The situation: we're sitting together, eating. BK1 & BK2 are not 100% concentrated on the task at hand, as usual. Babelmum adds a bit too much chili to her food (happens) and I'm making fun of her. She dares me to try myself, which I do.
BK1 wants to say something about me, so she gets up, walks around the table and whispers something to BM in Arabic. I can kind of hear the words, but I don't understand. BK2 claims she knows what has been said, and as BK1 asks her to whisper it, she whispers "Ma'alabaliche" ("I don't know"), which we all find adorable.
Funny thing is: why did BK1 whisper? I can't really say I understand when the BM and BKs speak Arabic! Doesn't BK1 know that?
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Friday, 10 December 2010
Phone Calls
BK2 was holding her yellow plastic telephone and making calls.
I love how serious she is about it. She tells me who she is currently on the phone with then proceeds to perfectly emulate a phone call: "yes... yes... ah... no... I'm busy... yes... ok... ok... I'm playing puzzle with daddy, yes..." and so on for ages. Eventually she'll hang up and call someone else. Adorable.
She copies our behaviour on the phone really well. And it probably helps that she speaks to her grandparents mainly via skype and phone.
Now here's one more sign that English is the number one language in her head: her calls with English people take a lot longer than others. And she calls them more often.
Her preferred person to call currently is our friend Fiona. I would say that she spends more time "on the phone" with Fiona than all other people combined!
Now the Babelmum speaks with Fiona regularly and she thinks that explains it, but I'm not so sure. I think it is because BK2 knows a lot of things to say in English.
Also, since her conversations seem to almost make sense, I guess she is imagining the other side and then answering to what she just imagined. It might just be that she feels more at ease imagining stuff in English.
Or maybe I'm just making things up now.
Funny enough this goes against the current trend towards German that BK1 & BK2 show. Since the birth of BK3 a month ago we had family over twice from Germany so they had a lot of exposure and it shows.
I love how serious she is about it. She tells me who she is currently on the phone with then proceeds to perfectly emulate a phone call: "yes... yes... ah... no... I'm busy... yes... ok... ok... I'm playing puzzle with daddy, yes..." and so on for ages. Eventually she'll hang up and call someone else. Adorable.
She copies our behaviour on the phone really well. And it probably helps that she speaks to her grandparents mainly via skype and phone.
Now here's one more sign that English is the number one language in her head: her calls with English people take a lot longer than others. And she calls them more often.
Her preferred person to call currently is our friend Fiona. I would say that she spends more time "on the phone" with Fiona than all other people combined!
Now the Babelmum speaks with Fiona regularly and she thinks that explains it, but I'm not so sure. I think it is because BK2 knows a lot of things to say in English.
Also, since her conversations seem to almost make sense, I guess she is imagining the other side and then answering to what she just imagined. It might just be that she feels more at ease imagining stuff in English.
Or maybe I'm just making things up now.
Funny enough this goes against the current trend towards German that BK1 & BK2 show. Since the birth of BK3 a month ago we had family over twice from Germany so they had a lot of exposure and it shows.
Monday, 6 December 2010
Bilingual Carnival November Edition
It's Bilingual Carnival time again!
Head over to Where going havo? for this month's fun and remarkable blog articles on raising children in multi lingual environments.
Head over to Where going havo? for this month's fun and remarkable blog articles on raising children in multi lingual environments.
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