December 2008 of James nearly 5, Sydney 7 years
From BilingualWiki
Contents |
December 16, 2008
Tonight Sydney wanted to go out to a certain restaurant. I loved how she described it. Some background information first. We love this market/restaurant called "El Superior". It's in Durham, a neighboring town that has edgier choices when it comes to food and nightlife in general. Anyway we love the place b/c the food is great and very authentic. No one who works there is not Latin American and no one who eats there is Caucasian. Sydney didn't like to go there at first because people looked at us. I told her it's because we're speaking Portuguese (which is part of the reason I think). Anyway so tonight she said,"Can we go to that Mexican restaurant, the big blue one?" I told her I didn't know which one. She said, "You know. The one where we're the only one who has our color skin."
December 17, 2008
I took James into Sydney's classroom today. I was helping pour milk and such for snacks and someone must have heard me speaking with James. One little boy asked, "Does he speak Portuguese to everybody?" I thought that was such a cute question.
Then, Sydney had a playdate with Terryn today. She and I were speaking Portuguese and Terryn was saying "bloog giddy bloo giddy bloo...that's what it sounds like to me." Sydney laughed. Later in the car she asked me if she could tell me something in English so that Terryn would understand. I said she should just tell Terryn. Sydney said, "but Terryn already knows." I said, "I'd rather you just say it in Portuguese and if we need to, we'll translate for Terryn." So Sydney spoke to Terryn, knowing she was really telling the story to me (retelling it to Terryn to be able to speak in English.)
December 23, 2008
Last night we were going out for Mexican food with my parents. It's a super place called La Superior. It's a butcher, supermarket, and casual restaurant. ("The one where we're the only one who has our color skin" as Sydney describes it.) I told Momma that nothing's really written in English. Momma kept asking me how to say things in Spanish. She kept saying "Vamos mis nietos" ("Let's go grandchildren"). She kept practicing and adding words she remembered from past classes. "Mi marido, vamos!" (My husband, let's go!) For some reason she clearly remembers the word for dog: "Mi marido es un perro." I'll never forget once when she said that to me, just being silly, and a woman in the shop where we were, looked at her so funny (had clearly understood her werid sentence.) Anyway, after many practices with "nieto" this and "mi nieta" that," Sydney finally said, "When we're in the restaurant, let's no say anything with the word 'nieto' in it."
December 27, 2008
We were in Charlotte, NC with the Jernigan clan and stayed several days. Sydney and James got a DVD player that can read DVDs from other countries (other regions). At one point, we were hoping the kids would take a nap and a movie is the best way to get, at least James, to relax enough to sleep. So, Stephen put in the movie "Por Aqua Pra Baixo (Flushed)" that we'd bought in Portugal. They wanted me to stay and watch it with them because some of it looked scary.
I had touble making out many things they said. It wasn't just because of the difference in Continal Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, but also that the different animals were from some sewer under London and they were from various European countries. The French Frogs, therefore, were speaking with a French accent, the English mice with a Cockney accent, etc. When you added that on to how different Portugal's Portuguese is from Brazil, it wasn't a relaxing movie to watch. I was just hoping there wasn't a post-test. The kids seemed ok with it, though James lost interest early on and started rough-housing with Sydney which annoyed her and me. (The brevity of his attention span could be explained by another factor: the DVD volume couldn't be turned up very high and in the room next door, my teenage nephew was drumming madly with his new Guitar Heros.)
So then, we decide to let them watch a movie in the car (it's also portable). Stephen had brought it with him to Charlotte for them watch-- yet another of the Portuguese ones that they hadn't been able to play on the old machine. I was in the front seat and again, found it a little hard to understand (not nearly as much as the first one). When the movie was near the very end and still playing, James whispered to Sydney, "Sydney, what language is this in?" Her reply: "That other Portugues."
