adventures in language-learning

[moominmolly]

Background: N likes to make up French words. She's been doing this for a while, and she sounds very authoritative when talking to S: "That's bread. In French we say 'bee-SHAY'." The fake French words always sound kinda Frenchy, which is awesome. I've been reading her some French kids' books on and off since we went to Montreal in February, and now that she's obsessed with DORA THE EXPLORA, she's aware that all foreign languages aren't French. Now, two scenes from yesterday:

(1) We're at the park, swinging in the swings, and once I'm pushing Natalie high enough that she's about to fall out (the little thrill-seeker), she stops asking for more pushes and starts eavesdropping on the mom-and-kid next to us speaking Portuguese. I watch her listening more and more, trying to catch on, maybe getting some sounds here and there, and eventually she starts just ignoring what I'm saying and craning her head to listen. As the mom picked her kid up out of the swing, N looked at me and asked, "MOMMY, what IS that woman?!"

(2) Ever since our first French class on Monday, she's been asking me to sing the songs we sang in class and play the class CD, and she's been pulling the French books off the shelves and asking for them. So, last night, she was snuggled up in my arm in bed and we were reading a French kids' picture-vocab book before moving on to Pompon and his bike. Tonight, Natalie's decided that we're going to read it in the following way: she points at a picture and asks, "What's that?" to which I answer "le chien" (or whatever). Then:

N: "What's that?"
Me: "Le hot-dog".
N: *giggle*
Me: "No, seriously. It's le hot-dog in French."
N: *giggle* "No it's NOOOT! What's that?"
Me: *laugh* "Yes, really, it is! We say "hotdog" and in French they say le hot-dog!"
N: *giggle* "NO THEY DON'T!"

At that point I resorted to pointing out the words below the pictures, one in each language. We traced back over ice cream and la glace, apple and la pomme, and so on, until we got to hotdog and le hot-dog. She touched her fingers to the words and nodded, very small and gently.

I don't blame her for thinking I made that up. :)

Comments

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

in French they say le hot-dog!
not le haute dog? :)

no way!

[dbang.livejournal.com]

I think you are making up that whole story.

Re: no way!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

No, seriously! She thought it was the dumbest silliest thing she'd heard all day, it seemed like.

Re: no way!

[dbang.livejournal.com]

she's right. or she would be, if that conversation had actually happened. however, it is obvious that the French for hot dog is not le hot dog, and equally obvious that you wouldn't lie to your impressionable child, therefore I conclude that the whole exchange is a great riddle you are waiting for one of us in LJ land to solve.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

"We say "hotdog" and in French they say le hot-dog!"

Well, not in Quebec (http://www.chocolat.tv/photos/displayimage-31-0.html). ;-)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

One sees chien chaud in France, too, but it's not nearly as common. This particular book relies heavily on cognates; I fudge it a bit on most of them and use the more common word rather than the cognate, when applicable, but not on hot dog. :)

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

And in totally unrelated news, except that someone posted in on LJ, I think you should read this (http://eestiplika.livejournal.com/256335.html).

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

Down in Cote D'Azur I always saw "Hot Dog". Then again, perhaps they had less to prove than other francophone*

*just kidding.

[beowabbit]

Oooh, I’d love to talk about language with her sometime! Have you pointed out to her that English has borrowed words from French just like French borrows words (like hot-dog) from English?

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes words sound basically the same in different languages" is as complicated as we've gotten. :)

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

One of the best things that happened to me for french learning, was my dad sat down with me (this is in middle school??) and we sight-read out loud from novels in French (Arsene Lupin!!). Comprehansion wasn't the object, it was to get the sound of the language, and relate spellings to sounds. It helped with accent a LOT, and i think later with aural comprehension.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

That's very cool!

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I want to have your baby, or if I just want your baby.

I'm not sure I have half a shot at being as awesome a parent as you are. I mean, half my beetles are dead.

This business with my beetles-advisor's son has me really shaken up about academia and priorities, though.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Heh.
Even adults get that "Oh, you're messing with me" reaction.

deadwinter was asked how to say "sex" in Spanish, and he told her it was "el sexo."
"...OK. No, really, what is it?"
It took days to convince her he wasn't just messing with her by adding "el" at the beginning and "-o" at the end to make it sound Spanish.

I think it's awesome that you're encouraging her to learn more about foreign languages so young.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

that's awesome!

Kata has been making up words and telling me that's how you say "hello" or
"goodbye" or "thanks" in German. Or asking me how to count in German. Which is really odd because she doesn't actually *know* any German. Her former family daycare had a German-speaking girl and a French-speaking girl and we talked about being aware of them speaking other languages with their parents.

She has a more normal awareness of Croatian, and knows how to say some stuff, asks how to say things, points out things she can identify in Croatian, etc though occasionaly she makes up words in Croatian too.

[dpolicar]

All foreign languages aren't French?

[szasz.livejournal.com]

I think it's just that French is the lingua franca of foreign languages.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

<groan>

[szasz.livejournal.com]

I don't blame her for thinking I made that up. :)

I wouldn't either; I myself thought le weekend was just a disparaging comment about the French for a while.

Of course, maybe it is a disparaging comment, in addition to being the real word. Hm.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

One of my friends' kids learns sign and French. We went over for lunch one day, and we asked her what she wanted. She made the sign for cheese and said "Fromage!"

That's led to me remembering the sign for cheese, but I have to think "fromage" first.

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

natalie's sign has been periodically coming back too. which has led me to realize how very much more fine-motor control she has now than she did when sign was a major part of her vocabulary-- gestures i totally would have accepted then now lead me to say "well... actually it's more like..."

she seems aware of the difference too. she spent a while with moominmolly trying to finally nail down that "y" handshape. she eventually used her other hand to push her middle fingers back down. :)