myth-ing the point

For the last Raising Multilingual Children Blogging Carnival of 2014, Annabelle, the host, challenged us to explode the myths that many people hold about bilinguals--are we truly confused?  Are our kids condemned to a childhood of code switching and strange looks from their classmates?  Will our efforts isolate us from our monolingual in-laws?

Nope.

Well--maybe.

But not really.  (So if any of those things do happen, don't blame the second language!)

Here's the best list I've encountered which enumerates and quickly dispels common myths about bilingualism, courtesy Prof. François Grosjean, author, linguist, parent, and all-around expert in this area: Myths About Bilingualism.

For today, I'd like to address the intersection of these two myths: "bilingual children experience language delays" and "being bilingual requires equal fluency in both languages."

Once upon a time, I was a French teacher, an aunt, and a part-time babysitter.  My sister-in-law had suggested that since I knew French, I might as well speak French to my nephew, Carl, while taking care of him one afternoon a week.  So I made the effort to learn vocabulary that had never before appeared in my French conversation or reading ("bouncy chair," "put the pumped milk into the bottle warmer," "what in the world is that foul odor?", "Can't I just cut the onesie off him after a diaper blow-out?") and spent many happy hours reading and singing and taking walks with Carl, all in French.

Tatie and Carl, 2006

And, by golly, at 18 months that brilliant baby was regularly making two- and three-word utterances in French. (I'm not exaggerating even a little bit--I took careful notes each time I was with him, which led to his first four-word sentence at 18 months: "Tatie écrit stylo livre"--Auntie is writing with a pen in her book!)

Clearly, being exposed to two languages from infancy didn't delay his language acquisition (nor did it impede his English ability).

Now, let's take a look at the other end of the spectrum: my daughter Gwyneth.  She's almost three and a half, and her speech in English is often nearly as unintelligible as her French.  

She has a lot to say, mind you, but chances are a stranger would have trouble deciphering it, what with the consonants she mispronounces ("ewewewatow" for "elevator") or drops altogether ("et" for "yet"), the sounds she transposes ("smoothie" becomes "soomie"), her occasional French words ("I a loup and my brover a loup"), her occasional missing words ("I no" which means "I don't know"), her even-less-frequent Spanish words (mostly numbers and bits of songs that she picks up at her Spanish immersion preschool) and the family-specific ideas she tends to reference (such as zerberts, sleep-unders, and tuck-tucks).

Gwyneth, 2014

Thus, when Gwyneth announces, "My wittle eye sawt wit wew!", we know (but no one else does) that she wants to play I Spy.  (She's heard her brother say "I spy with my little eye something that starts with B" and "I spy with my little eye something that is red," so she makes a valiant attempt to express "I spy with my little eye something that is vert," green.) 

See, we know what she means because we speak English, French, and Gwynese.  My wittle eye sawt wit wew.** (Doesn't that just make you want to give her a big squeezey hug?!  So cute.)

Given the fact that she was barely talking at 18 months, and not saying much as a two-year-old, I might characterize Gwyneth's speech as "delayed" (or perhaps just "confusing"), but there's no reason to attribute it to her hearing two languages from birth.  And for the record, both her pediatrician and her preschool teacher have reassured me that her language development is age appropriate, if perhaps on the low end of normal, and she did have an auditory test earlier this year just to make sure that she's hearing her consonants correctly.

Griffin's linguistic development, on the other hand, fell somewhere in between his sister and his cousin--neither astonishingly early nor a little late.  Again, I don't think that had anything to do with the languages he was hearing at home.

I did hear a lot of code-switching from Griffin as a toddler, though, particularly with nouns.  His sentences usually consisted of pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions in English, plus nouns in French.  I'm sure that this is because the majority of books he knew were in French, and we encounter words in books--volcano, hedgehog, leprechaun--that tend not to appear regularly in conversation.

(Code-switching, by the way, is neither a myth nor improper speech, but a normal stage in language development.  It doesn't occur because kids are confused, but rather because some words are easier to access in a certain language and those are the ones that come out first.  Later on, code-switching can be a deliberate choice when a person wants to use a word or phrase in the other language for emphasis, humor, or to identify herself as a member of a group.)

Griffin, 2012

Both of my children understand French as well as English, at least in the situations I've observed, although they both have a clear preference for English.  When prompted, Griffin will speak French, but haltingly.  (Unless we are discussing a book we're reading together, and then his French feels more organic, probably because the phrases and ideas from the story are surrounding us.)  As for Gwyneth, she usually refuses to do anything we ask her to do, so I've stopped encouraging her to reply to me in French, saving my requests for important things like brushing teeth and wearing pants.  (Hey, maybe I should start telling her she has to speak English from now on!  She would almost certain embrace the language just for the sake of rebelling against me.)  

(By the way, the thought of Gwyneth the teenager terrifies me.)

So I can't say that Griff and Gwyn are bilingual, right?  Despite my efforts and their passive understanding of French, they simply are not as fluent in their second language.  In fact, I often suspect that my own French isn't strong enough to be considered fluent--talking on the phone can reduce me to caveman-like stammers, I miss a lot in movies when the characters are speaking fast, using slang, or not facing the camera, I can't engage in political discussions,  some of the literature I studied in grad school reduced me to tears, and my accent immediately betrays me as a Anglophone.

I learned not to dwell on these perceived inadequacies, however, when I started speaking exclusively in French to my infant son.  I didn't want to feel self-conscious, so I kept reminding myself that even if my kids ended up speaking a second language imperfectly, that would still be much better than only speaking one language, period.

G&G, 2014

However, it appears that Dr. Grosjean would disagree, would insist that the fact that my kids and I are not equally fluent in both languages does not detract from our bilingualism:

"Some bilinguals are dominant in one language, others do not know how to read and write in one of their languages, others have only passive knowledge of a language and, finally, a very small minority, have equal and perfect fluency in their languages.  What is important to keep in mind is that bilinguals are very diverse, as are monolinguals."

In other words, non-native speakers like me can achieve fluency in our second languages, and we can proudly call ourselves--and our children--bilinguals.

ma famille, 2011

*Note to Griffin and/or Gwyneth: "Condemned to a Childhood of Code Switching" would make a great title for your memoirs one day.

**Whereas an autobiography called "My Wittle Eye Sawt Wit Wew" probably wouldn't make the bestseller lists.

Bonne Année 2014!

Wishing you many wonderful adventures in the new year.  Stay warm!

cousins dans la neige

j'ellie, tu ellies, il/elle/on ellie...

(If my niece's name were a regular -er verb,  that's how you would conjugate it.)

Someday I'll manage to take a picture of all four cousins smiling and looking at the camera!  (Ellie, Carl, Gwyneth, and Griffin in August 2012)

I have so enjoyed watching my niece grow!  With her second birthday coming up next month, she's eight months older than Gwyneth, which means they'll be in the same grade at school, but right now, those eight months that separate "baby" from "toddler" may as well be eight years: the girls don't play together yet, not really; Ellie's mostly potty trained; Ellie talks.

Watching Ellie gives me a preview of what we might expect as our baby girl transforms into a toddler girl.  (And I love, love, love hearing about her language acquisition!)

This picture was staged--neither girl really likes to play with dolls!

My relationship with Ellie is quite different from what her older brother Carl and I had when he was her age.  I had been babysitting Carl one afternoon a week for a year and a half at that point, and he would give me big hugs and speak French with me.  We would take walks together, frolic on the playground, read lots and lots of books--basically, the sorts of things that you have the luxury to explore when you're taking care of only one child at a time!

Now I babysit all four cousins every other Wednesday for two hours, which means that Ellie and I never get that one-on-one "quality time" that Carl and I shared.   Therefore, we weren't expecting that she would pick up much French.  (Unlike Carl, who produced two- and three-word sentences in French at 18 months.)

However, every couple of weeks, my sister-in-law Elizabeth mentions something that Ellie said that proves that even short, sporadic contact with a speaker of another language is beneficial!  For example....

Elizabeth: Tatie is bringing Griffin and Gwyneth over this afternoon.
Ellie: Tatie say "bonjour"!

Ellie prepares to tackle her baby cousine

Elizabeth: Be gentle with Gwyneth!  She's just a baby.
Ellie: Tatie say "doucement"! (gently, softly, quietly)

Elizabeth: You're going to Gwyneth's house today.
Ellie: Doucement!

Ellie: Mommy, sing "tete"!  (She wanted to hear the French version of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.)

Ellie, while trying to to assemble the pieces of an apple puzzle: Mommy, put 'gether pomme (apple).

Run, run, run as fast as you can

Now, if only I could get all four children to sit still and let me read to them!

(Oh, and I've given up on trying to do mini French classes with them--when they're together, Carl and Griffin want to careen around the house and the yard, wrestle, hide, holler, and throw things, not play with puppets and sing songs in French with a grown-up!)

Ma'am, we heard you speaking English to that child. Hand over your mouse. From now on you're not allowed to blog about raising children bilingually!

Four and a half years ago, I started spending one afternoon a week with my baby nephew, Carl. His parents, while not French speakers themselves, had asked me if I'd like to try using only French with him, just to see what could happen. As a French teacher who was planning on having children myself down the road, I was delighted with the idea of being able to "practice" on my nephew!

I quickly discovered that maintaining a constant monologue in my second language with a baby could quickly becoming challenging, in between the gaps in my vocabulary knowledge and the lack of response from the baby. But as Carl and my French baby lexicon grew, this process also grew easier.

I learned more songs, rhymes, and fingerplays (and invented others), read to him constantly, took him on walks to show him the world, and played with him--all in French, all the time. All along, I had been determined never to speak English to him. (Like OPOL, but OTOL--one Tatie, one language.)

Because I had never spent that much time with a child that young, I didn't realize that the fact that Carl was making two- and three-word sentences in French at age 18 months was remarkable. It just felt natural that he would start putting words together in French with me the same way he was doing in English with everyone else. My notes from that summer even show one four-word sentence, prompted by my jotting down notes about what he was saying: "Tatie ecrit stylo livre" (~Tatie's writing with her pen in a book)! It has since become clear to me that lots of kids don't communicate that well in their first language even at age two, despite the fact that their parents have given them just as much attention and input and stimulus.

Carl is one enfant incroyable!

But after Griffin was born, right when Carl turned two, everything changed. I stopped babysitting Carl once a week. While we still saw a lot of each other, it was usually at family gatherings, where he would hear me speak English with all the adults. Even when I encouraged him to talk to his new cousin in French "because Griffin only speaks French," he'd look at me scornfully and reply, "Tatie, Griffin can't talk yet."

As a result, Carl heard less and less French. He'd listen to a French CD or video now and then, and his mom would read to him some in French--I loaned them lots of board books and picture books--but he was reading on his own at age three and quickly developed a preference for nonfiction. (Or perhaps more accurately, he continued to demonstrate his independence in his taste in books, along with everything else.)

When Griffin was a toddler, my sister-in-law and I started taking turns watching the boys on Wednesday mornings--once a week at my house, once a week at hers. But even when I had two precious hours with just Carl and Griffin, they always wanted to play and yell and run, not sit down and let me read to them. I gave up trying to plan "lessons" for Carl's visit and just let the garcons be garcons.

However, it has become harder and harder to speak French to Carl, much more so even than when we were just starting out on this journey. As he loses his French, his speech gets more complex and sophisticated in English. Our conversations are simple, sometimes stilted, with me relying more and more on cognates, expression, and gestures to convey meaning. Often I can't answer his complicated questions--"Tatie, why won't Griffin go poop in the potty?" "What is hummus and why are we having it for a snack when Griffin and I want cookies?"--and resort to "Parce qu'il est petit" (because he's little) and "Je ne sais pas" (I don't know). And when Carl attended one of my French storytimes, he got bored right away because there was so much he didn't understand.

To my surprise, though, Carl has never actively rejected French. He doesn't ask me why I speak it with him and Griffin but no one else (maybe he thinks that aunts just have to speak another language with little boys). He doesn't insist that I speak English with him. He doesn't ask me to play music in English instead. He doesn't seem to notice that Griffin speaks a mish-mash of English, French, and Griffinisms.

So while I'm disappointed that the French didn't stick for Carl, I'm thrilled that he still has an open mind about it, and I'm sure that when he goes to learn another language in school, he'll have an easier job of it because of his early exposure to a second language. And who knows, as our families grow, the boys may find that it's fun to have a "secret" language among their cousins.

Speaking of growing families....Two weeks ago, Carl's sister Eleanor was born. His parents dropped him off in the middle of the night on their way to the hospital. He was a little freaked out--his mom is in the car screaming, he's wearing his jammies and coat and shoes, and he's all of a sudden at Tatie's house when it's still dark. I held him in my arms--this big boy, almost five years old, who hardly ever stops moving long enough for me to give him a quick kiss on the top of his head!--I held him in my arms and rocked him and talked to him about what was going on.

But of course, I was speaking French, and that didn't help. In fact, having to filter ideas like "Mommy doesn't mean to scare you, she's just hurting because the baby is ready to come out" through French made it even harder for him to understand what was happening.

So for the first time in his entire life, I spoke English to my nephew. It was clearly what was necessary at the time; I don't regret it at all.

And you know what? The bilingualism police didn't come knocking at my door to take away my mouse and arrest me for inconsistency!

I'm back to only speaking French with Carl, but I'm relieved to know that my "lapse" didn't throw him off, and that if I do decide to use some English with him now and then (to answer his endless "why"s), it will just mean that I'm choosing to communicate rather than obfuscate.

Besides, I can start speaking French with baby Ellie, and since she'll hear her big cousin Griffin speaking it too, it might stick this time around! And then Carl will want to be able to understand what Ellie and Griffin are saying to each other, so that'll be great motivation for him to remember and replenish his French.....

This post was written for inclusion in the November Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism. Check it out!

guili guili

We celebrated my father-in-law's birthday last night, and to my delight, after one verse of "Happy Birthday to You," it was Carl who called out "Now in French!" and led the family in a round of "Joyeux Anniversaire."

The boys also took turns tickling each other and the rest of us, often accompanied by "Beau front," a rhyme that attributes mostly nonsense descriptions to facial features:

Beau front (beautiful forehead) (touch all the parts as you say them)
Beaux yeux (beautiful eyes)
Nez de cancan (nose like a rumor? nose like someone who spreads gossip? nose like the can-can dance? nose like a duck quacks? I'm not sure about the meaning of this one.)
Bouche d'argent (silver mouth)
Menton fleuri (floral chin)
Guili guili (gitchy-gitchy-goo!) (and then tickle the tummy)

Carl has certainly heard me say this, but Griffin has it memorized. When Carl saw Griffin doing "Beau front" to the rest of us, he tried to join in, but had to keep asking Griffin, "What's next?" or "What do you say for chin?" Griffin so admires Carl--he imitates everything he does these days, right down to his intonation and what he touches when he runs through a room)--that it was great to hear my son teaching his big cousin something for a change, especially since Carl speaks almost no French any more!

on being a non-native speaker

This post is part of the February 2010 Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism.

Nearly four years into this blog, I still have doubts about the practicality of raising my son bilingually and the possibility of teaching my nephew French. These days, I don't see Carl (my four-year-old nephew) often enough or for long enough periods of time to reinforce what French he already knows, much less give him new words. And now that he can read by himself in English, he devours books and doesn't need us grown-ups to read to him as much. (We did have a lot of fun three weeks ago, though, reading a bilingal English-French book about a monkey; Carl read the English, I read the French translation, and occasionally he would join in on the simplest sentences in French.)

What I really want is for Griffin and Carl to speak French together, but it's too soon for that to happen effectively right now, given that Griffin, is, you know, a two-year-old who still mispronounces a lot of words, leaves out other words, and makes up his own expressions for a lot of things. Throw in some often-mispronounced French words into his English sentences, and, well, sometimes even his daddy needs me to translate from Griffinese to English! There's no way that Carl can follow much of what Griffin says. I'm worried that once Carl starts kindergarten next year and he meets a school-full of Anglophone kids he won't see any point in speaking French at all.

But I have dreams of French becoming a special language for Carl and Griffin (and any future siblings), one in which they can whisper secrets to each other, tell stories in sandboxes and treehouses, and giggle in while playing with flashlights in sleeping bags at cousin slumber parties. I can picture Carl coming over to our house for a sleepover en francais, where we have croques monsieur for dinner, then play board games like Loto and La roue de la fortune, and finally fall asleep watching Kirikou et la sorciere or Caillou.

I think for now what's important is for me to keep speaking French around Carl but not force him to respond in kind and to keep exposing him to fun stuff like music, books, and videos in French. Give it time. Just give it time and don't pressure him.

Then there's Griffin, our darling boy who has just entered the "terrific twos," who will walk down stairs holding my hand on one side and his daddy's hand on the other, and turn to him and say, "Be careful!" and then swivel his head to me and caution, "Doucement!" He'll ask Maman for a "bisou" and an instant later clamor for a "kiss!" from Daddy. Living in two languages doesn't seem to faze him in the least.

It fazes me, though. I'm not a native speaker of French; no one in our family is. I spent two school years in France (one as a college student and one as a high school English teachers), majored in French, got a masters degree in French, taught university French for seven years, and even directed plays in French; still, everyday interactions with Griffin send me flying to the dictionary.

At first it was baby-related vocabulary: my French textbooks never taught me how to say, for example, "After two hours of pushing and seventeen hours of labor without an epidural I just wanted him the hell out of my ya-ya" or "Griffin just had a diaper blow-out all over his onesie while he was sleeping in the bouncy chair."

Now it's a linguistic race to keep up with him and describe what we're doing and why and what next!

As he started to grow and pay attention to the world around him, I tried to narrate everything I did in French. Even when I was living in France I never spoke so much French in one day! In only three stituations have I spoken English to Griffin: when he's asleep and I feel like I'll burst if I don't address him in my mother tongue; when his daddy and I are singing duets; and when we attend storytime at the library (where it would be strange and rude for me not to participate).

Reading to Griffin usually entails a vocabulary challenge for me, because so often he hands me a book in English that I have to translate on the fly. Just yesterday, during Bear Snores On, I encountered the following words and expressions that I never had to say before in French: "badger," "wren," "gopher*," and "an itty-bitty mouse, pitter-pat, tip-toe, creep-crawls in the cave from the fluff-cold snow." I do a lot of circumlocuting these days!

And since I don't have time (or don't make time, rather) to read to myself in French these days or call my friends in France to chat, and I'm not hanging out with French teachers on a daily basis, my own French is degenerating. I have noticed sloppy pronunciation, incorrect articles and pronouns, imprecise vocabulary! (Does this mean I now sound like a child or teenager?) Even two and a half years ago, when I was still teaching at Colorado State, I worried that I wasn't good enough to teach French to my baby nephew.

This hit home last week when I was talking to Griffin at the library. A woman overheard us and expressed amazement--not that Griffin was being raised bilingually, but that she could understand me! "This is so great!" she enthused. "I never got it when my teachers spoke French to us, but I understand everything you say! You speak so nice and slow!"

Dear readers, I wasn't speaking slowly on purpose! It was my normal rate!

I am so far from being a native speaker of French I sometimes wonder if I'm doing him a disservice linguistically and (more importantly) will later regret depriving myself of that maternal intimacy that comes from speaking one's native language with one's child. And what will happen as he grows up and only has the kids at French playgroup to converse with?

I still strongly believe at birth is an ideal time to start teaching languages, and I do think that non-native speakers are very capable of teaching their second (or third or fourth...) language. I just have doubts sometime about this particular non-native speaker.

*I now know that, shockingly, "un gaufre" is a gopher and "une gaufre" is a waffle. Pity the sleepy diner who thinks she's ordering a delectable breakfast pastry and ends up with a rodent in maple syrup instead!

cavorting with Carl--but no bugs allowed!

February 2006

In the months after Griffin entered our world and turned it topsy-turvy, I missed many things previously taken for granted--the sensation of being in control of my life, the very real possibility of seven or eight uninterrupted hours of sleep most nights, theatre and dinner dates with my hubby, bras not designed for lactation. But I also missed my Thursday afternoons with Carl (born January 31, 2006).

October 2006

We would sing and play and eat and take walks, all en francais! By the time Carl first bonked me on the head and pronounced it a "tete!" (head), I was a goner. Head over heels with my nephew and with the idea of helping him learn a second language. Imagine my delight when he was regularly saying two- and three-word sentences in French at 18 months!

March 2007

I had been taking care of my nephew one afternoon a week for almost two years. (In fact, I went into labor a couple of hours after coming home from Carl's house the day before Griffin was born, around the time that the following photo was taken!)

January 2008

Watching Carl was so valuable for me on so many levels--I learned what it was like to spend hours at a time with an infant, then a toddler; I developed more patience, persuasiveness, and creativity; I became the recipient of countless beaming grins and hugs, giggles and kisses, rocking chair cuddles and silly sing-alongs. And lucky me--I experienced all this while sharing and teaching and learning in French.

March 2008

But once Griffin arrived (January 26, 2008), I couldn't spend five hours at a time one-on-one with Carl. My afternoons of babysitting stopped, and with them, Carl's French "lessons" with me (as well as my intention to blog regularly--oh well. I'm back now!). Our families saw each other less often, and Griffin was usually the center of attention when we did get together. Carl's spoken language (in English) rocketed, and he started attending preschool.

French slipped to the side, though he never actually rebelled against it or wanted me to speak English to him instead. Throughout most of 2008 and 2009, when I did see him and speak French, he showed no interest in responding in French. (Now he's at the point where he'll announce, "I can speak some French," or sing "Frere Jacques," or inform me, "Tatie, that's a camion, not a voiture" when we're playing cars together.)

October 2008

A while back (don't ask me how long--the first 15 months or so of Griffin's life seem just a blur to me now), Elizabeth (Carl's mom, my husband's sister) and I decided to try to get the boys together once a week. She'd watch them for two hours at her house, and I'd have them the next week at mine. At first, these playdates were painful: Carl was frustrated that Griffin didn't/wouldn't do what he wanted him to; I was frustrated that both boys wouldn't sit quietly and let me read to them in French; Griffin was frustrated because Carl and I were frustrated. At times I would stare at the clock, amazed that only 45 minutes had passed, dismayed that I had to keep them entertained and me sane for over an hour longer. (I remain in awe of single parents, parents of muliples, parents who have one baby and one or more other children, in fact. You guys rock.)

January 2009

I remember one morning last year in particular, when Griffin was walking and talking and Carl was a preschooler. In a fit of optimism brought on by a rare full night's sleep and a pang when thinking about my days as a full-time university instructor, I planned out a French lesson for the boys, all about bugs. I gathered books about bugs (La chenille qui faisait des trous, a nonfiction imagerie called Les insectes), my hand-made puppets for teaching The Very Hungry Caterpillar, bug toys (a hand-me-down stuffed butterfly that giggles, a wooden caterpillar, a butterfly teether), nursery rhymes featuring bugs ("Elle a des pois sur son manteau"), songs about butterflies ("Papillon vole, vole, vole gracieusement" by Muriel), and so forth. Envisioning watching the boys "fly" around the house while chanting my favorite French rhyme about ladybugs...

Elle a des pois sur son manteau
Et deux antennes sur son chapeau
Des petites ailes
Pour se faire belle
C'est Madame la Coccinelle!

...thrilled me. I was going to be able to continue to teach French to Carl after all! Carl and Griffin would grow up speaking French together!

Well, that one morning flopped so spectacularly that I haven't deliberately tried to teach Carl anything since! He wouldn't even color the pictures of insects I had prepared, much less repeat vocabulary words after me, make the toy butterfly soar whenever he heard papillon in the butterfly song, or sit still while I read the caterpillar book aloud.

Still, Carl doesn't protest when I speak French to him--and he was visibly surprised and indignant when he realized that Griffin understands words and phrases that he doesn't! (Like when the three of us are reading together, and I ask where a certain thing is in the picture, and Griffin will point to it right away while Carl's still trying to figure out what I mean.)

April 2009

So I'll keep trying to make learning French fun but keep the didactic bits low-key around Carl for now. As Elizabeth has noted, something's working, because he does speak French (or talk about speaking French) now and then. If anything changes, I'll let you all know!

October 2009

Griffin's "uh-oh" book

This delightful little tome, Blue Hat, Green Hat, by the ever-popular, always-silly Sandra Boynton was the first book that Griffin asked for by name early this year as he was learning to talk. As you can see from the illustrations, it tells the story of a turkey who just can't quite figure out how to get dressed. The other animals wear their clothes on the appropriate body parts, but not the turkey. Each time he shows up with, say, a shoe on his head or fully clothed to dive into a swimming pool, we see the word "oops" above him.

Since I didn't know how to say "oops" in French, when I read this book to Griffin and Carl, I would substitute "uh-oh," a word that Griffin loved to announce (occasionally even before he threw the toy out of the crib or the food off the high chair tray, thereby serving as a useful warning).

(Note: I have since learned that the French word for "oops" is, well, "oups.")

Anyway, Griffin quickly learned to chime in on the "uh-oh"s when I read this to him, and he soon began pointing to it and saying "uh-oh" to indicate that he wanted to hear it again. What a thrill to see my one-year-old requesting a book by name, even before he could say much more than "no" and "more" and "bear" and "lolo"!

Blue Hat, Green Hat, is also the first book that Carl "read" out loud in French, since he knew the names for colors and articles of clothing, and he'd crack up every time he came to the "uh-oh"!

PS: I really, really wish I could find the French equivalent of Sandra Boynton--board books for toddlers that rhyme and tell stories using goofy pictures. (We do have a lot of kids' books in French for Griffin, but most of them are nonfiction and serious, not fun and funny.) Any recommendations?

PPS: I even emailed Ms. Boynton to ask if we can ever expect any professionally-translated versions of her books in French! As Adriana points out in the comments below, several have been translated into Spanish, including Doggies, Moo Baa La La La, and our beloved Blue Hat, Green Hat. Here is the response from Pam Boynton:

"Sandra Boynton's books have been translated into Spanish, but not into French. I believe this is a decision that is made by her publishers. I will let her know of your interest in French translations and we thank you for writing!"

Maybe if all my francophile readers write in and request French translations, Ms. Boynton's publishers will reconsider! If you wish, please contact her at info@pfboynton.com and leave a comment below letting us know. On behalf of Griffin, Carl, and French-speaking children around the world, merci beaucoup!

every time I think that Carl has completely forgotten his French...

Two anecdotes from Elizabeth, Carl's mom:

Yesterday after his nap, Carl came downstairs, looked at the bookshelves, and picked out the French-English dictionary. After looking through the pages quietly for several minutes, he brought it over to me and said,"Mommy, I want to show you 'voiture'." So I showed him how to find V for voiture, and how the dictionary shows it means "car," and then we found "car" in the English part and how it means "voiture."

Why, yes, he was at his cousin Griffin's earlier that morning, why do you ask?

I tape our Christmas cards to the dining room wall every year for decoration. Carl was looking at a card with 'Noel' on the front. He said, "That card is from Tatie, because it has a French word on it."

(Sarah adds: Yes, this three-year-old can read!)

Er, hi. I mean, bonjour! Yeah, that's it. Bonjour.

What, another apologetic post about not posting?

Er, yes.

All is well.

Sorry for not writing, not reading, not answering your emails, not doing my column for MLL, not posting pictures of our growing Griffin.

Griffin's vocabulary at fourteen months:
Mama
Dada
Uh-oh
Hi
No
Yeah
Yay (means "yes"--perhaps a combination of English "yes" and French "oui"?)
Doh (means "open the door," "open the gate to let me climb the stairs," or "let's go outside and play")
Arf

He also does a monkey call and puts his hands on his hips in imitation of a monkey (he can't quite manage to scratch his armpits yet).

Carl's vocabulary:
In English: It has absolutely exploded! He is amazingly articulate.
In French: He rarely speaks in French, but still understands a lot of what I say. And from time to time, he announces, "Tatie speaks French. I speak French a little. Why do I speak French? Why does Tatie speak French?"

Sarah's vocabulary:
I make mistakes ALL THE TIME in French now.
(Of corse, I also make mistaks in Englesh too, I is still sleep-deprived. Durn baby.)

More later....

"Tatie, Griffin doesn't talk!"

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

(Scene: Griffin and Carl's grandparents' home.)

CARL: Shall we talk about the room? That's a plant with flowers. That's the door and it's open. The door shouldn't be open.

TATIE (aside): This is a great opportunity to encourage Carl to communicate in French with someone other than me! This is exactly what I've been waiting for.

TATIE: Griffin ne voit pas bien. Carl, tu peux décrire la salle pour Griffin? Tu expliques ce qu'il y a dans la salle? [Griffin doesn't see well. Can you describe the room for Griffin? Can you explain what's in the room?]

CARL: Yeah.

TATIE (as if sharing a secret): Mais attention, it faut parler français. Griffin ne parle pas anglais. Griffin parle français! [But watch out, you have to speak French. Griffin doesn't speak English. Griffin speaks French!]

CARL (matter-of-fact): Tatie, Griffin doesn't talk.

(CARL exits stage right to chase the cat. GRIFFIN squirms. TATIE sighs.)

THE END

Carl's maman's perspective

This is a guest post by Elizabeth!

Since Tatie became a busy maman, to say that Carl's exposure to the French language has decreased is an understatement. So now that he's without his weekly private lessons of conversation and music, what's he doing?

Well, Carl's a two-year-old, so attempts by Mommy or Daddy to push the language ("Wouldn't you really like to listen to this lovely CD of French songs, Carl?") are often met with "No no no!" He hasn't dismissed it entirely, however. Leave him alone to make his own choices, and Carl will select something in French maybe one time in five.

One of his favorite French books is Le petit autobus. Reading the book often leads to "playing bus," where Carl sits in an old cardboard box which Mommy pushes around the room. When the box stops, Carl insists that Mommy say, "Terminus, tout le monde descend!" ("End of the line, everybody out!") whereupon Carl then gets out of the box. When we last played that game, Carl got into the box and said, "Carl's the bus driver." After a short pause, he then asked, "What's 'bus driver' in French?" (le conducteur)

Carl has his own laptop now, and with a little help can navigate to the Tumblebooks website. Sometimes we try a French book, but he rarely sits through the whole story. The pronunciation's got to be better than when Mommy reads in French, but probably most of the stories there are just too far beyond his language comprehension.

If Carl chooses to listen to a French CD, these days it's likely to be Muriel's World. He hasn't tried singing any of the songs from it, though. What he will sing is "Frère Jacques," or more recently, "Sur le Pont d'Avignon."

"Sur le Pont" is no longer a "Tatie only" song. Mommy can sing it too, as long as she's also dancing with Carl. He got that idea from watching Moustache, which he seems to find perfectly entertaining despite its blatant teaching format. He also enjoys watching Brainy Baby French, even though he's long since past its simple vocabulary.

Carl does seem interested in expanding his French vocabulary. Periodically he'll ask what a word is in French, such as with "bus driver" above. Other recent word requests include "French Fries" (pommes frites), "lemonade" (limonade), "Teddy Bear grahams" (um, biscuit ours?), and "Pringle Sticks" (we gave up on that one). Yes, there's definitely a food trend going on. Last night at the dinner table his mind must have been on something else, however, as instead of asking about food he began spontaneously counting. He made it from un (one) to six (six), then Mommy prompted him with "What's next?" until neuf (nine), and after Mommy gave him dix (ten), he continued on his own until treize (thirteen). Not bad, considering even in English he's only up to twenty.

Finally, Carl does get a little conversation practice when Tatie comes visiting. He never demands she speak English to him, even though he hears her do so with everyone else. He seems to comprehend her questions in French, although he answers in English. It will be interesting to see if and how Carl's interest and ability in French change once his cousin Griffin gets old enough to start speaking it too.
PS from Sarah: If anyone knows what "Teddy Grahams" or "Pringle Sticks" would be called in French, please click on "comments" and let us know!

"Only Tatie sings 'Sur le pont'!"

Carl is getting picky about who speaks which language to him: his dad recently started singing "Sur le pont d'Avignon," and Carl glared at him and said "No! Only Tatie sings 'Sur le pont'!"

(Besides making me laugh, this comment also showed me that Carl knows this French folk song well enough to identify it by name, even though I can't remember ever explicitly telling him the title. In fact, I even change the lyrics when I sing it to him after his nap! But then again, as I noticed when he was a baby, he seems to prefer this tune over all other French songs!)

remembering the early days with Carl

Now that I've got my own would-be bilingual baby, it's fascinating for me to reread early blog posts about taking care of my nephew when he was Griffin's age! I'm finding that the experiences are quite similar. Here, in italics, is what I had to say almost two years ago, in a post entitled "Afternoons with Carlicot"….

I've been babysitting Carl from 11:45 to 4:45 on Thursdays since his mom went back to work. After a month of this, I have been able to establish that he doesn't like naps, feels good after burps, has an infectious smile, and generally pays attention to me when I talk or sing to him in French. In fact, his face lit up the first time I serenaded him with "Savez-vous planter les choux?" He reacts the same way, of course, when people address him in English.

As for Griffin, he definitely has the infectious smile as well. He watches people's faces intently when they speak or sing to him--in fact, he's quite the little flirt!

Initially I felt silly talking to an infant about anything, much less narrating our afternoon in French. I'd point to things in the room or out the window and describe them to him. I'd list his body parts, his family members, and what we were going to do that afternoon. But after a couple of hours, it seemed like I was already repeating myself. (And it's disconcerting not to get any reaction, not even groans when I came up with bad bilingual puns.) So I'd grab a board book about counting dinosaurs or loving bunnies and read it to him, translating it into French and describing the pictures. And music helps a lot, especially when I can't think of what else to say. While I don't know a lot of French children's songs, I can regale him with "Les Champs-Elysées" and "Étoile des neiges" and the aforementioned cabbage song.

I feel pretty much the same way now--it's still hard for me to talk so much to anyone, much less someone who can't reply. And of course I spend more time with Griffin than I did with Carl! I've stopped forcing myself to speak to him during his every waking moment--I'm still way too exhausted to do that even if I gave myself permission to do it in English.

But now I have many more French-for-children resources than I did back then. I'm making a point to play lots of French songs for Griffin (and I know dozens more by heart now, thanks to all the CDs I've accumulated while taking care of Carl). We have lots of French books now, so I don't have to translate our English ones on the fly. And I'm learning more comptines (finger plays and nursery rhymes), because those really appeal to babies.

(I do still sing my favorite "adult" songs in French to him as well!)

And after a couple of weeks, speaking to him in French started to feel more natural and I stopped expecting responses to my questions. I'm learning songs off the one French kids' CD I have and making some new ones up as I go along. ("Fais do-do, Carlicot, va dans le monde des rêves, fais do-do, petit Carl, on s'amuse quand tu te lèves! Tu as besoin de faire une sieste, dans ton berceau tu restes..." to the tune of the lullaby song. You know, it's a lot easier to rhyme in French than in English!)

I've continued to make up songs for Carl, and now I'm doing the same for Griffin.

I also have about a dozen fairy tale cassette tapes with picture books accompanying them. The ones we've listened to so far are quite short--only about ten minutes apiece--but I suspect they will prove to be good input for several reasons: the narrator is a native speaker of French and the illustrations help the child understand the story. When he's a bit bigger, I can start leaving a few in his room for his parents to play for him. I'm also going to seek out some other music and story CDs. (Is this a good time for me to talk my husband into a trip to a francophone country soon? I suppose I can find plenty to order online. Sigh.)

Oh, I'd forgotten about the fairy tale tapes! I quickly realized that an infant isn't the best audience for a picture book-on-tape (at least, not those ones)--he doesn't understand a thing being said and can't focus on the detailed pictures. But Carl's probably old enough now to listen to them and "read" along.

I never did find more tapes or CDs with stories, but I do have a few now with comptines.

And I did talk Ed into a trip to a francophone country eventually--we went to St. Martin before Griffin was born! (It's apparently a renowned shopping destination for cruise ship tourists--but we skipped the perfume and handbag shops and spent a couple of hours in a bookstore on the French side of the island instead.)

Here's what else I used to do in the early blog posts: include a glossary of the French terms from the post. Here's the glossary from the one quoted above:

Savez-vous planter les choux?: This is a children's song that teaches body parts. Its English translation goes like this: "Do you know how to plant cabbage the way we do here? We plant them with our [insert body part here and repeat the chorus and then embark on a new verse with a different body part]. " It's very cheerful and also extremely repetitive--ideal qualifications for an educational children's song! Plus I can poke or grab his toes, nose, elbow, bellybutton, etc. to help him learn the words. (We are creative gardeners here in Lafayette, yes.)

Etoile des neiges: This is a song I learned when studying abroad in Chambéry, France. When I spent New Year's Eve with her family in their chalet in Combloux, just across the valley from Mont Blanc in the Alps, they taught me this traditional song of the region. The title translates as "star of the snow" and refers to the sparkle of light that reflects off of pristine alpine snow. The song tells the story of a young man and his love who are separated because he has no money and must leave Savoie to become a chimney sweep in the big city (a situation very typical in the 19th and early 20th centuries). He of course comes back to her in the springtime and they are wed. Not a children's song, per se, but lovely and melodic.

Les Champs-Elysées: This iconic tune was made famous by French singer Joe Dassin in the 1960s and has been perpetuated by high school French teachers around the world ever since. It's a chaste love song about a couple who meet on the most celebrated street in the world, the Champs-Elyséees in Paris, and spend the night dancing and singing in a basement. It's also as infectious as Carl's grin. I find myself singing it often just by myself; in fact, at least one monolingual ex-boyfriend confessed to knowing the words after being around me long enough (without ever understanding what the song is about). Will my monolingual husband learn it too? Stay tuned!

(Note: two years later, Ed recognizes the melody, even if he doesn't sing along.)

Fais do-do: Faire do-do (v.): to go to sleep (baby talk); from "dormir" (v.), to sleep; also "un fais do-do" (n.m.), a traditional cajun dance party in Louisiana where the participants bring their kids who typically fall asleep to the accordeon music while their parents do the two-step

Carlicot: My nickname for my nephew. Steve and Elizabeth [his parents] call him their "bean," which is "haricot" in French. Calling him "Carlicot" just sounds good to me. (The "t" is silent.) Moreover, "ot" is a fairly common diminuitive suffix for male names in French: Pierrot, Jacquot. Carlicot the haricot! Awww. (Trust me, a nonsense French word is much preferable to how my brother-in-law referred to him initially: the bologna loaf.)

And now, speaking of nicknames, here's a new addition to the glossary:

Lionceau (n.m.): Lion cub. This is my favorite nickname for Griffin (after all, a gryphon is half-lion!).

Qui parle avec Carl?

(Translation: Who's speaking with Carl?)

My parents recently spent a week and a half with us to help out with Griffin. I was also eager to introduce my mom to my nephew Carl, since she speaks French and he's now two years old and speaking some French himself!

Their meeting didn't go as well as I had anticipated--Carl isn't used to having anyone other than me and occasionally his mom address him in French. But even after he warmed up to her and tolerated her questions, he didn't always know how to respond, because the words she employed were often different from the ones he had heard from me! For example, there are two terms in French for the color brown: marron and brun. I tend to use the former, but she the latter, so he couldn't tell her if his toy car is rouge or brun. I imagine Carl stayed silent because he knew it wasn't rouge but wasn't sure what brun meant. Another time she asked him if the glass was vide (empty) or plein (full), and I realized that those were opposites I had not yet exposed him to. And then I started thinking about all the other opposites--and then ALL the other words--he has yet to master, and I started feeling discouraged and overwhelmed.

I wish I could bring Carl together with other French speakers, adults or kids, because it'll be a while before his cousin Griffin can converse with him, and because he needs to hear the language from as many people as possible! I need to start working on meeting local francophiles with young children so we can establish a francophone playgroup!

I'm also worried that Carl will make less progress, or even forget some of his French, now that I'm not watching him regularly. (Taking care of Griffin makes it hard for me to take care of myself, much less an active toddler!)

recent Carl-isms

I can't figure out a way to tie all of these recent sayings of Carl's into a coherent post, so today it'll just be a list (heavy on his use of prepositions, which can seemingly function as any part of speech from verb to adjective to preposition)!

Tonton come over minute. (~ I want Uncle Ed [my husband] to come play with me soon.)

Carl sauting. (~ I'm jumping [sauter = to jump]

Want fait tchin-tchin. (~ I want to clink glasses with you. [Interestingly, when he asks his mom to clink with him, he says "do tchin-tchin." ])

Thé not froid. (~ Tatie's tea isn't cold.)

Carl done dodo. (~ I'm done with my nap.)

Owl neige. (After hearing me say "il neige"--it's snowing--a lot while watching the snow fall, in reference to dropping his stuffed owl.)

Carl no touch pas le CD. (~ I'm not supposed to touch the CD.)

Want bavoir off. (Bavoir = bib; why did he say the noun in French when it's a word he knows well in English?)

Tatie off pantalon. (~ Tatie's taking off my pants.)

Tatie eat out pizza. (Okay, so this one isn't in French at all, but I thought it was a fun use of the preposition "out" as a modifier--i.e., Tatie's eating the pizza she took out of the box.)

Carl on lunettes. (~ I'm putting sunglasses on.)

And one more "fun with prepositions": Carl haut socks. (Haut = high or over; he said this as he lay on his back and put his feet in the air.)

Carl impresses a French prof

My former colleagues from CSU--many of whom are also close friends and/or mentors--threw me a baby shower yesterday. It was great fun and felt so warm and affectionate and supportive. As people asked about my intentions to raise Croissant bilingually, I inevitably ended up telling stories about my experiences with my nephew Carl.

For example, I described how just a few days ago, he counted from one to fifteen in French--but then continued with "eighteen, nineteen, twelve"!

His progress in French has been on my mind even more of late as I hear his fluency in English continue to increase. It's occurred to me, though, that he hasn't made amazing new breakthroughs in French in the past few months--yes, he can say four-word sentences in French, but not any more frequently than he did over the summer, and his sentences don't get any longer than that (unless he's repeating something I say more or less word-for-word). He's added a few new words to his French vocabulary, but not dozens. He seems to understand a lot of my speech, but usually responds in English to my questions. Accurately, appropriately, yes (thus convincing me that he really does know what I'm saying), but not in French. He doesn't sing/recite songs in French the way he does in English (like "B-I-N-G-O" during snack last week, dropping his crackers to clap in the right places, or "Happy Birthday to Book" while reading the dictionary).

Now, don't get me wrong--I'm not disappointed or discouraged, because I recognize that one afternoon a week of another language isn't enough to for a child to develop fluency, and I'm so proud of what he can already do. And I know that no one acquires language at a steady pace--there are fits and starts, regressions, fossilizations, jumps.

But talking with French prof Dr. Mary Vogl yesterday (that's her in the pink shirt in the above photo) really opened my eyes and reminded me of how remarkable his linguistic abilities already are. Mary and her husband are raising their two children (ages 3 and 5) trilingually: English, French, and Arabic (perhaps you saw my article about them earlier this year in Multilingual Living Magazine?). And now Latifah has started kindergarten at a bilingual (Spanish-English) immersion school. This family is such an inspiration to me!

Anyway, Mary was listening to me go on and on about my brilliant nephew, nodding, expressing admiration at the fact that he counts to 15 and has been making four-word sentences for four months or so now. "That's great," she said. "He's what? Three years old now?"

"Twenty-two months," I responded smugly.

Her jaw dropped. "He was saying four-word sentences in French as early as 18 months?"

Oui! Carlicot, you impressed a French professor (and one who knows what goes into raising children with more than one language). And that reinforced my belief that we've got a good thing going.

ode to clémentines and a happy Carl

I first encountered clementine oranges in 1996 while living in Mulhouse, France and teaching English. My roommate and I both came down with the flu simultaneously and for several days all we ate were clementines--so sweet, so juicy, so easy for feeble fingers to peel, so chock-full of desperately-needed vitamin C.

Ever since I have sought them out here in the US, and now they're easy to find. But as the grocery stores sell them in five-pound bags, I occasionally end up with a bad batch (not so sweet, not so easy to peel, getting soft and moldy on the bottom but hidden in the middle of the bag) and then am stuck with four and three-quarters pounds of less-than-optimum clementines. Or else I binge on them, eating a pound or two a day, and then don't want any more for weeks.

Anyway, it's clementine season and we've been buying bags of them (no yucky ones yet). I brought along a few while babysitting two weeks ago and offered pieces to Carl when it was time for his snack. His face lit up and he kept asking "encore, encore" for more clementines. As I sat there trying to save some segments for myself, the song "Oh my darlin' Clementine" was (inevitably) running through my head. I started playing around with the lyrics and thanks to the fact that "clementine" in French is "clémentine" (say it with a nasal middle syllable: clay-mon-teen), ended up with a song about Carl's newfound love for this delicious fruit:

Carl aime, Carl veut, Carl mange une clémentine
À la table avec Tatie et la clémentine il dîne.

(Carl loves, Carl wants, Carl eats a clementine
At the table with Auntie and the clementine he dines.)

Okay, so it sounds a lot better in French.

The other song I have recently rewritten for Carl's listening pleasure is "Sur le pont d'Avignon," a French folk song about dancing on the bridge in that town in southern France:

"Sur le pont d'Avignon,
On y danse, on y danse,
Sur le pont d'Avignon,
On y danse tous en rond."

(On the Avignon bridge,
We dance there, we dance there,
On the Avignon bridge,
We all dance there round and round.)

Again, it has more of a ring to it in French.

I developed my version of this classic when playing with Carl after he woke up from a nap a few weeks ago. He had thrown his stuffed animals out of the crib, so as I fetched them I made each one dance along the rails along the top of his crib. And since they were dancing round and round, it just made sense to adapt "Sur le pont d'Avignon":

"Sur le lit de Carlicot,
Hibou danse, Hibou danse
Sur le lit de Carlicot,
Hibou danse puis il tombe."

(On Carlicot's bed,
Owl dances, Owl dances
On Carlicot's bed
Owl dances then falls down.)

As I say "tombe," I let the stuffed animal fall into the crib. Carl pounces on it, holds it up to me, and cries "encore!" It's endlessly entertaining. Now he's at the point where he asks me to sing but makes the animals dance on his own. And when I pause before the last word, he cries out "tombe!" for me and drops the toy and laughs uproariously.

(Hey, it's not nearly as violent as "Alouette," that French children's classic about ripping a lark's head off.)

I love making up French songs for him and making him laugh! What songs have y'all invented for the children in your lives?

insulted by my nephew--but insulted in French!

Carl and I were talking about hair the other day as he played with my hairbrush. Here's a faithful transcript of our conversation:

Tatie: Tu te brosses les cheveux, Carl? (You're brushing your hair?)

Carl: Yeah.

Tatie: Tu veux brosser les cheveux de Tatie? (Do you want to brush Tatie's hair?)

Carl: Yeah.

Tatie: Est-ce que Tatie a les cheveux longs ou courts? (Does Auntie have short or long hair?)

Carl: Cheveux longs. (Long hair.)

Tatie: Et Maman? Est-ce que Maman a les cheveux longs ou courts?

Carl: Maman cheveux longs.

Tatie: Et Papa? Est-ce que Papa a les cheveux longs ou courts?

Carl: Papa cheveux longs.

Tatie: Tu es sûr? Je crois que Papa a les cheveux courts, comme toi. Carl et Papa ont les cheveux courts. (Are you sure? I think Daddy has short hair, like you. Carl and and Daddy have short hair.)

Carl: Tatie has nez long. (Auntie has a long nose.)

Well! I never! At least he's speaking French.

a new "Tatie Teaches a Toddler" column

You'll find my regular column about helping my nephew learn French in the latest issue of Multilingual Living Magazine. In this one, "Cheers for Carl," I describe what sorts of things in French and in English he could say and understand at a year and a half old--and how he could already use two- or three-word sentences (and one four-word sentence) in French to narrate his activities, describe what he saw, and make requests. (Yes, as you might expect from this budding gourmand, he would ask for food!)

Remember, subscriptions to the magazine are only $12 per year, and you can request a free copy of the current issue if you want to check it out! Just click here. This online magazine, sponsored by the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network, publishes a lot of short, useful articles for people raising their child with more than one language, and the experts like Fred Genesee often weigh in.