Tuesday, 2 March 2010

NEW WORDS: Ce n'est pas vrai

We were in the car a couple of days ago with the kids and their cousin in the back, when Schmoo started whinging 'Ce n'est pas vrai!'. Her non-French speaking cousin asked her to tell her what that meant and Schmoo translated 'It's not fair'. I was expecting her to give the literal translation of 'It's not true' but in the context she was absolutely correct and that was the correct translation :-)

2 comments:

bloggingonbilingualism said...

Moments like that are very satisfying, aren't they? I had a similar one with my son recently...I forget the exact phrase, but he translated it better than I would have (I was more literal). Though, in general, I try to avoid having them translate as it seems to put them 'in a box" and I want them to not translate between the two languages in their own heads, but just "get it"...

My Bilingual Babes said...

Yes, it's great when they do this, as it shows they've really got 2 cultures in their heads, with the 2 different ways of thinking :-)