Category Archives: Bilingualism

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: What did you just call me?

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stream-of-consciousness-sunday

BiP is getting the hang of this language thing … she’s talking more and more which is great fun.

She’s started called Daddy “Papa” or rather “Daddy, Papa” which is a combination of the English and French.

I was “Maman” for a while which I didn’t like, I wanted to be “Mummy” – recently I hear “Mummy, mummy, mummy?” all day, all the time, whether she wants me or not, it’s like automatic noise for BiP!

BUT over the last few days she’ll get frustrated if I don’t respond to her 15 “Mummys” and start calling “Amy!”

“What did you just call me?” I ask

“Amy” followed with a killer smile.

“Umm, yes that’s my name but I’m Mummy” I calmly explain

“<insert incoherant babble> Amy! Amy! Mummy! AAAAMMMY!”

*sigh* that worked.

I don’t know how I feel about being called by my nickname, very few people call me Amy, and it’s only those who are very close to me who do.

Part of me feels like she’ll meet another Amy one day but she’ll only ever have one Mummy …

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This is my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
  • Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: The Mother Tongue Myth

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Here is my 5 minute brain dump as part of this great series. Here goes …

I always knew that living in France BiP would obviously speak French. At some point. When she was a tiny baby people would ask me why I was only speaking to her in English. They would say that she would be disadvantaged at school if I only spoke English to her. I decided I’d not corrupt her French by speaking my bad French to her and instead persevere with English.

NOW she is almost 19m old and seems to speak a LOT more French than anything else. I’m stumped. We only speak English at home and until BiP was 14m old she was always with me – now she spends 9 hours a week surrounded only by French speakers.

She even translates everything I say:

I’ll say:

“Let’s go run your bath” – she replies “bain!”
“Let’s wash your hands” – she replies “main!”
“More?” – she says “encore!” (actually it’s more like “cor” but sounds nothing like more).

I’m still winning with words like car, cat, bye-bye, mummy and daddy!

Just yesterday she was running around yelling “Bag! Bag! Bag!” waving her hand in the air – I looked for the bag in question and saw she had found a ring in my jewelry box and was actually saying “bague” (ring in French)

Looks like I have a lot of baby French to learn!

Kinda blows the whole idea of a “MOTHER tongue”out of the water eh?

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This is my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
  • Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Bilingual Baby Talk

16 Replies

stream-of-consciousness-sundayHere is my 5 minute brain dump as part of this great series. Here goes …

We only speak English at home. All BiP’s books are in English, all her DVD’s are in English but obviously when we are out and in French speaking company we speak French.

At 17months BiP is saying a few words. What has become apparent is that no matter what we try to drum into her as the word for this or that she will use the word that is most applicable and relevant to her.

DaddyinProvence wanted to be called “Papa” but to BiP he is “Daddy” and she says it so perfectly it makes my heart melt.

I want to be Mummy, not Mum, not Ma, MUMMY. And what does she call me? “Maman” which is the French for Mummy and I hate it. It drives me nuts.

Other words include “Ka-ka” which she uses for “Poo” – in France they say anything dirty is “ka-ka” and obviously poop is “ka-ka” also – I guess it’s easier for her to say that than Poo-Poo but it still gets me.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the fact that she will be bilingual without even realising but since I struggle so much with French I find it bizarre that MY baby is speaking French.

The other day she said “Encore” instead of again … I was taken aback.

English still has the upper hand so I still feel like I am in charge 🙂 She waves and calls “Bye-Bye” so beautifully that even the most hardcore French speakers will follow up their “Au Revoir” with “Bye-Bye”!

Anyone else experienced the same thing with their bilingual baby?

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This is my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
  • Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

 

What do you call it again?

13 Replies

One of the biggest challenges I’ve had living abroad is building up an international vocabulary, in English. I studied in the UK so I speak English (GB) I married a Canadian so I often have to translate English (GB) into English (CA) and when I am online, well, I find myself translating into English (US). Confused?

Well, throw that into the mix with French. Here is a quick glossary of baby terms that vary wildly at times …

English (GB)  –  English (US)  –  French

     


  • Dummy   –  Pacifier   –  Sucette
  • Nappy  – Diaper  – Couche
  • Pram/push chair  –  Stroller  –  Pousette
  • Bodysuit  –  Onesie  –  Body
  • Sleeping Bag  – Sleep Sack  –  Gigoteuse

 

What have I missed? What did I get wrong?

 

 

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Baby Talk

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Here is my 5 minute brain dump as part of this great series. It’s only the 2nd time I’ve done it but I think it’s going to help my blog block I’ve been having since we got back from our holiday.

 

So here goes!

We’ve been back from NYC for a week. We had a great time. We loved NYC. The one thing I loved the most was how geared up for children it was compared to where we are in France. The whole attitude to children was completely different. In all honesty, I miss it already, and I am sure BiP does too.

I know BiP is only 13m old and can’t talk yet – well, she can say Cat, Mama, Daddy and Moo – is moo a word? I take it as a word as that’s what she calls a cow, for now, and given that she’ll have to learn both “cow” and “vache” moo is a great universally understood word.  What I am getting at is the amazing difference between the strangers we encountered in NYC vs. those we see in France when it comes to talking to BiP. It’s night and day.

Typical Conversation with BiP in NYC:
Stranger: Aren’t you a cutie?
BiP: Coy smile
Stranger: You are such a good walker and I love your outfit
BiP: Giggles and waves

Typical Conversation with BiP in Provence:
Stranger: <Translated from French> To me: You shouldn’t let her walk in here. I will hit her with my trolley
BiP: Craning neck looking for some eye contact, a hello, a smile … something!
Me: (silently thinking) Just try it Lady
BiP: Still looking for attention – turns to me and receives attention she so craves.

It may sound like a one off but this was just for illustrative purposes.

It seems like the busy people of NYC do have time to treat babies with a brief moment of recognition that they are tiny individuals with personalities and feelings. I wonder if the French ever talk to babies – I’ve had my doubts that babies and children are even considered to be people until a certain age. Luckily BiP has doting parents who can give her that attention she so craves (and deserves!)

Have you experienced different cultures attitudes to babies and children?

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This was my first 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
  • Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

 

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: The Bilingual Baby

16 Replies

Today I stumbled upon the Stream of Consciousness Sunday series. A 5 minute brain dump of words! A fabulous idea!

We live in France, my French is terrible, I’ve been here 2.5 years and I hoped within the first 6 months to be fluent! Oh how my expectation crashed and burned! I made terrible mistakes and still do. I found myself resigning myself, in conversations to smiling politely and nodding often at the wrong time! BUT! What a wonderful opportunity for BiP!

When I got pregnant we were already living in France, my husband accompanied me to all my doctors appointments to help me understand the bits I missed and to help me communicate – I have no idea how I would have managed without him. When BiP was born that was when the questions about what language we would speak to her in. “In English of course?” I would reply. We speak English at home, anything else would be unnatural. My priority is to give her the richest language experience I can offer and French is certainly not that. So English it is.
BiP already, at 12months, understands both English and French. She doesn’t say much but that is to be expected.  She certainly smiles upon receiving glowing compliments when we are out and when someone says “Au Revoir” she waves bye-bye.

I am always irked by the monolinguals, in France, who criticize the fact that we speak English to BiP. “Well, you live in France, you MUST speak French to her” is what I am often faced with. How can I possibly do that? The other day I told someone I could F*&% the price on something rather than lower it – a simple mistake in pronunciation as the former is baiser vs. the correct word baisSer!!!  What kind of example would that be?

I have no doubt that BiP will speak French at school – ok, she may lack certain vocabulary and may struggle for the first few months but at age 4 is that really a problem? Some think it is. I tend to ignore such opinions and carry on. I know there will come a day that BiP’s French will be better than mine and I will be scouring the internet looking up what she will have said but that’s fine. She will speak both languages without effort and the world will be her oyster, well, a lot of the world.

Right now, given that English is rarely spoken in the part of France that we are in, is to find a network of like minded parents who speak English with their children to ensure that when BiP does go off to school that she’ll also be exposed to other English speakers.

 
How are you dealing with raising a bilingual baby?

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This was my first 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
  • Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.