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.

caca, communication, conundrum

"Oh.  No.  The baby just had a diaper blow-out all over his onesie in the bouncy chair."

"Damn you, colic."

"Hey, don't play with that flange for my breast pump!  I just sterilized it!"

"Young man, we do not put our fingers in our noses.  We do not remove the boogers and wave them in the air.  And we certainly do not plunge our mucousy digits into our mouths to partake of their slimy saltiness."

"Nor do we eat our eye boogers."

"No, sweetie, those aren't your panties.  Those are the bloomers that match your dress and go over your panties so you don't flash passers-by while you do somersaults and climb on the jungle gym.  Isn't it great that you don't need to wear pull-ups any more?"

"Griffin, when you hit kids in your class, they won't want to be
your friends.  I know you're so smart and caring, but when you act like a bully, the other kids won't like you, and that breaks my heart."

"Sweetheart, Grandpa left us.  He was so sick that he just couldn't get better.  No, you can't sing '76 Trombones' to him over the phone to make him smile, and he can't hold you on his lap and read to you any more, and it breaks my heart, and I don't know how to answer your questions about what happens next.  Even in English.  All I can do is hold you and tell you je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime."

Holding someone does help.

These are just a few of the things I never learned how to say in French class but that I have had to express while raising my children in my non-native language!   (No high school or college foreign language curriculum covers vocabulary for convincing a toddler to go caca in the potty.)

As host of the June edition of the Raising Multilingual Children Blogging Carnival, trilingual mom Maria has asked us to write about our experiences raising children in our non-native language.  I feel like I expressed it best in this post after my daughter was born: "Second Language, Second Child."

Three years later not much has changed, except that I have a better grasp of the salient vocabulary and I panic less about things like colic and caca!

What I can say for certain after six years of parenting in my non-native language is that speaking French to my children forces me to pay attention to what I say to them, always.  Having to pause, even just a half-second, to find the right word or to put an indirect object pronoun in front of the verb where it belongs, means that my communication with them is purposeful, deliberate, heartfelt.  Speaking French in an English world means that I am constantly choosing to be present, alert, connecting with my children.

This challenge gift also means that my children and I share an intimacy, a linguistic complicity, that they don't have with anyone else.  It's special and precious (and it reinforces that old saying that French is the language of love!).

As Griffin grows older, his mind moving a million miles a minute, it's harder and harder to have conversations where I can fully and accurately express exactly what I want to say to him--why he needs to be compassionate, what's worth fighting for, how to put away his neatly folded clean clothes without wadding them all up into one drawer and losing socks along the way.

At some point, probably sooner that I'd like, I will be faced with a difficult decision: stubbornly staying in French no matter what--even if this entails losing nuance and muddying meaning and speaking haltingly--or resigning myself to the fact that I need to speak English with him because I am articulate and precise and funny and interesting in English, less so in French--thus sending the message that English is easier, more useful, and more important.  And maybe betraying myself and my blog.

What would you do?  What have you already done?

This post was written for the June edition of the Raising Multilingual Children Blogging Carnival.

language, literature, love

For this month’s installment of the Raising Multilingual Blogging Carnival, the host asked us to write about how we keep our children immersed in the target language--travel, games, music, and so forth.  While I wish I could say that we spend every summer in France, or that we have regular contact with native speakers via an extensive social circle and a Swiss au pair--or simply that my husband was fluent enough that we could speak exclusively French at home!--I realized that our solution is decidedly less complex.

Books.

Our children have heard me reading to them in French since before they were born, and not just because I work in a library and used to be a teacher.  As a non-native and far-from-perfect speaker of French, I knew that books were our golden ticket into French and Francophone culture and language.  In books, we--and especially our children, with their brain-sponges--encounter words that we might never use in a week, or a month, or a year.

In books, we hear dialogue at its best--flowing, clear, articulate, sassy, thought-provoking, and (generally) grammatically correct.

In children’s books and magazines, colorful illustrations accompany the text, allowing us to better understand the words and the story, giving us ideas about the book before we even start reading it.

Also, for parents like me, who learned French in school as teens and adults and never had to talk in their second language about dirty diapers, sippy cups, “love and logic” discipline, and which fast food restaurant has the cleanest indoor playground, children’s books give us that crucial daily dealing-with-a-baby-or-toddler vocabulary.

Because of books, I finally understand all the lyrics to the songs and rhymes that delight my children and keep them content during long car rides and when doing chores around the house.

If traveling opens doors for us, then books are windows into all those other places and people’s lives.  Because of my reading to him, Griffin knows what French children drink for breakfast (chocolat chaud in a bowl), what is sold in souks in Tunisia (a little bit of everything), and that not all contes de fée have truly happy endings.  (Gwyneth, on the other hand, knows that the cow goes “meuh,” that Madeline lives in Paris, and that board books with flaps to lift are the best. Thing. Ever.)  Every book I share with Griffin and Gwyneth is another window for our home.  When they’re ready to walk out our front door, they’ll know where they’re going (or at least how to talk to the folks when they get there).
 

I also read in French to my children for selfish reasons: poring over a book together gives me an excuse to snuggle with my oh-so-big almost-six-year-old son, that boy whose dinner conversation already tends toward monosyllables when we ask him what happened at school that day.  Reading with him allows us to laugh together, figure things out together, share our thoughts and questions--in other words, to have genuine conversations.  (The fact that it happens in the target language is just a bonus.)

And as for my daughter, who is two years old, and VERY two years old at that (willful, imperious, unpredictable, shrieky, simultaneously independent and helpless), books give her a reason to slow down, sit down, calm down.  She actually listens to me when I read to her. 

Oh, how sweet it is, to cuddle together in the rocking chair with a stack of books at my feet, her current favorite dolly tucked between us, making her giggle when I point out a funny picture or read a silly rhyme, watching her eyes grow wide when she is surprised or confused, aching with pride as she identifies which animal says “cocorico” and which vehicle goes “tchou tchou,” rolling my eyes and smiling when she tells me that the ladybug is rouge, and the banana is rouge, and the bathtub is rouge (“red” is the only color word she can say so far in either language).

The fact that this happens in the target language is just a bonus.
 

So I’m not just immersing Griffin and Gwyneth in a target language--I’m immersing them in books, cultivating their curiosity, helping them learn about life outside of our comfortable home, developing and maintaining strong bond.  I’m not just immersing them in French, I’m immersing them in a mother’s love.
 

The fact that this happens in the target language is, oui, just a bonus.

summertime slide

No, not that kind of slide.  That's the fun kind!

I've been volunteering at our public library's Homework Center since 2005, tutoring kids on a drop-in basis in whatever subjects they need help with, which means lots of math, lots of language arts, and occasionally everything else--even Spanish!  Very few students come in for French, unfortunately, though that's my favorite class to tutor.

However, a boy whom I have known for years now told me something that delighted me: he decided to take French in middle school because of me!  So now whenever he sees me around the library or the neighborhood, he greets me with a "Bonjour" and a "Ca va," and he even makes an effort to speak French to Griffin, too.  At the Homework Center this past school year, we reviewed vocabulary and played games and did worksheets in French together.

We even played a few games in French on my iPad!

His mother recently asked me for some suggestions of what he can do during summer vacation so as not to forget what he worked so hard during the school year to learn.  This phenomenon, known as the "summer slide," exists in all school subjects, but especially math, reading, and languages.  Use it or lose it, right?

And since getting a solid understanding of the basics the first year or so of language learning--as well as developing confidence and a genuine interest in the language--is so crucial to your success if you're hoping to continue with it, I want to help my young friend and all other language students find ways to have fun with it and keep practicing over the summer!

Griffin on his last day of preschool

(Hmmm....as I type this post, I recognize my hypocrisy: Griffin just completed nine months of Spanish immersion preschool, and other than taking him to the occasional Spanish storytime or helping him get through an Easy Reader book in Spanish, I have done nothing to help him review what he has learned. But our French time together is so precious, I don't want to replace any of it with Spanish right now, and his dad doesn't speak any Spanish!  Maybe my husband should start playing Spanish music for kids when Griffin's in the car with him.  We should find some Spanish lullabies for bedtime, too.)

So as long as I'm preparing a list for my favorite middle school French student, I may as well share it here on the blog.  Your suggestions, ideas, and questions, as always, are very welcome!  This post will provide some general advice for children (or adults!) learning any language but on vacation for a few months; my next post will offer specific resources for young students of French.

What, you're not here either?

If money is no object (ha!  if that were true you'd probably be reading this while yachting off St. Bart's and would roll your eyes and say "duhhh" when I suggest that you travel with your kids):

• Hire a nanny or au pair who is a native speaker who will live with you and interact with the whole family in the target language for the summer
• Engage a private tutor who can spend an hour or two a day with your children
• Travel to a country where the language is spoken and sign your children up for summer camps, music lessons, and similar activities
• Send your children to the Concordia Language Villages (Minnesota) or Middlebury College (Vermont), where they can attend residential immersion camps (or day camps) in over a dozen languages; Concordia even offers camps and classes for the entire family!

campers at Concordia's Russian village

If any of the following are available in your area:

• Sign your children up for day camps in the language (such as this one at a private school near us in Boulder or these at the Denver International School).
• Sign your children up for classes that meet weekly during the summer (such as this one offered at a children's museum in Lafayette or these at the Alliance Francaise in Denver).
• Take your children to language-specific storytimes at libraries (such as these ones in French in Boulder County or this onehttp://www.francedc.org/events/?id=71 at the Alliance Francaise in Washington, DC).
• Host an exchange student who speaks the language.

For example, the Alliance Francaise in Denver offers art classes for kids in French!

If your children are more or less beginners (after a year of middle or high school language study, a semester of college, or some exposure via camps, travel, or family members), encourage them to try the following:

• Play games in the language on a computer, tablet, or smart phone (such as these apps for games and interactive books in French).
• Modify games that you already know or own so that they are in the target language (such as writing a letter of the alphabet on each square of Chutes and Ladders, prompting the players to say a word that begins with that letter; hangman; Go Fish).
• Read and reread a little every day--the stories and articles and dialogues from your textbook, song lyrics, kids' books, comic strips.
• Watch videos (songs, cartoons, movie clips) in the language on YouTube, especially those with the words onscreen (such as these easy tunes in French).
• Watch familiar movies with the soundtrack and/or subtitles in the target language.
• Borrow language-learning videos from the library and see if any of them appeal to you; it's probably not worth purchasing them unless the child is fairly young and will tolerate multiple viewings that don't bring anything new.
• Borrow language-learning CDs, DVDs, and books from the library; purchase the one you like best to listen to in the car and at bedtime.
• Try out Rosetta Stone or Mango Languages software.

one of my Pinterest playlists of French music videos

If your children are at an intermediate or advanced level, encourage them to do all of the above, plus:

• Write letters or emails to teachers, classmates, friends, or family in other countries, then read their replies.  
• Try to find a new kid "keypal" (email penpal) who speaks the language!
• Sign up with LiveMocha to do conversational language exchanges online for free.
• Watch unfamiliar movies and television shows in the target language, with or without English subtitles, depending on the student's level.
• Stream radio stations, news reports, and podcasts to develop listening comprehension skills (we like Radio Ouistiti for French).

the LiveMocha logo

And, of course, read:

• Read, read, read, and then read some more!  
• Read books for children and magazines for adults and simplified stories for students and short stories and plays and essays and newspapers and restaurant menus and comic strips.
• Reread the stories and articles and dialogues from your textbook.  
• Read the French translation of a favorite, familiar book in English.  
• Listen to a story online and read along with the words.  
• Read lyrics while listening to music.  
• Read websites on any topic that interests you (skateboarding? politics? art?  Justin Bieber?) and online newspapers and blogs.
• Then reread the ones you liked best--you'll always understand more and read more fluently on subsequent readings.

Moreover, to increase familiarity with and interest in the cultures and countries where the language is spoken, your child could:

• Read books in English (fiction and nonfiction) about or set in the country.
• Watch movies in English that take place in the country.
• Watch documentaries and travel shows in English about the country (check your public library and Netflix's streaming service).
• Visit websites about the country, its history, its art and architecture, and other cultural aspects.
• Read cookbooks focusing on the country and then prepare some traditional foods.
• Interview (or simply chat with) people who have visited or lived in the country.
• Take virtual tours of museums and cities via websites and apps.
• Research a singer or musical group in a genre that interests you--find out how they got famous, what characterizes their music, which songs they are best known for, what the critics have to say, and which other musical acts are similar.
• Using travel guides from the library and online research, plan your dream trip--what places would you visit and why?  What would you do there?  What would you eat?  Where would you stay?
• Go on a virtual shopping spree via websites for department stores, supermarkets, and other shops in the country--decorate your dorm room, update your wardrobe, buy a scooter, furnish your home, do the grocery shopping for a fancy party.

So what are you waiting for!  School starts back up soon--don't let yourself lose more of that language!

"je parle français" in Brain, Child Magazine!

Based on the advice of the amazing teacher, writer, and mother Kelly Feinberg, my friend (and one-third of the inspiration for my daughter's middle name, "Kellamarie"), I subscribed to Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers sight unseen nearly five years ago, when Griffin was an infant.  (Kelly herself was a subscriber even before she married!)

I have thoroughly enjoyed the magazine's thought-provoking and in-depth articles, essays, short stories, debates, book reviews, and letters.  And I felt so excited for Kelly when she had her essay "This Sucks"--about her abrupt weaning of her baby boy after a mastectomy--published in Brain, Child.  (And then, proud and sad when she won a Pushcart Prize for the essay the following year.  Posthumously.)

Part of me, deep down, has wanted to write for the magazine myself too, but I've been content noodling around on this blog (for 6.5 years now!) and doing a series of articles and columns for Multilingual Living.  However, when the previous issue invited readers to respond to the question "How is the way in which you are raising your children different from how you yourself were raised?", I knew that "Bilingually!" would be my reply.

And--yay!--my 200-word answer to their question joins 12 other readers' responses in the current issue of Brain, Child (Winter 2013, page 7).  Subscribe (or buy a sample issue) here!

Profile: non-native English with Dani's son in Spain

Here at Bringing up Baby Bilingual, we hear a lot about being non-native speakers of the languages we are using with our families.  (I’m kind of obsessed with this idea, as I’ve been living it for nearly four years now.)  Regular readers and commenters like Kate at German in the Afternoon, Elizabeth at La Mother Tongue, Monika at Slices of Life, and Tamara at Non-Native Bilingualism, for example, are raising their children bilingually, as are some of the parents featured in profiles here: Tracy, THW, and Jeanne, to name a few.


But so far, we have primarily met English-mother-tongue mothers who are living in the US or the UK but choose to use another language with their children.  Today, however, I’m delighted to introduce Dani, a Spanish man living in Spain, married to a fellow Spaniard, who has embraced the challenge of teaching their toddler son his own non-native English.


Please join me in welcoming Dani and his family to my blog!

Who are the members of your family?

Papi: 30 years old, born in Madrid, working (in Madrid) for a British multinational (insurance business). As everyone in Spain, I learnt English at the school following the standard WRONG method that we all suffer in this country, i.e. memorizing lists of vocabulary, learning just through reading, no listening, no speaking… awful. Then at 23 after some intensive courses and some practice I spent seven months working in Ireland (customer attention) which meant a great boost in my fluency. Since then I have continued learning every day and now I use English at work about 30% of the time on a daily basis. I spent also 2.5 years working for a German company and I learned German until level C1 (a little above intermediate) but I’m now losing almost everything, since I stopped when my little punk was born. I also speak some Italian (only some). I found out that I love languages a little bit late, and now I’d like to have the time to study and practice more.

Mum: 33 years old, born in Madrid, works (in Madrid and one to two days a week traveling) for an engineering company. She didn’t spend time abroad but still she understands English pretty well and speaks English well enough to maintain a conversation. She is absolutely into our bilingual project, and gives support with sentences, words and songs here and there. She is an awesome mum and wife. What can I say….

In-laws/caretakers: Supporting and loving Spanish granny and grandpa. They sold a family business so now they are retired; they are the big rock upon which we stand to raise our little kid. Always helpful and tender. I don’t think we’ll be able to pay them back for what they do for us EVERY DAY. They don’t speak or understand any other language but Spanish.

Son: D. Jr. is 17 months old.  He enjoys exploring around, riding his toy motorbike, reading stories with Papi, and singing songs and dancing with Papi and Mami.  We also love to imitate animal sounds and to prowl around the house (if someone could have shown us a picture of this when we were younger and partying like crazy...LOL).  Since his birth I have tried to read stories to him as much as I could and for as long as he showed interest, in order to get him used to English sounds.  We know this is working because it's still one of his favorite things in the world now.  He is very hyperactive, but whenever there is a book with nice pictures around, he stays still and quiet to listen to the story and then interacts with it.

What languages are spoken by the adults in your household and at what level of proficiency?
Between mum and dad: Spanish, because it feels really weird to speak English between us.
Mum to kid: Spanish mainly, but lots of English words and expressions come in the way too.
Dad to kid/Dad to kid and mum: English 100%. If I don’t know a word or idiom, I’ll find another way to say the same thing, then check in the internet (God bless smartphones) and integrate the new expression/word immediately.
Rest of family to kid: Spanish.

What is a typical day in your son's life like?
On a a work day: He wakes up at 7:45 and has breakfast with mum and/or dad, depending on mum’s business trips. These days Papi makes breakfast, dresses him, and gets him ready for nursery, all in English. We sing songs in English on our way to the nursery for the 8:45 drop off. No English program  is available in the area, so it’s just in Spanish.  (We are trying to change this, but all you have read about English or bilingual education programs in Spain is 90% a lie and the other 10% is true but way too expensive).

Then mum or granny picks him up at 13:15 after lunch, and then siesta. Wake up at 16:00 and then play in the playground/sandbox with kids and grandpa until papi/mum picks him up at around 19:00 or 19:30. Then bath, dinner, English Pocoyo, and story, and go to bed at 21:30.

As you can see, his English input in a regular day is around 2 to 2.5 net hours, and this fact hammers away at my mind all day long. My only relief is that apparently the hours that he spends with me are like “high intensity time” because of the emotional bond, so that makes English stick better (or so I like to believe).

On a weekend day, we wake up late and I try to give him as much English input as possible until bedtime. Songs, games, drawing, animals, playground--all adapted to his age. As simple as that.

Why do you want your child to know more than one language?
In the end what we want for our kids is opportunities. Speaking English fluently is something scarce in the Spanish labor market. Only four or five people out of 85 do it in my company (a BRITISH company, for God’s sake!), most of them young people. Directors, even not-so-old ones, just suck at it. (So I’ll be one of the last ones to be fired.)

Having said that, there is an obvious career perspective in my decision, and I’m sure that the working environment for my little one in 20 years time won’t be the same as it is now (the whole world speaking Chinese, perhaps?), but still I firmly believe it’s the right thing to do. As a late learner of English, I saw a whole world open up in front of my eyes/ears, and I want my boy to be able to enjoy this too. I thing it’s the best (and only at the moment) inheritance that I can pass on to him.

How well does your son understand and speak the different languages?
We perceive that he understands equally well English and Spanish. We check from time to time through identification games, e.g. we put all his animal figures on the sofa and ask him to bring us one. He recognizes them all (around 12) and responds to things like “give it to mummy,” “put it down,” and “pick it up.” He also has some kind of code with the hands for each song and every time he hears a word or see something related to the song, he automatically starts doing the song movements. And when we read a book together and he is asked to point at something he does it correctly (e.g. “Where is the spider?” he points at it, and then “Where does the spider live?” and he points at the spider web).

As he is still very young, he is producing baby utterances, sort of “ZTAH” for “STAR”, “PAH” for “PANTS” or “WUH” for “WOUND,” but you can see that the seed of an English word is there. The Spanish baby-word for “STAR” (ESTRELLA) would be something like “TEYA” or “YEYA” so you can tell “ZTAH!” is not Spanish. I keep track of the evolution in a white board monthly. He does animal sounds as well but I don’t count them as words (WUAWUA! for “DOGGY” or MUU for “COW”).

If you take a deeper look, it seems so amazing how he’s started to say things related to what he usually does with his mum and grandparents in Spanish, and those related to games and things that we do together (animals and stuff like that) in English.

I have also noticed that he is getting used to managing two words for each concept. He understands both terms, and then he picks just one of the words to name that thing, normally the shorter one or the one containing syllables that he produces already, e.g. PULPO= “PUH-POH,” for OCTOPUS (way more complicated in English, plus he now controls “POH POH” very well for POO). I’m fascinated by this process.

How have you been able to expose your child to the culture(s) where the different languages are spoken?

I’m planning to do so through periods of time in the UK/Ireland/USA as he grows up. Maybe student exchange programs, vacations, and so forth.

What resources and activities have been most useful to you? 

Definitely reading stories and singing songs together. We saw a spout the other day and he was really upset because the incy wincy spider was not inside it. He was like, “Hm! The song explicitly specifies that she went up the water spout so do NOT try to trick me you all, it’s gotta be here somewhere….” It was so fun and we (I) talked about it for a long time. So songs and stories have proven to be great English triggers. 

Do you have any advice for us?
I can identify several situations in which I have had to make decisions about my language use with my son:

Family: In my case, I haven’t had enough time to go through many experiences, but with the family (primarily in-laws), I say things first in English and then in Spanish. Everybody is really supportive so we haven’t had any problems. Plus, my in-laws are actually grasping some English.

Playground: There are awkward moments at the playground when playing with other kids. I get THE LOOK ¿(,) (,)? from other parents when they hear me talking to my boy. If you are a native English speaker and you speak English to your kids, it’s perceived as natural. If you are Spanish and all your family is Spanish too….“What’s wrong with you? Why would you do something like that to your own kid!!” or “Look at him! He thinks he is sooo cool speaking English…. They’ll get it at the school; there is no need to do that, for crying out loud! You’ll mess his brain up.”

At the beginning I felt self conscious, and even sometimes I felt like other parents could speak English better than me and correct me and say, “Look, if you want to do this, at least you could do it right” (I know, I sometimes freak out), but I care every time less about this things. I might make some mistakes, I must say that my English is far from flawless, I don’t have phrasal verbs down pat, and I only know some English idioms, but I think this is working and I feel confident enough to keep going.

Cousins: D. Jr. has several three-to-four-year-old cousins and their reaction is so fun. They look at us like only a child can look, then they go with the flow and try to say things in English to D.Jr. They ask me how to say things and then they say it! It’s so fun. In this situation I say things in English for my boy and immediately after the same in Spanish, and then I talk about how we speak English together, trying to make it normal. My sister and brother-in-law think that it’s okay, but somehow unnecessary. 

I think many people see this as pretentious and trying to be “special” (but with a negative connotation). I try to ignore all this, but it has a social impact and I’m afraid my kid will eventually perceive it. I think the key here is enrolling him in a REAL immersion school to make English part of his life at home AND out of home. We’ll see how things go.

What do you wish you had known when you started?
I tend to worry too much about this. Uncertainty is something added that you have to deal with when you make the decision of raising a baby bilingually. You can become a worrywart! Sometimes you can even lose track of the final goal. Maybe the smart thing to do is to set realistic goals. He doesn’t need to be Shakespeare and it’s not YOUR challenge, and it’s not about showing everyone how smart your kid is because he speaks English. It’s just about giving tools to your kid so he can survive in the jungle. Anything else must be left apart (I sometimes have to say this to myself).

Muchas gracias, Dani, and best of luck to you and your family--keep in touch!

look who's circumlocuting!

No, not Gwyneth yet.  She's just cooing.

It's Griffin!

Perhaps he's been doing this all along, but lately I've noticed how skillfully he handles mystery words.  If he doesn't know the appropriate word in French (or English), he substitutes a short (or long) description of the item or idea, in whichever language seems most convenient (usually both, if he's talking to me, but he also doesn't hesitate to throw in a French word or bust out his creative Franglais with others).

Oh yes, I have a few examples!

Out for a Saturday morning walk, we passed a house with several tree stumps in its front yard, and I realized that I didn't know how to say "stump" in French. I told Griffin that we'd have to look up the word in the dictionary when we got home. But several hours later, my sleep-deprived brain couldn't remember which word we needed. Griffin reminded me by saying, "L'arbre que quelqu'un a coupé et quelqu'un a laissé qui est petit" (the tree that someone cut and someone left behind which is little).

Another time, Griffin was telling his daddy that he wanted dessert from the freezer, but he could only remember the French word (congélateur), which didn't make sense to my favorite Anglophone. Barely missing a beat, Griffin explained that he wanted something that was in "the rectangle with a door on top of the réfrigérateur."

A song that we enjoy singing together ends with the line, "Et l'on se taît" (and we shush up). Curious if Griffin understood that idea, I asked him what it meant, and he replied, "It's when on ne parle plus." Wow! "We don't talk any more." Most of my first-year (and plenty of my second-year) college students couldn't use the ne…plus negative construction to convey "no longer" instead of simply "not," and they rarely felt comfortable with the third-person pronoun on which can signify "one," "you," or "we," depending on the context.  It seems like Griffin has simply internalized utterances like these, whereas we adults have to study and memorize them!

The linguistics student in me loves watching him figure out how to communicate, and the non-native speaker in me is thrilled that he's developing these circumlocution skills.  (And the maman in me thinks he's brilliant!)

I am also realizing that some of the games we play--I Spy, 20 Questions--must be helping Griffin learn how to "talk around" ideas and define things.

Now you, dear readers--in what fun ways have your bilingual kiddos circumlocuted? What strategies do you encourage to help them rely less on word-to-word translations between their languages?

second language, second child

Six weeks after the birth of my daughter Gwyneth, I pull away from her wide-eyed-in-wonder dark-blue-nearly-violet gaze, her eyes milk-drunk and awe-struck and dreamy beside my breast, her eyes sighing contentedly as she slides into sleep with pure bliss and trust. I raise my head from her tiny face and let the lullaby trail off my lips and realize that we have been in this position for six weeks. Surely I have moved from this chair at some point every day--someone drove to the doctor's, tucked in the toddler, prepared the pasta--but it feels as if I have been cradling this lovely being nonstop for six weeks.

And for six weeks, I have spoken to her only in French, my second language. Songs, rhymes, narration, even exasperation as she slimes me with yet another slick of spit-up down my shoulder--all formed in French. She responds with coos and cries, grunts and groans, whines and whimpers and wheezes, hiccups and burps. Gwyneth speaks Baby and I speak Maman.

Mother tongue.

Her mother.

Her mother's adopted tongue.

I am giving my two children two languages, fiercely, determinedly, imperfectly. And because French and I didn't really meet until I was 15 years old, my speaking it now with them is a deliberate, constant choice rather than a natural, careless comfort. Using French with Griffin and now Gwyneth means that I have to think actively about what words to use and keep a bilingual dictionary in every room (and spend too much money on amazon.fr and eBay Canada). 

And I embrace the challenge and know it's worth the effort (and the endless explanations to acquaintances and strangers). Three and a half years of French with my brilliant and beautiful boy have shown me that I can do this, even though I am not a native speaker. Three and a half years ago, it was awkward, newly-child-centric French gasped out as I struggled with Griffin's colic, reflux, and the hell of nursing a baby with a tongue-tied frenulum, plus the difficult transition from being a successful teacher and library program coordinator to a bleary brain-dead new mommy, unsure about everything.

This time around I am a maman whose child doesn't scream (nearly) nonstop, who knows how to take care of a baby, who knows a lot of the lingo even though it never appeared in her textbooks or her conversations with other young people while living in France.  I'm finally getting it figured out!

And so is Griffin--his ability to understand and play with both languages still amazes me.  While he clearly prefers Engish, the language he hears most often from a greater number of speakers and materials, his comprehension in French is equal to that in English, probably because of the huge number of books we read together and songs he hears.

Each day, I make this conscious decision to use my non-native French with my children. It keeps my mind sharp and ensures that I pay close attention to my interactions with them.  It increases my sense of wonder and piques my curiosity and makes me want to record their every utterance and accomplishment on my blog.  (Fortunately for you, I'm too tired to do so!)  I can't tell them often enough how much I aime them.

So why are my monolingual American husband and I raising these kids bilingually?  Well, it makes all sorts of synapses connect in their busy little brains, teaches them to be world citizens, and opens up opportunities for them later on in life.  Yes, this, and so much more--researchers and parents and teachers say so, yes.

But me?  Moi?  Ultimately, I am a better mother because I choose to speak French with Griffin and Gwyneth, and to me, that's the most important reason.

on second languages and second babies

Dear readers, I'm pregnant! Fourteen weeks in.

And admidst my worries about taking care of an infant while parenting a three-year-old, I remind myself of this: the one thing that I know I won't struggle with is immersing this new baby in French. Unlike during my pregnancy with Griffin, I speak French every day while "Unicorn" grows in my belly. Unicorn hears the cadences of both languages in utero.

When Unicorn arrives, I won't have to scramble to learn a new lexicon that encompasses diaper blow-outs, onesies, pack-n-plays, bassinets, and bouncy chairs.

I won't have to force myself to carry on yet another unnatural-feeling monologue in French wherein I narrate everything I do for an uncomprehending baby who only cries in response, because I'll be holding meaningful conversations in French with a preschooler about what's going on around us, a preschooler who understands most of what I tell him (even if he chooses to ignore some of the directions).

I won't be trolling the Internet during middle-of-the-night nursing sessions--okay, so I probably will, but this time it won't be to buy French books and toys and CDs and DVDs on eBay, because we've got a substantial collection already. Unicorn will have several shelves of French books awaiting his/her arrival in his/her room. (Assuming, of course, I can manage to transfer all the stuff from my home office into the basement and transform the office into a nursery by July, that is.)

On Monday mornings, I'll take Unicorn and Griffin to French playgroup, and every other Friday we'll attend French storytime, so they'll both grow up knowing other kids ages 0-5 who speak French.

Griffin and I know and love dozens and dozens of songs and comptines that we will sing to Unicorn--I won't have to worry about expanding my repertoire because I get bored with the same ten songs, like I did with baby Griffin and baby Carl (my nephew).

I haven't been to France since 2005, when I supervised a group of US students taking classes in Grenoble for a month, or to a Francophone country since 2007, when my husband and I spent a few days on the small Caribbean island of St. Martin (on the French side, though almost everyone we met spoke English). We haven't had the time or the energy or a compelling reason to take a trip to a French-speaking country with Griffin. However, I'm really jonesing to be surrounded by French speakers and a different culture, so it's conceivable that Unicorn will have accompanied us to some Francophone place somewhere by the time he/she is Griffin's age!

So, while the idea of bringing another baby into this world makes me very anxious for a lot of reasons, I'm not nervous about being a non-native speaker bringing up baby bilingual: it worked for Griffin and me when I was starting from scratch, so it'll work for Unicorn, Griffin, and me.

Right? Right??? Please tell me j'ai raison!

What about Griffin?

You know, I've bombarded dozens of people--mostly strangers!--with my questions and then published profiles of their families on this blog; but while I have probably answered a lot of them myself along the way in the 4.5 years I've been writing here at Bringing up Baby Bilingual, I've never actually written out answers to my own questions all in a row.

And, well, I'm not going to do that now either. But one of the students who volunteered with my Reading Buddies program is now a student at Colorado State University, where I used to teach, and she contacted me because she's doing a paper on bilingualism for her English class. So as long as I was typing answers to her questions, I may as well share them here!

1. What made you decide to raise your son bilingually? What advantages, if any, do you hope this will give him, and are there any disadvantages which weighed against those?

So many reasons and advantages! For example,

• Facilitate travel, future study abroad opportunities, and career possibilities
• Develop an awareness of and interest in other countries and their inhabitants
• Train the brain to make it easier to acquire other languages and to be able to better understand how languages work

Disadvantages? It takes a lot of effort on my part, almost certainly more than it would if he were being raised monolingually, and I occasionally get funny looks or nosy questions when we're in public together. (Just two days ago, someone asked me, "Is your son adopted?" She couldn't fathom any other reason why a parent would choose not to speak English with her child in the US.) Also, as Griffin grows up and can communicate better, my monolingual husband has more and more trouble understanding us when we speak French.

To me, though, these are all minor drawbacks. It helps a lot that my husband, my family, and my in-laws are all very supportive of our raising him bilingually.

2. Living in an English-speaking society, how do you promote the French language in your son's upbringing?

• Read copious amounts of books and magazines in French (purchased at conferences, yard sales, eBay, online, and more)
• Translate books and songs from English to French for him
• Play lots of music in French (CDs, Radio Ouistiti)
• Sing to him and recite nursery rhymes in French
• Watch DVDs, videos, and YouTube clips in French
•Play games online in French (see the category "French Language for Kids" in my sidebar)
• Attend a weekly French playgroup

• Attend a French storytime (granted, we've only been doing this for less than two months)
• Hire French-speaking babysitters (this has been with limited success, though one of the three did have a French mother and thus a beautiful accent)
• Invite French-speaking friends to spend time with us and make sure that they do speak French with me around him
• Research to learn about additional resources and to establish contacts with other parents raising children with French and English in Anglophone countries (in other words, write this blog)
• Use Skype to communicate with Francophone friends (okay, so I haven't actually done this yet, because it's hard to motivate Griffin to sit still and converse in front of the computer)
• Dream of family vacations to Francophone countries (some day!)

3. Do you encounter challenges in parenting greater/other than you would expect with a monolingual child?

I have spoken exclusively French with Griffin since he was born. It's very challenging to be a non-native speaker of the language I use with my son for two major reasons:

I'm simply not as fluent in French as in my native language, English, which means that I am regularly searching for words and phrases to express ideas that I never needed to say before becoming a parent (such as "He had a diaper blow-out on his onesie while sitting in the bouncy chair"). Also, since I stopped teaching when he was born, I am no longer around other French teachers very often, and I miss speaking French to grown-ups on a daily basis.

And in a way, I have rejected the intimacy that comes from sharing one's native language with one's child. No matter how I try to translate the songs, books, and rhymes from my childhood, they're just not the same when rendered in French, so he will never love them the way I did. The lullabies I sing him are now dear to my heart, but it took a year or two for me to feel that way. The sweet nothings I whisper in his ear are always in French. It doesn't always feel natural.

On the other hand, since I have to deliberately think about French when I talk to my son, it means that I am perhaps more present for him, attending more, reflecting more. And this brings with it a different sense of intimacy because I have chosen--and continue to choose--to speak French with him. We communicate carefully, actively, lovingly, even though it's my second language.

But it will be his first!

Profile: French in Mississippi with Tracy's family

Meet Tracy, who shares an inspiring story of how her dedicated efforts to raise her daughter bilingually have resulted in a toddler whose stronger language is French, even in the deep South, even with a parent who is a non-native speaker!

Introduce us to your family--
• Parents'/caretakers'/adults' names, occupations, nationality—Parents are Steve, an American writer and English professor, and Tracy, a SAHM and freelance writer/editor with dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship.
• Kids' names, ages, interests—Colette, who will be three in December, loves painting, swimming, animals and anything train-related.
• Where you currently live—Jackson, Mississippi
• Other countries you've lived, if applicable—Canada (Quebec)
• Anything else relevant? I (Tracy) lived in Montreal for a decade then worked at the French Embassy in Washington, DC, for four years.

What languages are spoken by the adults in your household and at what level of proficiency?
English (both native speakers) and French (Tracy only—I will only claim near fluency, as my experience raising Colette to be bilingual has really taught me how much French I still have left to learn!)

What languages are you exposing your child to, and how?
Steve speaks to Colette in English and I speak to her in French. We own many French books, CDs and DVDs, and we have a babysitter who speaks French (as her second language). I have also managed to hire native French-speakers to hang out with us occasionally (I wish I could do that more, but francophones are a rare commodity in this part of the country).

Why do you want your child to know more than one language?
I believe speaking more than one language allows a person to feel comfortable in more places and connect with more people. I believe that bilingualism promotes open-mindedness and intellectual curiosity, two qualities I value highly. I worked so hard to learn French; I love the idea that I can give my daughter the gift of learning the language with ease.

And then there are all the cognitive benefits! There’s a really interesting article about the latest research findings here.

How well does your child understand and speak the different languages?
French is Colette’s default language at this point, and she is considerably stronger in French than in English (although her English isn’t bad). Until recently, she thought everyone spoke French (except maybe her dad), but she has started to address people in English. Her comprehension is excellent in both languages. What astounds me most is that she seems to have developed a fundamental understanding of French grammar that still eludes me sometimes.

How have you been able to expose your child to the cultures where French is spoken?
Only through books, CDs and DVDs at this point. We’re hoping to enroll Colette in a weeklong immersion camp in New Orleans next year and to travel to France with her the following year.

What resources and activities have been most useful to you?
Books, of course, are invaluable.

DVDs are fantastic, since they allow Colette to hear conversational French spoken by native speakers (we use VLC to play Region 2 DVDs). She’s a big fan of a cartoon donkey named Trotro. The CDs of a children’s singer named Alain Schneider are fun, clever and great for expanding her vocabulary (mine too, for that matter). One song, for example, might contain a dozen synonyms for the verb “walk.” I also subscribed Colette to a magazine called “Popi,” which she really likes. She’s thrilled to receive something in the mail every month, and the pamphlet for parents that comes with each issue helps me pick up parenting vocabulary. It’s expensive, but worth the cost. Two books readily available in the U.S. are among Colette’s favorites and have been since she was tiny—Usborne’s First 100 and First 1,000 Words in French. Generally, however, I tend to avoid French-as-a-second-language books in favor of books aimed at native speakers.

Another great free resource is Radio Oustiti, an online radio station that plays good music, airs stories, and offers activities (we just heard a short piece on arctic animals and were able to download a pdf of the animals mentioned). Colette already calls out "Ouistiti!" when I put it on.

In terms of my own French, wordreference.com—especially the forums that allow you to get feedback from native speakers—is a lifesaver.

What do you think parents, caretakers, teachers, and/or researchers need to know about teaching a second language to children?
Immersion is best. Don’t lapse into English—be it for your own comfort or someone else’s.

What challenges have you faced as you raise your child with more than one language?
My greatest challenge is the lack of a French-speaking community and related resources where we live. It is extremely expensive to order books from France or even Canada. I’ve had some luck buying books on eBay, but the selection is limited. I have searched high and low for another French-speaking child, with no luck. Because I have been unable to find a French-speaking community here, I worry that Colette’s French will rapidly fade into the background once she starts preschool next year. I have heard time and again that children start to reject the minority language at a certain point; hopefully this child will be different.

My other big challenge is my own imperfect French; it can be frustrating when you’re trying to explain something to your child and you keep second-guessing yourself about word gender or placement.


Please tell us a little about being a non-native speaker of the language you use with your child.
I always have both a French dictionary and a French-English dictionary close at hand, and my purses and pockets are filled with scraps of paper covered with words and grammar questions to look up. As I said above, wordreference.com is invaluable. If Colette brings me an English-language book, I read it to her in English; my early attempts to translate as I went were too pathetic. And besides, it’s a real joy to share books like The Cat in the Hat with her in my native language.

Do you have any advice for us?
I have been fortunate in that everyone in both my and my husband’s family has been extremely supportive, even though none of them speak French. Early on, I would switch into English in front of other people because I felt it was rude to say things to Colette that they couldn’t understand. Now I don’t worry about that. My approach is to be up front with people about what I’m doing and then just go about my bilingual business. I’ve found that most people are really impressed when they hear a two-year-old speak a language they don’t understand! If you come up against any naysayers, send them the link to the article mentioned above.

Answer your own question now--what did I not ask about that you would like to comment on?
If anyone knows any French speakers within a reasonable driving distance of Mississippi, please send them my way!

Sarah here--so much of this resonated with me that I'm getting dizzy with all the nodding, from the cost of buying French children's books to the amazing helpfulness of the native speakers on the Wordreference.com forums to her advice not to to worry about what the monolinguals think when they overhear you speaking another language to your kid. Tracy and Colette are proof that you can raise your child bilingually wherever you live, whatever your native language happens to be! Tracy, thank you so much for answering our questions and letting me profile your family here.