Wednesday, September 20, 2006

bilingual kids on prime time television

I caught the series premiere of a show on NBC called Kidnapped tonight simply because it sounded intriguing. Imagine my surprise when the character played by Dana Delaney starts speaking to her young daughter in French, who responds with good French; then she speaks French to her 15-year-old son, who also replies in kind! What struck me was the matter-of-fact way the show portrayed this, like it was perfectly natural for an American mom to converse with her American kids in a foreign language. Their use of French was never addressed in the episode, either (although subtitles were provided for the viewers). And interestingly enough, French rap music was playing as background music in another scene. Now I'm trying to think of other TV shows or movies that have unexpectedly bilingual kids (or bilingual kids at all, for that matter), but we watch so little TV around here that I'm at a loss. Any ideas?

1 comment:

  1. I can remember being in WH Smiths in Paris a few years ago, and seeing an English mother speaking both French and English to her toddler son because he was misbehaving and wouldn't settle down.

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