When asked if she wanted an ice cream after a hot hot morning at the beach (all in french of course)
She responded
“oh oui Maman. Ice cream goes in my mouth, tastes sooo good”
Multilingual Journeys
How Well Do You Know Your Colors?
There comes a point in your life where you think that some things you’ve got down pat. Things like:
- How to count to 100
- Names of basic household objects
- Names of most animals
- What color something is
And then you have a child. And you realize you know nothing. You know less than nothing.
Here is a small selection of Pea’s coloring implements. This photo isn’t too bad as we require a re-stock since the kid goes through these like most of us go through toilet paper or beer or both since they do seem to go hand in hand for us ladies.
There were only a few markers left in her box, the rest having migrated into our own personal black hole where favorite gadgets, trinkets, pens, duckies et al seem to continually disappear. When the seal was still intact, this box had about 6 types of red, blue, green, yellow-browny, mustardy type colors, purples etc. I saw it in the shop, I thought “oh how lovely, look at all those colors, Pea will love this!”
And then I got home, we got some paper out and this is the exchange we have:
pea: “what’s this?”
me: “violet ma cherie” (me trying to say purple in French. No sooner have I said it I wonder what violet then is in french if purple is violet and here begins my decent into a hellish color abyss )
Pea, now pointing to another marker “what’s this?”
me, sweat beginning to break out on brow “c’est mauve.” (mauve, is that even a colour in english? and really what’s the difference between mauve and purple or purple and violet, or mauve and violet for that matter)
pea: “What’s this?”
me: I don’t answer. Is that lavender? Is lavender lighter or darker than violet?
pea: “what’s this?”
me: still silent. Oh great we are in the blues. I think of all the blues I know: teal, navy, turquoise, royal, light, blue-black – Overlooking the fact that this last one is going to be a pain to try to explain, blue is my favorite color and I tell myself I know a number of blues. My confidence starts to come back until it hits me:
1. I don’t know all of those in French. Instead I start to think of others in I know in french like bleu ardoise and bleu canard and wonder whether I know these in English. Now my head starts to hurt.
2. Look at the markers in the photograph; there are many blues but most of them are NOT the blues I know. This box is looking less and less like a box of simple colors and more and more like a complex paint selection at home depot.
At least 10 minute have gone by at this point. Pea in the mean time has moved on to reds. What do I know about red?Light? Dark? Wait crimson? Ruby? I am starting to see them all in a police lineup and I can’t identify the perpetrators. Doesn’t matter, she isn’t asking at this point…. thank heavens.
I am ok with the fact that I don’t know the colors because I can get it wrong for me. In my world, I don’t matter. It is my choice. But what I am suddenly obsessing about is the fact that I am potentially giving my daughter inaccurate information. And here’s the funny thing, I am not sure why it matters but it just does. I don’t want to confuse her. I hate that one day I call something mauve and the next violet. She already has a lot to contend with, 3 languages, a new baby sister, a new country, she doesn’t need her mother flip-flopping Senator Kerry style on colors.
I need a book. A book with all the colors in french, english and spanish. I need a colorist in the true sense of the word.
In the mean time I suggest we move on to playdoh. She happily makes the switch. But I know I am only putting off the inevitable.
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PS Am wondering what her father answers? Does he over analyze the colors? My first thought is he is a man so no. But then I think well he is also an architect working on interior design so maybe. Mental note to self : make colors topic of conversation on next date night. Oh the exciting lives we lead.
The March Bilingual Blogging Carnival is here at last!
I would like to welcome you all to this month’s bilingual carnival – albeit a bit late!
For newcomers, The Bilingual Carnival is a wonderful blogging event where we have the opportunity each month to take some time to share thoughts on multilingual parenting and life. I love the carnival as it allows me to discover new blogs and new ideas. It gives me food for thought, it often makes me laugh, and most importantly it always gives me a huge sense of relief as I find companionship on this incredible but often challenging lingual journey we’ve committed to.
As a total hosting newbie, I hope I can do this carnival justice. I was so inspired by all the posts I received, what a truly fantastic group of parents and writers. I’ve tried to roughly group posts thematically so apologies in advance if I don’t always get it right. A particular thanks to everyone who sent in posts on such short notice and to Letizia, the Carnival’s creator and superb organizer for her understanding. Without further ado:
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STORIES, SELF, IDENTITIES
I feel totally spoiled to get the chance to host the unveiling of the Carnival’s new Logo! Letizia from Bilingue per Gioco, a wonderful blog that has me cursing the day I stopped practicing my Italian, reveals the logo as well as its creator’s trilingual story in Carnival: a logo and a trilingual story.
In Freed from Identity, Non-native Bilingualism‘s Tamara opens up in this inspiring post triggered by her daughter’s continued use of English, on issues around identity, how we define ourselves and others, and how language use plays into this.
Vanessa from Language, Music and More… tells us the story of a young Japanese American girl coming to terms with her bilingual and bicultural heritage. A wonderful snapshot from an older child’s perspective in Growing up Bilingual, Misa’s story. (Also the inspiration behind my pilfered picture)
In A linguistic love story, Maria from Busy as a Bee in Paris shares the evolution and love of her languages and how who we are and how we meet play a role in the language we speak to each other.
Rea from Not So Spanish reminds us how environment and culture drive language leading to really fascinating differences between them and explaining why some languages have words for things and others just don’t. Moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches left me giggling as well as craving both maple syrup and chorizo!
Smashedpea from Intrepidly Bilingual writes in No Worse for Wear how her two children’s German not only survived but flourished while overseas visiting their English-speaking grandparents proving yet again how amazing these growing minds are let alone being able to pack off the kids to relatives.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
On BabelKid, Jan shares her Updated Family Language Diagram, which apart from a total feat in diagramming, shows us that these things change over time and now I am thinking I should probably try one of these myself but will stick to washable crayolas and scrap paper so my computer doesn’t end up out the window.
Sarah from Bringing up Baby Bilingual put me to shame in L’alphabet de Griffin with her BRILLIANT self-made alphabet books. It is a complaint I hear often -the lack of adequate resources for one of the spoken languages- and here is what, when procrastination is put aside, you can end up with. Chapeau!
In Reading matters, Sandra from Brussels Sprout writes about the joys of reading in several languages, how she and her husband divvy up the stories and the challenges of obtaining books in all the familial languages. And all you francophiles, note the total Richard Scarry score at the bottom!
In Early literacy, bilingualism and different scripts, Steffi from Mummy do That talks about the misconception that different scripts can impede literacy but rather how exposure to them and other languages generally can foster excitement about learning. And after reading this you too will covet her nursery school.
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & DEVELOPMENT
Verbosity‘s Solnushka in On the exploding Star writes about the fascinating evolution of language acquisition. Personally now I am wishing I had her grammatical knowledge. I can’t even tell people where my daughter is at in terms of adverbs, tenses, pronouns and amateur nouns?! She also makes a great point about the hidden value of having our MiLs around.
Belinda from Little Wool Maus shares in Starting out with Bilingualism – Early Encouragement Mausi’s discovery of her nose, head, hair, tummy and bum, etc; how without us even noticing, before they can barely speak, our wee ones are absorbing it all. And I long for the days when I used to point at my tummy and bum with joy vs trying to hide them with the right cut clothes…
In Why I’m smug about language mixing, Jen from Trilingual Trio takes us through their family’s thought process in deciding on the right balance between languages in their particular multilingual environment within an OPOL household. I too may now embrace some mixing – I mean mixing is good right? I love mixed vegetables, mixed dog breeds and of course mixed drinks…
Melissa from Where going Havo writes about her daughter’s recent vocabulary explosion in The Language of Her Peers and how where you chose to live can affect your child’s language development and your feelings towards it in unexpected ways.
Thank you for joining us for the March Carnival. If you would like more information, to host or subscribe please click here
Persistence pays off
When we first moved to Singapore at the end of July 2010, Pacifique was suddenly spending all this time with me and her French started to blossom. Fast forward to Claude’s birth and the arrival of Cherry our wonderful helper from the Philippines and English resumed its pole position but I could still get a lot of French answers from her.
The final nail in the coffin – or so I thought – was the new local nursery.
My daughter came home to me speaking English and it seemed as if French had completely fallen off her radar. It isn’t as if she hadn’t answered me in English in the past but once I would repeat her answer in French, she would then repeat it in French as well. Now I would repeat her answer in French and she would repeat it in ENGLISH.
What can I say, totally totally disheartening.
Please is a word that gets used a lot and it isn’t the easiest thing to say in French “S’il te plait”. It was never something I could really get her to say though she always signed it (ASL) and once she learned it in English, I was happy she was using it and willing to overlook the fact that she used it if the rest of our exchange was in French. (We have a lot of replacing words in one language with another when needed). I’ve probably been trying to coax her into saying this phrase in particular for nearly two years and really working hard over the last year. I had actually reached a point lately where I was starting to wonder whether I should even bother… yes one of those momentary lows.
And if I thought French was falling behind, Spanish appeared to be non-existent with my husband’s long working hours. Sometimes he would say something to her in Spanish on a Sunday and it seemed obvious to me that she was no longer understanding him as she was so out of practice.
I know this seems increasingly dire but when you least expect it – and isn’t it always that way with kids?!- we seem to have turned a corner. My husband started taking her to school every morning on his way in to work and insisting she answer back in Spanish. I was hesitant about the insistence part but it seems to be working. The benefit to me is that she suddenly seems more willing to answer in French. Not as often as before but it is coming back and then…the icing on the cake is that she turned around the other day and when I asked her to say please (I am mortified to admit that I even think I asked her this in English!) she responded the golden phrase
“S’il te plait maman” and I heard angels sing.
Multilingual Mama 