My Childhood TV

BabelDad was surprised to learn I watched Sesame Street when I was a child, in Arabic. I am sure every 30-something Algerian can still hum along the opening score of  "إفتح يا سمسم " (Open Sesame).

Ernie and Bert were of course Anis and Badr. Same stories, but in Classical Arabic.
Even though the girls are familiar with the German version, SesamStraße, they were not that impressed by the Arabic one.

Remember when you were a child, looking up a word in the dictionary, only to realise 10 minutes later you had forgotten what you were looking for? Same thing happens to me on Youtube. The memories flooded in.

While looking up episodes of Sesame Street, I stumbled upon
سنان (Sinan). It follows the adventures of Sinan, a  beaver who is well-endowed in the teeth department, and his animal friends, in the green forest.

This on the other hand caught the girls' attention big time. They have been snuggling on the sofa for the last two hours, watching episodes of Sinan on the ipad, in classical Arabic. BK1 says she understands a bit, while BK2 does not understand much. BK3 is just mesmerized by the screen, as usual.

I find it bizarre to understand a language that my daughters don't. What a funny feeling. It makes me more determined to redress the balance.

This is why we are about to shell out on a satellite dish and a decoder. Not to watch the latest blockbuster or football game, but to have a preschool  TV channel, in Arabic.

Report on Linguistic Effects of our Algerian Adventures

As expected, our month-long stay in Algeria has had beneficial effects on the children's fluency in Arabic and French.

BK3 is the perfect illustration of how easy it is to be monolingual. We've been immersed in this multilingual thing for so long, it has almost become second nature. How  lovely it was to hear BK3 repeat all words in Arabic and use them. How easy it was not to wonder what language she is using. And how liberating to drop my attention to giving a fair exposure to the minority language.
BK3's vocabulary, mostly in Arabic and partly in French, just exploded during our stay. She also began to string words together to say things like: "Arwahi lahna" (come here) .

BK2 has started making complete sentences in French, thanks to Nickelodeon Jnr. Who said TV was bad? She now says things like: "Je suis trop occupée maintenant, je ne peux pas manger", (I am too busy now, I cannot eat), or "Je ne veux pas passer toute la journée à peindre, peindre est très difficile" (I don't want to paint all day, painting is very hard).
Of course she makes mistakes: "Je dore maman" instead of j'adore maman. But hey, she is 4 and a half and muddles through four languages!

BK1's accent in Arabic is slightly less pronounced. She still struggles with some guttural sounds. As with the other two, her vocabulary both in Arabic and French increased. She is also more confident in her ability to make herself understood in Arabic. Arabic sentences flow more easily. Here she is in our garden a week ago, back in England.

ps: BK1 is 7.5, BK2 is 4.5 and BK3 is 22 months.