Changing the lingo

This is a tricky thing to manage, but often a necessary change for bilingual families.
Suppose you're raising your children with Japanese in an English-speaking country but then move to Japan. Logically, you'd now want to start using English with the children, but that's easier said than done, as talking a particular language with someone is a very hard habbit to break. The language you speak with someone gives that language a certain value, as well as forming part of the identity of that person and the relationship you have with them.
Sometimes it's the parents who want to switch languages.
Suppose (once again) you're raising your children with Japanese in an English-speaking country, but this time your children's school teacher tells you their English is not as strong as it should be. To introduce more English into their environment, you may wish to start talking in English with your partner, or even encourage grandparents to do so.
In our case, where the Twi is so weak (due to lack of time with their father and our late start, making it difficult to use Twi all the time), I have decided to start using Twi with Papa whenever possible (not too often, given my current Twi abilities!). I am hoping this will also improve my own Twi. It's challenging, but with the natural dominance of the Majority Language (English in our case), there's no harm in switching to a bit of Twi. Also, hearing their parents use Twi together will hopefully raise the value of the language for the children.
They already both have pitch-perfect Twi accents and sing happily along to Twi songs in the car, plus good passive knowledge, so the basis is there. My hope is that the next time we take them to Ghana (should be 2010), they will switch from passive to active knowledge in their play with local children :-)

Questions kids ask...

Now that Schmoo has reached the question phase (just after the 'why' phase!), we are getting some crackers, like 'How do cats laugh?' (she was pretending to be a cat) and 'Why are we animals?' when I tried to explain that humans are animals too...

Citronnade - Lemonade or Lemon squash (apparently!)

I'm very excited as Schmoo has just used a word I've never heard in French!! She asked me if she could have some 'citronnade'. Well, I guessed this meant lemonade, but I only know the word 'limonade', so I wondered if she'd made it up. But when I checked wordreference, there it was! I wonder where she picked it up from, probably school, but perhaps one of her French DVDs or books. Luckily her citronnade was homemade, she'd poured a load of lemon juice into a bowl and chucked some smarties in and asked if she could have a bit - well, it's not my idea of a yummy drink, but she was happy ;-)

Plus ça change...

It's been a while since I've updated my Bilingual Babes, so there've been some quite dramatic changes. The main one has been in Pan-Pan's speech - he now talks all day long! He usually combines 2 words into little sentences, and it's almost always in French. He does use a couple of Twi words with Papa and seems to know not to use these with me. It's lovely that he and Schmoo speak French together, something that will help them maintain their language once I make the switch to English later on. I can't believe Pan-Pan is due to start school next year, he still seems more of a baby than a little boy, but I know from Schmoo that so much changes happen in a year - in fact, it will be almost two years, as his first term will not be until September.

The other change has been in our Twi - at first our aim was that Schmoo would learn to speak it (ie active bilingualism), but this involved 2 problems, first that Papa is not as militant as me and I found I was spending all my time saying 'Don't forget to repeat that in Twi', which was not conducive to good family relations! and secondly we were concerned about her English, which wasn't getting very much exposure. We feel, of the 3 languages, English has to take priority - we live in an English-speaking country, in a world where English is the main international language, so we really want both our Babes to have English as one, if not their only, mother tongue. At the moment, French is still slightly dominant, so some English exposure from Papa is very important. Our current compromise is that he speaks mainly Twi to them (Schmoo understands, but responds in English) and switches to English for complex discussions or reading. This way, she is building up a good passive knowledge of Twi, without losing a strong English influence. Long-term, I hope our Babes will be able to switch from passive to active Twi by spending time in Ghana, as we are certain to have many trips there once they are a little older, and most of the children they spend time with there will only be able to communicate in Twi. The other hope is that as all conversations with Pan-Pan are still very simple, Papa only speaks Twi with him, so he may well end up talking back in Twi, which would give Schmoo a strong motivation to join in! Only time will tell..!

Terms of affection

Since I decided to speak French with my two, I've needed to find a few equivalents for 'sweetie'! These seem to be the most common:

Mon coeur
Ma puce/pupuce
Ma cocotte
Ma belle
Mon ange
Ma poupée

Skipping rope

Schmoo is getting very precocious and now fills in my vocab gaps for me! Today, looking at one of her books, I was racking my brains for the word 'skipping rope' in French. I said, 'I can't remember what this is called.' She looked at me in surprise and said, 'Corde a sauter'!

Just to update this post a few days on: Schmoo was watching one of her French cartoons with me when an eel swam by. I couldn't remember the word for eel, so I just said, 'Oh, look at the snake!' She said, 'That's not a snake, it's an eel!' I've always longed for the day when she would be able to do this - teach me words and remind me of ones I've forgotten. It's a good incentive to spend a bit more time improving my own French as well, as I can get quite lazy about it!

Talking baby!

Pan-Pan is just starting to talk now, and his French vocabulary has a clear head-start! I'm sure his Twi and English won't be far behind though...

Words Pan-Pan can say:
French:
Bébé [Baby]
Coin coin [Quack quack]
Non [No]
Caca [Poopoo]
Do-do [Nap time]
Miam-miam [Yummy-yummy, ie Food!]
Boire [Drink]
Ciseaux [Scissors]

Twi:
Gi [Take it]

English:
Bye-bye

I'm not sure yet how much Pan-Pan grasps of the fact that he is surrounded by 3 languages (or 4, including baby signing), but I remember how quickly Schmoo sorted it all out and is still very clear which language she should speak with who. Recently, she was on the phone to her grandma and was switching easily and naturally between French with me standing next to her and English on the phone!

Signing baby!

Pan-Pan is almost 18 months and his signs go from strength to strength: he now signs frantically for 'up' (as in 'pick me up'!); 'keys' and 'light' (he loves to play with my keyring and the lightswitch); 'eat', 'biscuit', 'milk' and 'more' (he loves his food!); and sweet things like 'home' when we arrive back at the house. Some of his signs are abstract, ie, the object isn't in view when he makes the sign. He can now make around 45 signs, as opposed to around 16 back in May.

Signs Pan-Pan makes (45 signs):
Milk
More
Eat
Hot
Cold
Ball
Book
Baby
Listen
Duck
Pig
Bird
Crocodile
Chicken
Lion
Dog
Cat
Biscuit
Aeroplane
Sleep
Music
Listen
No
All gone
Pick me up
Drink
Water
Rabbit
Keys
Light
Home
Daddy
Telephone
Shoes
Toothbrush
Flower
Ladybird
All gone
Grandma
Open
Bubbles
Helicopter
Lady
Car
Put it on/Take it off (He made this sign up - he taps his chest with both hands!)

Signs Pan-Pan understands:
Change time
Where
Frog
Horse
Elephant
Cow

Some parents are concerned that baby signing may delay speaking, but in my experience, it accelerates it, and this is bourne out by the research, with children who signed as babies having a wider vocabulary than those who didn't (see http://www.babysigners.co.uk/i2.php?mid=3&sid=0&a=page). Just as babies quickly replace crawling with walking once they realise it's advantages, they also replace their signs with words as soon as they are able.

The school run

When I think about personal achievements in my life, I think the thing I'm most proud of is not the 2 degrees or having had a novel published, but just being able to drive my kids to school! The French school Schmoo goes to is a 45 minute drive away, or 3 buses. I did attempt to go the 3 buses route with both kids and assorted school paraphernalia, but it was a total never-to-be-repeated nightmare! Driving there is really the only option and means Schmoo's not too tired when we get there.
Driving is a really big deal for me - I've always found it difficult and scary, although now that I drive for 3 hours a day, it's getting a lot easier! But I'm just so glad I put the effort in and learnt, even though it was very tough and very expensive (I had double lessons every day to break the back of it!), because otherwise my children might not've been able to attend their wonderful bilingual school and their French could've all come to nothing without this support!

RESOURCES: The THREE GOLDEN RULES for late-start language learning

As we've introduced the Twi language quite late (Schmoo was three and a half), we've had to be quite strict about using it. But 4 months on and it's showing results already - Schmoo understands a lot and can respond with some basic phrases. Here are our 3 golden rules:

1. Daddy only speaks to the children in Twi. If Schmoo doesn't understand, he will repeat the phrase in English and then say it a third and final time in Twi.
2. When Schmoo says something to Daddy in English, he repeats it in Twi, so she has the phrase for next time.
3. And this is the one which really helps, because Schmoo is at her most motivated: All requests (to Daddy) must be made in Twi! So, if she wants her favourite song put on, or another glass of milk, she now knows to ask in the magic language that makes things happen fast!