Welcome to my new blog. I figured it might be nice to tell you a bit about me.
The Basics:
I am a franco-american mother of two girls. As of Nov ’10, Pacifique is two and a half; She was born in Brooklyn, New York. My second is called Claude – and yes she is a girl. Claude was born September 1st 2010. She is 13 weeks old today. She was born in Singapore where we relocated this past July so some would say I am one of those crazy people who decided to move to other side of planet at 34 weeks pregnant -and after the experience I’d agree with them. The father of these two lovely wee ladies is my Mexican Don Juan – Javier.
Here’s a photo of my two girls, Claude is 24 hours and this was the first meeting with her big Sister Pacifique
Why this blog?
Why not. Everyone else is doing it right? In all seriousness, I really struggled during the first two years figuring out how to handle the multilingual aspects of bringing up a child. I felt there wasn’t a whole not out there, particularly when you are looking at 3+languages. That said, now that I’ve decided to start this blog, I’ve come across lots of great resources -always the way isn’t it? Since I’ve paid for my url and figured out WordPress, I am forging ahead and hope to share what I’ve found and learned with you here. I am also pretty sure that language is going to continue to be a challenge for me now that we live in a country with four official languages: Malay, Tamil, Mandarin & English and with an unofficial fifth – Singlish.
I hope you enjoy this site. Please do feel free to email me with any thoughts, ideas, questions or would like to contribute.
warmly, Cordelia (aka Coco)
Ps. If you have read this, no need to check out About me page unless you would like a true Deja-Vu <grin>
Multilingual Mama 
Welcome to the blogging world, Coco! And congrats on raising your daughters trilingual, although now that you guys live in Singapore, it looks like there’ll be other languages added :)
I know exactly what you mean about not finding a lot of info on the net regarding multilingualism. That’s the main reason why Ana and I started SpanglishBaby! (BTW, thanks for visiting). While we write a lot about bilingualism, we’d love to delve more into the arena of growing up with more than two languages. I’ve recently started introducing my daughter to my third language, French, and I’ve found it’s difficult to dedicate the time to speaking it to her…
I look forward to reading about your adventures!
À bientôt !
Hi Roxana, I never got to thank you for your lovely comment. I love your site and try to ping-back when I can. I hope the addition of French is going well. I really need to start working on my Spanish in time for when P goes to French school, I can then start working on reinforcing Spanish but then I’ll need to speak in more than just the present tense LOL. (if you have any suggestions or good resources, please do point me in the right direction.)
Hasta Luego!
Hi Coco,
just stumbled across your blog today – hey, I think we’re in the same boat as little Anna is also growing up with at least three languages (German, Hindi and English) plus who knows what else she will pick up here in Singapore. She is now 22 months old and we’re absolutely fascinated to witness her language development, with every day bringing new amazing moments of proof just how well the multi language thing is working. I speak to her ONLY in German while my husband speaks a mix of Hindi and English, and she addresses us accordingly (Husband and I speak English with each other).
I must admit that I obsess about the multi language thing, and as much as it is a joy it’s also a source of permanent worry … for example, what will happen to her German once she starts going to full day (English speaking) child care (i.e. from April onwards)?! Will she still speak German to me once she’s figured out that we could just as well communicate in English?! Sometimes I feel like it’s an uphill battle with the odds against me, but then again I delight in what we have achieved so far already, and I just hope that things will naturally continue on this way provided that I stick to my German ONLY policy.
By the way, if you’re considering local primary schools this may be an interesting link for you:
hmm … I think I haven’t worked out how to use the HTML tags properly. Well, here is the link anyway:
http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/returning-singaporeans/mother-tongue-policy/
Christine, thanks for the link – I was really intrigued that they will offer dispensation and other languages at the local schools. Right now I am trying not to panic at the fact that P is embracing english and I have to struggle to get her to speak to speak French with me. I know this is mostly because she hears so much more English than French and I have to figure out how to get the right balance of languages. Spanish seems to be going almost dormant as her father is working 6 days a week with most days being 16 hours long so not seeing her at all. I can’t even begin to imagine what is going to happen when she starts her local nursery with half the day in Mandarin next month!
Interesting, thanks – you’re about a year ahead of me with P, so I’m taking notes. Hmm.. I’m wondering though – does your husband speak only in Spanish when he sees her, even though it may be only very little time?
Hey Christine, I hope you find my latest post useful. Yes Javier definitely only speaks Spanish with her. Only very rarely he might throw in an English word for my benefit and of late, he has mostly stopped that as I think he is aware that given his long working hours, her Spanish is suffering. I may have to try and order some spanish DVDs for her just to up the amount she is hearing.