Falling Apples

The children come home at 5pm. They have a snack and talk about their day. At this point in the day they are swinging between two languages; the French of school and my English at home. Some stories can become a guessing game for me, as they flit from French to English expressions, which are sometimes untranslatable. For example, Nina begins to tell me a story….

‘Today, in the canteen, this girl, Beverly, ….just fell…fell in the apples…at lunch, you know what I mean?’
‘What, she fell in her apple dessert?’ I guess, hopefully.
‘No! She fell.. in the apples!’ says Nina.
‘There were apples on the floor of the canteen?’ I ask, wondering if she slipped on a crate of apples, misplaced on the floor.
‘There were no apples, silly Mummy,’ Nina says, looking grumpy. ‘She fell over, like that…’ and she mimes a girl fainting and a teacher saying ‘Elle a tombé dans les pommes’
‘Ah!’ I say, playing along with the Charades games, ‘She fainted!’
‘Maybe’, says Nina, not really knowing what ‘fainted’ means. ‘Like I said, she fell in the apples…’

With some investigation, we discover that ‘to fall in the apples’ literally means to fall over and faint. You learn something every day in the OPOL Family!

For more French expressions and their translations in several languages visit:
http://www.expressio.fr/expressions/tomber-dans-les-pommes.php

Chicken or kitchen for dinner?

Gabriel officially has a minor speech problem. He can’t say double consonants like ‘ch’, ‘pl’ or ‘tr’. Some words come out different, for example, he says ‘kitchen’ instead of ‘chicken’. It’s taken almost three years to pinpoint it. His pre-school teachers in Malaysia, America and France had all hinted that his language was ‘immature’. There was also an unspoken message that his bilingual home was perhaps a factor too, so he was given extra time to ‘catch up’ verbally. The question for us was whether the French language was bothering the English, or vice versa. However, the same speech problem occurs in English and French. By the time he was five and a half it was clear there was a problem, because the children in Gabriel’s class were making fun of his way of talking. But at what point do you take your child to see a specialist?

Gabriel also speaks French with an English accent, which worries (and amuses) family members. This should have faded away, especially since we have been back in France for over eighteen months and he spends most of his days in a French environment (or watching French television). It appears that his model is me, with my English-accented French, when he should be copying Jacques’s perfect accent. How has our carefully organized OPOL practice gone so wrong?

At the end of the school year, a speech therapist came to his class and finally checked him properly, and recommended I go to see the orthophonist immediately. Initially, I thought she meant to see an orthodontist for his teeth. After a dental check-up, and realizing it was not a dental problem, I finally found the local speech therapist a few months later. I made the appointment with some trepidation. What if she asks me to stop speaking English to him? Even armed with all the research and academic proof it’s difficult to justify the OPOL strategy when your child is talking wrong.

Fortunately, my local French orthophonist, Agnès, is married to a Danish chap (they speak English together as a couple) and she understands bilingual children. She is also working with several English kids who have moved to France. Agnès could see straightway that his English side was not the issue; she found that he cannot roll his ‘r’s (which makes his French instantly sound ‘English’). Agnès immediately started him off practicing ‘tiger growling’ to get the ‘r’ sound right.

The sessions with Agnès have made me realize that there has been some denial on my side too, a rather naïve idea that time will sort things out. Because we were successful with our older two children we thought that our third child would simply follow. There’s a side of me that feels guilty too. Perhaps I did not speak as much to Gabriel as I did to the others? Did I not correct him enough, like I did with Marc? Did I not sing to him enough, like I did with Nina? Have I left his speech development to other people? Homework from the older children takes up much of the evening these days and he certainly gets less time for bedtime stories (and a tired mother!). But, as Agnès assures me, it is a minor problem, and with a bit of extra help he’ll soon be rolling his ‘r’s and ordering ‘chicken’ instead of ‘kitchen’ in the restaurant in no time!

Don’t dub Troy!

Nina loves the High School Musical films, as do most nine-year-old girls from all around the world. She’s seen the first two films on dvd in English and sings along to the music all the time. When the third High School Musical film came out recently in France there was no way she was seeing it dubbed. I’m not that fussy about which language films are done in, as long as it’s a good film, and suggest a local cinema in Poitiers. To persuade me, she argued that if Troy said ‘I love you’ her French it would mean nothing to her. ‘You would miss out on the real feeling.’ she claims, gazing at her poster of Troy on her bedroom wall.

It’s the school holidays so off we go to Paris to find a cinema that does version originale. There will be the original soundtrack with French subtitles. The only show is on at 9am on a Saturday, and Nina is awake at 7am, already wearing the HSM 3 t-shirt and matching necklace. I watch the film sleepily, as Troy sweet-talks Gabriella, and wonder if it really matters whether he says ‘I love you’ or ‘Je t’aime’. But Nina is absolutely convinced it makes a difference, and she wouldn’t have Troy say it any other way. ‘It wouldn’t sound real,’ she says. A few months later Mamma Mia is released in France. As Nina scans the Paris cinema listings I know it’s time to book the train tickets, after all, Meryl Streep just wouldn’t be the same speaking French either….

At last, a Foreign Language!

In collège Marc can learn a Foreign Language. Marc never had any choice about learning English and French. When people say how lucky he is to speak two Foreign Languages so easily he must wonder what they mean. It was no fun for him - especially with two parents who were determined that he would speak each language to a high standard. Poor Marc was the first child and the guinea-pig of the family. Right from day one he was blasted with English from his mother (and all her family) and French from Papa (and all his family). There was never any other option than to speak both languages. It’s not that he is ungrateful for the languages we chose for him; he just would have liked a choice in the matter.

Now age eleven years and eight months, he has a real choice at last. English is obligatory all through the four years of collège, but there is an option for a second language starting in the first year. This is where Marc has his wish come true. On the menu is German, Latin or Spanish. Marc discusses each language seriously and meticulously, questioning us on which one we think is the easiest, which one is useful, and which one will help him in the future. He picks German in the end. Jacques is happy since he speaks excellent German. In fact, his mother fought to get a German class established twenty years ago in the same school, rallying round parents to give the children more choice.

The German class is small and is run via webcam, so the teacher can cover four schools at the same time. I am a bit skeptical about this futuristic set-up, but the kids accept it as normal. Talking to the microphone or the camera has become second nature. It is a delight to see Marc saying ‘Ich bin Marc!’ and chanting ‘ein, zwei, drei…’ He is fascinated by the differences and the similarities between English, French and this new language. He is amazed that German has an extra letter (the ‘ss’ sound or ß) and that they use capital letters for so many nouns and enjoys the lack of pressure to become fluent and the slow pace of learning that beginners can indulge in. Watching him enthusiastically tackle his German homework I am glad that finally language learning is fun…

Low Marks in English

Marc is now in collège (French equivalent of secondary school/high school) and studies by subject now. Madame P. has been teaching English for at least 17 years (she taught my husband when he was at the same school!). You might think that she would be proud that one of her ex-pupils married an English girl, works for an English-language company and now has bilingual children. However, she doesn’t seem quite so happy to see the name ‘Hauwaert’ again.

The term started badly when she played a little ice-breaker game (as she always does). Each child’s name was Anglicized, to get the kids in the mood, so Francois became Frank and Amandine was Amanda. Half the class had a name that existed in both languages (Julie, Charlotte, Sarah, Thomas, Kevin to name but a few) which she could not do much about. Perhaps lacking suitable translations, due to French parents picking Anglophone names, she made the fatal error of re-naming Marc ‘Mark’. This is a sensitive issue, one he has battled with since he was four and started writing his name in an English school. He hates it mis-spelled and valiantly defends ‘Marc’ as an ‘English’ name too, saying it exists in America and England. But Madame P. firmly corrects his namecard.

Marc/Mark is furious and goes out of his way to correct her English expressions and criticize her choice of ‘baby songs’ for the French students to learn. For a dictation exercise he titles it ‘Too-Easy Dictation’ and sloppily answers as if he can’t be bothered. The level is so low he could do it with his eyes closed, he says. So at the Parents Meeting when I mentioned that Marc was somewhat bored she waved his exam paper at me, saying ‘Look, he only got 17.5 out of 20!! He can’t even spell Wednesday’. I agreed that Marc makes silly spelling/grammatical mistakes and told her that he is rapidly losing interest in the subject (an emotional issue as this is my language we are talking about). I asked what she could do to help. Madame P. said he could skip the workbook, and ‘help’ the other students. But assisting the beginner-level French students has lost any interest to him and he says he feels uncomfortable ‘teaching’ his classmates. What he needs is spelling and challenging reading, not singing ‘Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes…’

A week later Madame P agrees to give him more written classwork and moves him out for two ‘extra’ language sessions a week, along with the other four fluently bilingual kids in his year, who are also bored and sat sniggering in the back row. After a few hours of intensive study of the passé simple and English grammar exercises they are soon wishing they were back in Easy English again! These extra sessions are thankfully done with an English native teacher, Mrs. G, who is there to support the bilingual kids in their dual language use. She knows all about their unique combination of confident verbal skills and dreadful spelling. He finally has a teacher tuned to his needs and, most importantly, one who always calls him Marc…

Language gaps

The other day we went out for a family bike ride. Jacques has just taught Gabriel to ride. He is enthusiastic and desperate to ride on a real road. Jacques goes first, followed by Marc, Nina, Gabriel and me at the end (presumably to pick up any children who might fall off). It all goes well until we set off down a hill and Gabriel picks up speed. Too much speed though, and he starts rapidly overtaking the others. I call out ‘Gabs, brake a little!’ He calls back ‘Break what??’ I reply, breathlessly, ‘Brake…the bike.’ ‘Break my bike? Why, Mummy???’ and he starts looking behind, rather dangerously, to see what I am talking about. ‘Brake, NOW!!!’ I shout, getting nervous as he spins his wheels. ‘Break my leg? Break my head? Break my arms!’ he sings, with no fear in his mind. One little bump on the road and he will be in the hedge, with a broken arm or leg.

I mentally imagine the trip to the local hospital. As I think, in French, how I will explain the accident to the doctor (‘I told him to brake and he ignored me!’) it hits me that maybe he doesn’t know what brake means. He only knows frien, which Jacques taught him, naturally. I never got to explain the English translation. But this is no time to start translating. If I mispronounce frien or put it in an English sentence he might not understand. It sounds a bit like Friend and that might distract him. If I talk to him in French he will be surprised and might turn around to ask me why I am speaking French. Default language use eventually comes into action, my brain automatically finding a linguistic solution.

‘STOP!!!!’ I scream. That works. He stops. We all stop. Everyone understands Stop.
‘Nothing broken!’ smiles Gabriel ‘Why did you say break, Mummy?’

Ah, the joys of parenting in two languages!!

Down on the farm…

On a recent long car journey to our holiday destination I suggested an easy game that all three children could play. It was called ‘Guess the Animal’. One person had to make an animal sound and the others guess what kind of animal it was. Gabriel had just visited a farm recently with the school, and learnt the names of animals in both languages. They could use either French or English when they answered. But we soon found out that all animals don’t always speak the same language…

Marc went first. ‘Scrontch-scrontch, groin groin…’ he said. The children quickly identified it as a pig. ‘How can that be!’ I said from the front seat. ‘A pig goes oink oink, like the pig called Babe in that film.’ I was quickly out-voted.

Nina was next, she cooed ‘hulluh hullah...’ and it took a while for us to guess that it was an owl, not a pigeon as I predicted. ‘No way’ the boys protest. ‘An owl says Twit-tu-whoo- tu-whooh’.

Gabriel chose a donkey, most likely inspired by Winnie-the Pooh, and said: ‘Eeyore, eeyore’. Marc and Nina guessed correctly, but disputed this hotly, arguing that a donkey usually says ‘hi-han hi-han’.

We gave up on the game, since no-one could agree on which sound was ‘right’ and ran through all the animal noises in both languages. With the help of the French storybook we had in the car about a farmyard, where the noises are written down, and my childhood memories of English animal talk we compared notes. Down on the farm some fields of French and English animals would not be able to talk to each other. Did you know, for example, that an English sheep goes ‘baa baa’ while a French sheep goes bêêêê? A duck in London would naturally say ‘quack quack!’ while its cousin in Paris says coin coin. A tiny chick would go ‘cheep cheep’ in Manchester, and piou piou in Normandy. Thankfully, cats miao, dogs woof, cows moo, and hens cluck in both countries.

Around the world there is whole orchestra of different ways of translating the same animal’s noise. For example, a male chicken, or cockerel, can ‘say’

Kho-kho-hou-hoûûû! (in Morocco)
Co-co-ri-co! (in France)
Cock-a doodle-doo! (in England)
Qui-qui-ri-qui! (in Spain)
Koké-ko-kôôô! (in Japan)

This is the kind of language use that you don’t see in a dictionary; or learn in a language school, it is often hidden in young children’s nursery songs or books. But it seems logical that a child attending pre-school or primary school would need to know the animal sounds in both languages or it could be very confusing. While this might all seem rather irrelevant in the wider scheme of helping your child become bilingual it is worth bearing in mind, especially if you plan to sing together the well-known children’s nursery rhyme ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm…’