June 23, 2011

Bilingual / Bilingue

I've had this idea for a while to report Vincent's progress in dealing with two languages, English and French, Since he was basically born bilingual, I was excited to see how this would come into his life. Since he spends most of the day with me and I only speak French to him, he's been speaking French since he started talking. But school helped him learn a bit more English and somehow, he knows to switch to English when he hears his dad or anyone speaks English and would answer "yes". For example, he asked me for milk one day in French (lait) and I told him to ask his dad who was in kitchen. He went over to his dad and said "milk" in English. He even seems to recognize the accent and would pronounce the word "elephant" the French way to me and the English way to Ron. I think it would be fun for everyone to share their experience about raising bilingual or even trilingual kids, since a lot of my friends are in the same situation, so feel free to comment and share! And just for the fun of it, some random pictures...
Cela fait un moment que j'ai envie de vous parler des progrès de Vincent à parler en deux langues. Vu qu'il est pratiquement né bilingue, j'avais hâte de voir comment ce bilinguisme se manifesterait. Vu qu'il passe ses journées avec moi, il parle principalement français depuis qu'il a commencé à parler. Mais depuis qu'il va à l'école, il commence à retenir plus d'anglais et il semble faire la différence quand moi, je lui parle en français, et quand son père ou d'autres personnes parlent an anglais. Il leur répond par "yes". Un jour, il m'a demandé du lait. Je l'ai envoyé voir son père, qui était dans la cuisine. Et alors, il a demandé "milk" à son  père, et non "lait". Il semble aussi reconnaître la différence de tonalité ou d'accent entre les deux langues et prononce le mot "éléphant" à la française quand il me voit et à l'anglaise quand il le dit à Ron. Ce serait amusant d'entendre les commentaires de mes amis qui élèvent aussi des enfants bilingues ou même trilingues, alors allez-y, laissez un commentaire ! En attendant, quelques photos et une vidéo au hasard...


No hands
Sans les mains



Plastic snake attack
Attaque du serpent en plastique


First day at the beach this summer
Premier jour à la plage de l'été

Vincent Raspeberry-hands (his favorite fruit)
Vincent aux doigts de framboises (ses fruits préférés)

2 comments:

godswatchman said...

Francoise, I enjoyed your commentary on Vincent's grasp of 2 languages... very interesting! Nice pics too.
Gary

Anonymous said...

As I am the only one speaking Dutch and the kids spend most time at school rather than with me, our situation is that I speak in Dutch and the boys answer me in English. They will, however, speak Dutch to my mum as they know she can't understand them otherwise. And we've had a new devlopment recently - Thomas decided to speak Dutch to me so that Dad couldn't hear what he was talking about.
ESTHER HAY