There are sooooo many reasons to learn another language.......a lot of which can be very personal.

Ask me why I love to speak French and I would say...because to not speak French is to not be me. I am one of those people who's ears prick up at th sound of French ... who's heart accelerates when simply sitting in a little French café, soaking up the sights and sounds...for me, the French language transforms the mundane into the marvellous.

Kaplan International (who offer English language courses worldwide) have created this great infographic highlighting some of the benefits of language learning.



What do you feel is the biggest benefit to you of speaking more than one language?

Non-Native Thought for the Day #3

According to Wikipedia .... a homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another, but differs in meaning. Such words may be spelled the same such as un tour [a tour] and une tour [a tower] or differently, such as vert [green], verre [glass] and ver [earthworm].

Needless to say, these sets of words have been exercising my brain!

The fact that the French use the same word to  refer to a plant pot and a potty left Poppette scratching her head when I asked her if she wanted to sit on le pot. I have since made a point of differentiating the plant pot by calling it a pot de fleurs!

Likewise, I find it a little hard to get my head around the fact that, in French, the word balançoire means both swing and seesaw...oh yeah! When I asked a French friend if she didn't find this a little confusing, she simply said, why should she. She said it was totally normal and actually she thought it a little odd that we have separate words. Right...well, I do see her point. I pushed on....asking her how on earth she would know what her son wanted to do if he said he wanted to play on the balançoire. How could she be certain not to disappoint him by taking him on the wrong ride? Simple, she said, I would just ask him whether he wanted to go on the balançoire that goes up and down or the one that goes forwards and backwards!

Belgian Maman has been having similar issues with English homophones whilst speaking non-native English with her son. "Don't touch the glasses", she said to him. He looked at her rather puzzled wondering why he would be committing an act of naughtiness by touching his lunettes [reading glasses] when his Maman was, in fact, referring to les verres [drinking glasses].

The conclusion I have come to, however, is that homophones are of no consequence to a native language speaker. You just don't think about them because you know them and have always known them and just absorb them throughout your language learning years through context and repetition and you instinctively know that your children will do the same. The issue when speaking a non-native language is that you question yourself more....if two (or more) words sound the same, you assume that your child will be confused because these words aren't second nature to you.

So...I am just getting on with it. Just because the word for sea [la mer] and mother [la mère] sound the same, doesn't mean that Poppette will be confused....at her tender age it's a question of context and, at a later stage, once she is able to read, all will become even clearer.

Click here to see a useful list of French homophones.

Have you any examples of how homophones have affected you in either a native or non-native context?

It's Carnival Time Again

It's that time again.... September's "issue" of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism is out.

Head on over to All Done Monkey and take a look.