James 1 - 1 1/2 Years, Sydney 3- 3 1/2 Years
From BilingualWiki
February 27, 2005
Today Sydney was in the Whole Foods checkout line smiling and laughing with a little boy around 2 years old who was in the cart next to ours. She looked at me and said, “That’ boy’s a sorcerer!” I cracked up laughing because she’s so into sorcerers…they are in a lot of the Brazilian books she reads. The woman behind us in line was obviously curious about us and finally asked what language we were speaking. It occurred to me that people don’t know if we’re laughing abou/at them when we laugh. So I told her what Sydney had said (am not sure she really cared) just to not be rude. Sometimes I really like how we have a sort of secret language.
February 28, 2005
Alessandra saved us today when I needed a babysitter. It was morning time and the friend who usually keeps the kiddies had to cancel because her daughter was sick. Luckily Alessandra came over right away and pretty much knows their routine. After she left, I noticed Sydney was pronouncing James’ name different. It came out, ‘Jame-e-sa” like how the Brazilians pronounce it. She looked at me after saying if several times like this and said, “Alessandra says it like that, she says ‘Jame-e-sa’. Sara doesn’t say it like that. She just says “’Jame’s.” I find it interesting that a 3 year old would be so attuned to that.
Sydney is very attuned to any new word I say. She’ll ask what it means. She’ll try to use it herself. She’ll use it several times soon after she’s learned it. Such a natural way to learn
March 2, 2005
I went to the Brazilian Bible study. Alzemira and I were watching how cute it was to see one year old James play with her granddaughter who’s 6 months old. We decided to get together with Erminda and have a playgroup at my house. I think it’ll be good for us because we can talk and have lunch while the kids play.
I didn’t enjoy the Bible study part at all. For several reasons really. First of all the one woman who speaks English was leading so there was very little Portuguese. But also they are very evangelical compared to me. But I completely enjoyed the lunch and there was much more Portuguese then. I think I’ll just start going late and only staying for lunch. At lunchtime James started crying because he needed a nap. I looked at him and said in Portuguese, “What a hard life you lead!” The Brazilian ladies all cracked. I thought, “Why is that funny? They say this all the time.” Then I thought of how idiomatic the phrase was and how with my accent, it probably sounded funny. Sort of how it’s funny to hear a foreigner say something like, “what will be, will be”. It just sounds like they are trying to be native but don’t quite have the added touch of a native accent.
March 7, 2005
I have found that the cards to teach reading work much better if we make them have a direct connection to what we’re doing. For example, yesterday was Sunday so before breakfast, I made cards that said, “Sunday” “Miss Tanita” (The nursery worker), and “Church”. She read them while she ate breakfast and carried them around, saying she wanted to take them to church. Then today, before breakfast, I wrote the name of the boy who was coming over to play with Sydney and the “YMCA” where we were going that morning to work out. So throughout the day, she could pick up and know the words we’d learned were relevant to her life.
I have also found that doing the reading “lesson” while she eats keeps it from getting forgotten and from having to be a big deal, it’s just part of the routine. We play simple games like I’ll ask her to give me a certain card with a word on it like, “breakfast”. If you makes a mistake and gives me “Oatmeal,” I’ll say, “Oh, you’ve giving me oatmeal. I’m going to give you the word ‘breakfast’” That way I’m not overtly correcting her.
Lately she’s been asking me how to say things in English. Often she’ll say the whole sentence in Portuguese and the one word she’s asking about is actually in English when she say sit, ‘Como ‘ce diz ‘spider’ em ingles, Mamae?” (How to you say ‘spider’ in English). She does just the opposite to Stephen, often putting the word she’s asking for in Portuguese actually in Portuguese. (How do you say ‘aviao’ in Portuguese.) So she’s really working to sort out which language is which. I think maybe she does it as a tool when she is unsure how to say the word in Portuguese. (In the spider example, she may have wanted to say spider in Portuguese and didn’t remember how). Or maybe it’s just curiosity.
March 10, 2005
The reading lessons are coming along much better, don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Before I was deciding which words based on not much rhyme or rhythm but now the words always have to do with that day. Then we play a game with the old words from the days prior, seeing if we’ll have something to do something we’re doing that day. It works really well to do it while she eats because I frankly get so tired of waiting on her to eat. This way I feel like we’re accomplishing two things at the same time. Also it’s something we do while I feed James.
We made a rainbow today and that way learned the word “rainbow” but also the words for the colors in the rainbow. (put picture below
This way it’s something fun and she seems to enjoy it.
March 13, 2005
It’s really working well to build from the day’s before cards for our reading lesson. It is just so real! Today I told Sydney what we were doing today and asked her, so now which cards do we need today. She’d repeat back some of the main words (place names like “YMCA” ) and I’d say, “Do we have a card for that yet?” If not, I’d make one. After making the new cards we’d go through the old cards to see if they applied today. She would look at the cards and instead of reading it in the traditional sense of saying the word, she would read it but then say, (in response to reading the word, ‘Tanita” who works at the church nursery) “No we won’t see her, that’s at church” . So you are testing for comprehension without seeming like you’re testing. And it’s fun.
I have found that cards of different sizes and colors of writing really help especially if there’s some rhyme or reason to the color. So if we’re going to the supermarket that day, we’ll take out words like “salada”(“salad”) which are in green.
March 19, 2005
Today Portuguese really came in handy. One thing I cannot get Sydney to do until she’s good and ready is apologize. Today she smarted off to my dad. I told her she needed to say she was sorry and could tell Diddy was waiting for an apology. She flat refused (all of this in Portuguese so Diddy didn’t understand). Then she said, “I want juice” so I said, “Ok, I’m not getting you any juice until you apologize.” She promptly did and it went more smoothly without Diddy knowing I’d sort of had to threaten her to get her to apologize.
It was so fun to hear Sydney’s excitement at reading “YMCA”. We’ve been keeping up our habit of doing words in the morning over breakfast. We do to the YMCA every other weekday so it’s often picked up from the pile. She was just so thrilled to be able to read something outside our home, like it made it more real.
April 3, 2005
Sydney’s grammar in English is often more like Portuguese that first hour at night when Stephen comes home and she’s transitioning into speaking English to him.
Examples: “Look Daddy, I painted the fingernail of my toe” (that’s what “toe” is translated literally from the Portuguese)
“I was worried of that.” (In Portuguese, you worry of something as opposed to worrying about)
Prepositions are particularly hard because often the vocabulary word is a cognate, but the preposition isn’t the same. For example, in Portuguese, you “dream wit someone” instead of “about someone.”
April 4, 2005
Whichever language Sydney starts off in the morning is really important. It’s hard for her to switch. So this morning, she started in English and then when she needed to talk to me, she said, “Eu nao consigo em Portugues” (“I can’t do it in Portuguese.”)
I have to give her the first part of the sentence, when she gets stuck like that and then let her take it from there. I let her take her time
April 14, 2005
I’ve really noticed of late that if Sydney wakes up and speaks first in Portuguese to me, it really affects how much she’s willing to do so during breakfast and even thereafter. It means English is a bit strained but only the first sentence or two in which she stutters a bit, but English switchover is much easier for her than English to Portuguese so I feel it’s important I get to her first thing. This is tough because I am a bear in the morning but I really try talking to her, asking her about her dreams, which stuffed animal she slept with, etc. I also noticed something odd today. Lately she hasn’t been taking a nap but instead has a time just to play on her own. Sometimes she does this for a couple of hours. Today it was especially long, nearly 3 hours! I can hear her talking and singing as she plays. After that time alone she had a very difficult time speaking in Portuguese to me. She’s put in maybe 2 Portuguese words per sentence. I think that she is used to playing in English because that’s what most of her friends her age speak. So it was hard for her to switch back after that. I am starting to have regular playgroups in Portuguese now though so that should help.
It cracks me up how she’ll often use Portuguese grammar or syntax while speaking English to her dad. Today when she saw some doggy poo, she said to Stephen, “Look, some poop of dog!”
Tonight Sydney, James and I watched this video that arrived today, “Bilingual Baby”. It’s a video I found while looking up children’s videos for the book. It was very well done as far as the people it showed, computer graphics. I loved how it mentioned different words and then showed the word really large in the second language (it had a smaller translation in English for the parents who don’t speak the language). The odd part though was that it was so American. The woman doing the narration was Brazilian but the houses and people are activities were so American. It was truly learning the language without the culture. Though of course it wasn’t devoid of culture but it screamed of American culture, just not Brazilian. I think though it’s worth having because it helped teach the colors names and short sentences. It’s fun and happy, something kids would enjoy, my daughter certainly did and even James, who’s only 14 months, looked at it from time to time.
April 15, 2005
Today’s been like pulling teeth to keep Sydney in Portuguese. Frustrating, exhausting! Sometimes my prompts pretty much worked, though, so I stuck with it. It’s like once I can help her click back into Portuguese, she’s good to go. It’s the cross over that’s hard, especially if she’s been playing with kids speaking English. So here’s an example of our prompting today:
Sydney: I need a tissue, Mamae.
Me: Voce precisa de que? (You need what?)
Sydney: A tissue?
Me: O que? Eu nao entendi. (What? I don’t understand.)
Sydney: Eu preciso daquela coisa pra o nose. (I need that thing for your ‘nose’—with ‘nose’ in English, not Portuguese)
Me: Ah, pra seu nariz? (Oh, for your nose!)
Sydney: Sim, pra meu nariz. (Yes, for my nose)
Me: Voce precisa de um lenco. Diga, ‘Eu preciso de um lenco’ (You need a tissue. Say, ‘I need a tissue’)
Sydney: Eu preciso de um lenco. (I need a tissue)
Me: Aqui ‘ta, Preciosa (ok, here it is, Precious)
The whole day’s been like this. At one point in the car, we had an interesting conversation:
Sydney: Mamae, someone took my voice em Portugues (in Portuguese) and I can only speak in English now.
Me: (sounding very shocked) Alguem roubou sua voz? Como pode ser? (Someone stole your voice?! How can that be?)
Sydney: Sim, roubou mamae, nao deve! (Yes, someone took it, they shouldn’t have.)
Me: Que pena! Eu acho tao legais suas duas vozes. Tem gente que so tem uma voz—eles so sabem falar ingles. E’ uma pena. Mas voce, voce tem sorte—voce tem DUAS VOZES! (What a shame! I think it’s so cool that you have 2 voices. Some people only have one voice, only speak English. That’s a pity! But you, you’re lucky to have 2 voices!)
Sydney: Sim!!
This afternoon, I got the dearest letter from my friend and mentor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor Emeritus in the Dept of Spanish and Portuguese and helped me so much on my dissertation and in life in general. He’s a sort of god in his field of Portuguese language/ literature: intelligent, prolific, and somehow still humble and eager and kind. The letter wasn’t addressed to me, it was to a colleague of his who has written a book of poems in Portuguese that holds appeal for both children and adults. In the correspondence, my family situation is mentioned. It was interesting to see us from his point of view, to hear us described. So I’m pasting it and then translating it below for safe-keeping:
"Uma amiga, jovem Ph.D. (e mamãe de dois filhinhos) de Chapel Hill, North Carolina, se especializa em Psicologia educacional, sobre tudo na aprendizagem duma segunda língua pelos pequenos. Vou lhe enviar exemplar do Zôo, não para as crianças aprenderem português—eles já estudam isso com a mamãe doutora—mas para ela mesma que, sendo cientista social, nunca estudou muita poesia. Vai adorar o seu livro e com certeza vai ensinar aos filhos a gozar de certas partes; e vai ser motivo para eles acrescentarem palavras novas. Naturalmente os bebés aprendem português ao lado da língua materna."
Lately Sydney’s new thing is to invent words and then define them. She’ll say (I’m translating from Portuguese:)
“I have a halu (looking to a little red piece of clothe she’s found on the floor). A halu is a little thing you wave around (waving the red clothe back and forth).
Sometimes I wonder if I say very blunt things to Sydney in Portuguese that I’d be more guarded with if I were speaking my first language. Today we were listening to these Brazilian songs and it talked about a chic who was afraid of hawks. She asked why he was afraid and I said that she’s afraid the hawk will eat her. Then she asked, “What do birds eat?” So I told her, “worms.” As I was saying this, I was thinking, “Would I have told her that hawks eat baby chics if I were speaking in English. It sounds so harsh and might scare her.” Upon hearing “worms,” she burst into tears. “Not worms! I want Daddy to come home! I don’t want him to go to work!” I said, “You don’t like birds eating worms?” She cried, “No, they eat seeds!” So I told her they probably are only playing with the worms. To which she added that the hawks were only looking at the baby chics, not eating them. I need to watch this in the future.
April 1, 2005
When to translate…may help not to where reading’s concerned
One of my interviewees said it got so hard to teach French while living in the US because there were always so many words you couldn’t translate like “Cheerios”. She just made up her own translations. I would advice in the case of place names and brand names and such, just to go with the English when a translation is just ridiculous. For example, I tend to translate “Carolina do Norte” for North Carolina because it’s common for Brazilian names to have the “of the south” part so that’s good to know. But for “Chapel Hill, “ there’s no need to translate that. Or with acronyms, no need to translate those in most circumstances. And it’s helpful with reading because then the child recognizes words you’re teaching them. Sydney was so thrilled the first time she found she could read a sign “YMCA”. Brazil has a comparable fitness/wellness type organization but what’s the point of teaching that, really?
April 20, 2005
Themes in reading
We started doing something new with reading…using themes. We used sidewalk chalk to draw outside and I told her how I love modern art. I drew some examples and then wrote “Arte Moderna” underneath. When we came inside, I showed her some of my art books and the difference in modern art from other more traditional paintings. We were itching for an outing so I took her to this little mall nearby to see the gallery there. She was able to point out modern art. I put the word, “arte moderna” on a card for her to see and we talked about the words. How the ‘moderna” started with the same letter Mamae starts with. I’m helping her to deconstruct the words a bit into their separate letters a bit more. We’ll see if that’s helpful.
April 25, 2005
Today I had the kids in the car along with a neighbor. I had some Brazilian children’s songs in and Sydney started singing along. Then she turned to her friend Katie and said, “This song’s about rain falling from the sky.” I was amazed. She explained the next song as well. Aren’t their little minds amazing! Oh, and something else interesting about the Brazilian music in the car. The other day we took a neighbor’s twins to the park. They are in the 2nd grade and haven’t spent a lot of time with us. After getting out of the car and playing at the park awhile, I was saying something in Portuguese to Sydney and one of the twins asked “What?” I said, “I asked her to put her shoes on in Portuguese.” She said, “Oh, that’s Portuguese! Is that what those songs are in the car?” I said, “yes, that are children’s songs from Brazil so they are in Portuguese.” She said, “OH, Allen and I thought they were babysongs. They were using baby language.” This wasn’t too odd for her because apparently she and her twin brother had made up their own baby talk to say to each other that, according to their mom, only they understood. All this to say, it’s so amazing how children are naturally interested in language.
Later, I was talking to the Brazilian babysitter, Stella. I explained to her how I’d tried some different methods and seemed to find one that really helped Sydney transition from English to Portuguese. (I decided this discussion was necessary because I’ve noticed of late that Sydney speaks more English after being with Stella…when I watched or listen to them interact I know why. Sydney talks in English and Stella responds in Portuguese but still never insists that she ask for things or say things in Portuguese.). I prefaced the conversation by saying that I know what I’m about to ask is going to include more work for her and that I’m willing to pay her extra per hour if she feels that is necessary. Anyway she said that it’s only natural for Sydney to speak in English so she doesn’t correct her.
I wanted to scream because it’s that darn NATURAL that keeps coming up!!! Infuriating. I told her that what is natural is what we perceive as natural, is what we make our habits. She said, “E’ natural no sentido que Portugues e’ a segunda lingua dela e os demais falam ingles. Entao ela vai naturalmente falar ingles.” (It’s natural in the sense that Portuguese is her second language and people around her speak English.”) I explained that Portuguese is not her second language, but is one of her two first languages. That she is just as strong in Portuguese but that often she’ll start off in English because she forgets. It’s the language she hears more of so that’s just going to happen but she knows Portuguese and with help in the translation, she’ll just right over to Portuguese no problem. S
Stella went on to say that that was a lot of work for her to do because she’s at the same time watching James and keeping him safe. I said, “Yeah Stella, that’s my life, the one I live 24 hours a day.” It really irritated me especially in light of having offered her more compensation if she would do the “extra” work. So I left if at saying that I’d just like to spend time with Sydney and her so she can see what I do with the kids (only responding when they speak in Portuguese, etc.). From there, she can decide if she feels she can do that as well.
I did and it seemed to go well, I guess but then later on, I overhead them and Stella was not doing it. Sydney said something in English, a whole sentence, and Stella responded. But Stella also said she’s traveling the whole summer so I’m going to look for someone else. Already started the search. The hard part is that Stella absolutely adores the kids and they love her. She has this special spark of positive energy that I haven’t really seen in ANYONE. And the only reason she doesn’t do what I ask, is that she just wants the kids to express themselves, so it’s hard to get too mad. I do get pretty mad though because I feel like I’m the one paying and should have some say in how things go.
Reading theme and rhyme
We’ve started some new reading games that Sydney really loves. I’m working more on phonetics. It started rather naturally. Yesterday, I was doing the thematic lessons and she learned “irma/irmao” and I found the word “nao” from a previous lesson and pointed out how “nao” and “irmao” rhyme. She seemed to really like this so we started inventing little rhymes. That day I stayed with the “irma” “irmao” theme, putting the words on their separate milk and juice tippie cups. Getting out the drawing paper and drawing a brother and sister with her and then writing the words above them. Then today I got out the brother word again and we worked together to find words that rhymed. We got out “chao” “mao” and this silly dog from a Brazilian video she watches called, “Tchutchucao.” Then we made up silly songs using James. Something like “James is my “irmao” (brother) who plays on the “chao” (floor) and has a tiny “mao”. He’s the “tchutchucao”!
Another word games I’m going to help them make today will link reading with the baby sign language Sydney knows. We were a bit slack on the sign teaching for the past year or so but Sydney surprised me the other day when she hurt her finger, she used her sign to tell me (while she was talking and crying) and now I’ve noticed that’s become a habit. I took off the sheet of about 26 signs we’d taught her and practiced today and she remembered them. Stephen and I have tried to teach James at least “more” and “hungry” and “thirsty” because he’s nearing the age when he can really use them.
I’m going to go to the copy store today and make a copy of the sheet, cut up just the pictures, and make little laminated cards with them on pretty paper. (I just laminated them so they would last and would be shinier and more interesting for the kids but that’s not really necessary.) Then I wrote out the words for those signs such as “Com Fome” (hungry) or “Quero descer” (I want down). We learned those words while doing the signs. Then later if she could identify the sign by reading the word, she got to keep one of the little cards. I think I’ll make it a matching game too but writing all the words on cards again so that each word has a pair (I’ll use the same color pen I think). They we can turn the words face down on the table and play concentration (using only about 3 pairs to start out with). Whoever get the match, wins that little laminate card that she can pick out from the pile. We’ll be doing the motion when we see the different cards to reinforce what she’s learned. This will give her more memory hooks to remember those words.
I’ve loved hearing Sydney translations. The other day she asked me if I was going to a “reuniao” that evening (a meeting). I said yes. She said, “A reunion is when you go some place for only mommies, not for children.” The other day she said the word “fun” in English to me. Something like, “Vai ser fun mamae?” (“Will it be fun Mamae?”) and I said, “Tem que perguntar, vai ser divertido?” (“You need to ask, will it be fun?”) and she said, “Nao divertido, tem que dizer ‘legal.” (“No, not ‘divertido,’ you have to say ‘lega’l” ) (“No, not ‘fun,’ you have to say ‘cool’”) Really “legal” means “cool” but in her mind it meant “fun” and she was correcting my translation.
She’s still really into inventing words.. She said the other day, “celils” very slowly as if teaching it to me. Then she elaborated, “Celils are things that children can’t do.” What cracks me up is that she really remembers her words. We were at a party this past weekend and I was helping her in the bathroom when she noticed this triangular tile floor. She pointed to the tiny tiles and said, “These are licas” You call those things “licas”. Then a couple of hours later when she was using the restroom again she pointed to the tiles and said that she liked those “licas.” Sometimes she’ll use nonsense words with Stephen and tell him, “That’s Spanish for ‘good’” or the likes.
The funniest thing with translating though is when she translates to make sure she gets her way. When we were in Nashville, she often didn’t like what my mother cooked so we would battle in Portuguese over whether or not she was going to eat every bite or just 2 or 3 more on her plate. My mother really found the whole thing sort of silly and would also tell her to clean her plate, etc. With the hamburger, I finally told Sydney that she just had to eat the meat. She quickly looked at Granny and said, “She said I only have to eat the meat” just in case Granny tried to push for the clean plate club.
Sometimes she changes the translation. The other day I’d given James an early bath and Sydney didn’t really need a bath because we’d been inside all day. She asked Stephen and me if she could take a bath and I said, “You don’t need one and James has already had his.” As I walked off, I heard her translate this for Stephen as, “She said James needs 2 baths today.”
April 28, 2005
Portuguese has words that are just so much longer than English. I notice when Sydney is speaking to her dad in English, if she knows or remembers the word in Portuguese but not in English, will shorten the Portuguese word (perhaps to sort of anglify it.)
Example: You chup your finger!” (You suck your finger”) The real word in Portuguese is “chupa.”
April 29, 2005
God, you’ve got to have a tough skin to do this bilingual stuff. I felt like it was a linguistic wrestling match with Sydney all day with me trying to get her to respond or ask tings in Portuguese. When Stephen came home, she followed him around even when he wanted to be alone, like to fiddle with the grill that was too hot for her to be near. He asked her to come inside with me and she said, “No, I don’t want to be with Mamae.” It hurt my feelings but I consoled myself by saying that it’s probably not me or my company per se but the fact that I’m on her back about the Portuguese. I think I’m going it in a loving fun manner but maybe I should work on the fun part more so she won’t feel that way about being with me. Or, who knows, it could have been another reason why she was saying that.
May 1, 2005
Sydney notices how much longer the words are in Portuguese than in English. Today she and I weeded the hasta bed and when I told her to take out the “ervas daninhas” (“weeks”), she said, “E’ só ‘weed’ em ingles.”
She invents little stories, telling me about how she playing with a mole in the yard who only spoke Portuguese, not English.
May 3, 2005
Brazilian Playgroup
We did our little Brazilian playgroup again. The focus is still too loose but the kids had a ball. I think for the next one, I’ll have it at my house and give a reading time. I’ll have some books selected that have lots of neat voices to do. I’ll also have only children’s music playing. I have a new Xuxa video arriving and might play it because it has music for them to dance to. I’m going to do the food for lunch so that moms will be more willing to come.
It’d be neat to do a craft but I’m going to move slow so I’ll be more apt to do another one and I don’t want those coming to feel they have to go to all that trouble when they host the playgroup. I’ll ask moms to bring their kids and calendars only so we can make a date for the next one and get directions and decide who will bring what so it’s not a burden on any one person. I’ll offer to bring the reading materials and will bring a CD burned of some Brazilian music I’ll leave with the mom who hosts.
I’ve noticed that when I was stuck on an expression or which verb to use in an expression, the dictionary isn’t too helpful. Instead I try goggling the expression as I think it reads. For example, I was unsure whether they say, “When I get big” or “when I am big” when I was making a little book for Sydney. So I looked them both up and found one was used while the other was not.
May 3, 2005
Sydney absolutely loves the book I made her. It is the perfect book for making into a bilingual one. It’s called “When I get Big” and I used full-sized sticky pages meant for the computer to cut into pieces and tape over the words already on the page. Then I just jotted on scrap paper what I wanted to put tin the book. I kept the words large and didn’t use more than 3 words per page. It read something like,
When I get big
I will be an
Astronaut
Or a Chef
Or a diver, etc.
Each page had the different profession and some of the items on the pages were labeled (“cocoa” was labeled on the “Chef’s” page, for example). For these little labels, I put tiny sticky labels (that I’d cut from those rectangular sticky white sheets you can buy) over those and put the Portuguese. Then as Sydney was reading it, I told her to look for the “hidden words” (they weren’t so hidden because she like doing it because it was more like a game.)
Then she started naming other things on the page so I’d say, ‘Ok, I’ll write the word for that. I just wrote it on the page next to the word. She really got into that and kept saying, “Now write this one!” Or “What’s this” and I’d tell her and write the name. It was helpful for me because some words I have look up a hundred times before I can remember it, but somehow discussing the word with her after looking it up- then writing that word-- really help fix it in my memory. Plus with all the times we read it that day, I got lots of practice seeing the word and saying it.
May 13, 2005
Out of the blue, Sydney in the car today said, “Em espanhol ‘triste’ é a mesma palavra que em Portuguese—‘triste’” (In Spanish, ‘sad” is the same word as it is in Portuguese, ‘sad’.” She’d gotten that from the book with an accompanying tape in Spanish, “Un Dia de Nieve” that she checked out from the library.
Later today I let her listen to it again and she came running out of the playroom to say, “montanha” was also the same word as it is in Portuguese.
Also today we had a play date at our neighbors’ house and Ann, the mom, said as we were leaving, “Oh Sydney, you can borrow that yellow ball for awhile.” So Sydney immediately turned to me and translated into Portuguese, “Ela falou que eu posso ficar com isso por um minute” (“She told me I can keep the ball for minute.”). It was as if I didn’t understand Ann speaking English.
I’ve found Sydney’s translations interesting because they are never word for word, but the general meaning is there, sometimes better than if she had given a more literal translation. Sometimes I feign misunderstanding when Sydney speaks English to me, and she sometimes has trouble remembering the Portuguese word. If she can’t remember, she circumnavigates so well using other words and simply saying what she said in a different tway or through actions. She forgot, “escritorio” (“office”) the other day and just took me into our office to show me what she meant.
June 23, 2005
It’s working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel like several times a day I say this to myself and really just want to scream it out loud. I’ve done it!!! She speaks Portuguese!!! I had that few months where I was so completely discouraged because she just seemed to always default to English but somehow the last few weeks it’s like Portuguese just clicked and she speaks it so well! Even the errors she makes are errors that a native speaker would make (putting in a regular verb ending when she needs an irregular verb, for example). It is such a feeling of accomplishment.
The new babysitter is working out really well, so well that I’m frankly quite glad the other one quit. Sydney looks forward to Katia’s visit instead of dreading it like she did with Sara. Katia makes a concerted effort to break the time up and do different things during the 4 hours. She is careful to spend some time doing a quiet guided learning type activity which is great. That is something I would suggest that people do when they hire a sitter. Get some indoor reading related type activities for them to have some “table time” because you get in a lot of conversation that way. Craft stores sell letters with adhesive backs that you can use to make words. We drew pictures, like of cats or birds, then stuck the words “cat” or “bird” next to the drawing…she loved it. Finger paints are also good, anything where they have a craft to do from start to finish because there is a lot of language involved even in the clean up.
June 30, 2005
Today I thought, “If I weren’t speaking Portuguese and doing this bilingual thing with the kids, I would be going stark raving mad right now.” (I’m not all that far from going stark raving mad as it is but at least I have the bilingual focus to keep me from going over the edge). It’s just that I get so bored some days staying at home with the kids. I try to plan fun things, I do social things as much as possible, but the days are so long and what can I really do about that? Stephen gets home at 7:00 pm many nights and the day just seriously wears on. But at least with the Portuguese, even when I’m bored, like today I was so bored when we were at the park. I was trying to play with Sydney and get into her make believe play but it was just dull for me since I’m an adult and all. Somehow knowing that I was teaching her the language made it more bearable. I am considering going back to work but hate the idea of her being in an English daycare. I guess I could consider a Spanish one.
I’ve been letting her check out books on tape in Spanish and she loves it. Also have been letting her listen to this CD of French music and talking called, “Let’s learn French” She loves it!
July 5, 2005
I’ve been amazed at Sydney’s Portuguese. She rarely speaks English and there are times when I think her Portuguese is stronger than her English because she knows so many more songs and poems in Portuguese. I did an interview with Jeff Vanke and he said he thinks one reason I’ve been so successful is that I haven’t let her watch television. The only tv she watches are Portuguese videos. This past weekend we got a whole bag load of Portuguese videos and she was just thrilled…mainly Disney stuff translated like the 101 Dalmations and such. The lady, Suzie, said she’d like to have our daughters get together because hers is 10 and speaks Portuguese. I offered to pay her some so it’ll be like tutoring/babysitting for an hour or two while Susie and I chat and have dessert. I think even just hearing our dialogue will be good because she needs to hear other adults speaking the language.
July 17, 2005
I got several really great books for Sydney this past week. One if a translated Dr. Seuss which is just amazing. Somehow they even preserved the rhyme and meter that make it so fun to read.
One book was on shapes. Not just the easy ones like triangle and circle, but cylinder and cones and such. She loved it. So I decided to incorporate that book into our reading lesson by teaching her to read the shape words. So I wrote them on the big cards like I always do but also drew the shapes on separate little cards in bold pen. I’m going to let her match the word to the shape and when she does, she gets to color the shape with crayons.
We’ve not been really diligent with our reading lessons, only doing them like once a week, but Katia works with her some and I do read with her a lot as in just sitting down and reading books in Portuguese. We read on average about 5 or 6 books a day and sometimes we’ll just sit for an hour while James is asleep and read for the whole hour. She just loves it.
We’ve been watching Brazilian or American translated-into-Portuguese videos that a friend loaned me. I lean so many words watching them. Like someone flipped a coin and said “CARA” (HEADS). I would not have known how to say heads/tails and probably would have guessed wrong had I tried to say it on my own. So I learn a lot from context. It’s good because I want to watch the videos with her instead of just using them as babysitters while I do something else. So video time at night is a family affair. My husband even watches some and understands a lot.
Her meta consciousness of the 2 languages has really taken off. Today she said, “Eu nao sei como dizer retangulo em ingles.” She didn’t seem to think that I would know either. It was more like she was thinking out loud rather than asking me to tell her. I said that she’d want to ask her dad and she seemed okay with that. During lunch she was eating slice of cheese and said, “Eu nao lembro como falar isso em portugues” She looked really pensive like she was using all her brainpower to remember because she knew she knew it and had just forgotten. All of a sudden she shouted, “Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!” She looked so proud of herself.
Today I took one of her new books, the one by Dr. Seuss and sat down with it and a dictionary because there are quite a few words I’m not familiar with. I found the English version in the back, conviently But it’s not a direct translation by any means because they’ve worked to preserve the singsong meter and rhyme. So I had to look many words up in the dictionary and I wrote their translation in the back in case I forget. I learned some really useful words that I need to know from time to time but am not in the position to look them up when I need them and by the time I get home, I’ve forgotten which word it was I needed.
Another advantage to speaking Portuguese to Sydney is that I meet so many interesting people. People overhead me speaking to her and they ask, “Is that Italian” or “That’s not French is it?” And we start talking and they often share with me their stories of people in their family or friends who are also bilingual. It just makes the whole stay at home mom experience more interesting because otherwise it’s sometimes hard to start up a conversation with a total stranger at the playground or grocery store line, etc.
Today Sydney wanted to play Candyland but she knew that if she said, “Candyland” she’s be speaking Englsih to me. So she described the game instead, telling me how she wanted to play that game with the little cards with colors and the people you move. It was so cute that she didn’t “cheat” and just say the word “Candyland” in English even when I pressed her with “O que?” to her explanations. She’s really getting the hang of Portugeuse with mom, English with dad.
She did a funny mix of the language with Stephen yesterday though. She said after the church nursery, “James roubou-ed my chocolate!” It’s so fun that Stephen understands enough Portuguese to know how hilarious that is.
July 21, 2005
James said his first word today—Mama! I even had a witness because the Brazilian babysitter Katia was here. Today was Katia’s last day. It’s a crying shame because she was so great with the kids and really got the idea that she’s more of a teacher than a babysitter. She even worked on reading with the kids.
We’ve had fun playing what I call a match up game. The other day we did colors where I wrote the color name on a small square card and then wrote it on one of the big posterboard cards too. I wrote out about 7 colors. Then I let her choose the large cards and from the stack of small cards, she had to find the word that was the same. So once she’d picked out both cards that said, “amarelo” (“yellow”), we chose all the different shades of yellow from her big crayon box and colored the smaller card all around the word with the different shades. We did this with each word and made such cute little colorful cards. Today I did the same thing with fruits and once she matched the cards, we took the little cards and colored the appropriate colors of apples, grapes, pineapple, etc. It was fun even for me.
Today I was reading Sydney a book I made her. Each page has either a boy or a girl who are saying what they hope to be when they grow up. I put all the profession words in the masculine though, even though on every other page it was the girl who was saying what she wanted to be so it really should have been in the feminine form. She said, “that should be ‘cabeleira’” I said, “what?” and she said (in Portuguese), “because she’s a girl and not a dad, cabeleiro is for dads. I found it interesting she can already meta-discuss the language.
July, 23, 2005
The reading lessons are going much better now that we’ve added some color. She even requested we do a lesson the other day. Today I took some cards, just leftover notecards and postcards we’ve received over the past year, and wrote words out like, “lake,” “flowers,” etc. and put them on the kitchen table. I often do that…do project then instead of overtly introducing her to my idea, I just leave it out where I know she’ll find it. That way she takes more of an ownership in the instigations and it’s more interesting to her.
James has really gotten into books the past week. He likes the touch and feel ones and brings them over for us to read though he often loses interest after a couple of pages. I think the part he likes most is choosing the book and bringing it to you, after that he gets a bit bored.
July 29, 2005
It’s odd to me that Sydney doesn’t seem to think I speak English when she hears me speaking it to other people all the time. We were at my parents this weekend and at bedtime I picked up a children’s book in English because all the Portuguese books were out in the car. She looked at the title and said, “You can’t read that one, it’s in English.” The way she said it, it seemed to me that she didn’t think I was actually capable of reading it.
She cracks me up quoting people. If I ever quote someone by saying, “Daddy vai dizer, ‘que bom!’” she’ll correct me and let me know that he’d say that in English.
August 3, 2005
I was amazed today at the playground. There were a couple of Spanish-speaking men doing work on some of the equipment, yelling back and forth to each other in Spanish. They were quite far from us so I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. Sydney said to me (in Portuguese but I’ll translate here), “They’re speaking Spanish.” I told my husband this and he said that maybe it wasn’t that she heard them speaking maybe she guessed from their darker skin and dark hair. I remember reading in a book called, Starting Small, Teaching Tolerance in Preschool and the Early Grades that it’s around four years old when children start to really notice differences in ethnicity so since she’s three and a half that could well be the case. If it happens again, I’ll be sure to ask her why she thinks they’re speaking Spanish so I’ll know how specifically. I notice her being fascinated by other languages. Today we went to the pool with a boy whose parents didn’t speak English, just Spanish. She really tuned in to everything I said to the woman and kept repeating, just to herself, not to anyone in particular, “hola, hola hola”.
April 5, 2005
Sydney amazed me today. Completely taken by surprised. I haven’t really been doing much to teach her Spanish. I get some books on tape from the public library that are in Spanish and she listens on average to one or two a week. She overhears me speaking it occasionally to people we come in contact with. But that’s about it. In Spanish the “te” at the end of a word, is pronounced “tay” but in Portuguese, the “t” palatalizes to a “ch” sound to instead of “tay” it’s pronounced “chee”. We were doing our reading lesson and were doing the word “elefante” and she said (in Portuguese but I”ll translate) “In Spanish this is ‘elefantay’ but in Portuguese it’s ‘elefanchee’” Isn’t that amazing?
August 9, 2005
I discovered today quite by accident a good way to practice word recognition and reading. I have been playing a sort of matching game with Sydney where I paste pictures onto card stock so there are these little picture cards (I get the pictures from greeting cards-pics of cats or children, etc and then I have an accompanying card with the word “cat” or “children” for her to match). By mistake, one day I made word cards for a set of picture cards that I’d already made word cards for. So she had 2 words for each card. So to make use of those, I would do the regular matching part where I show her the word, read it to her slowly showing the different syllables, then let her find the picture card that accompanies it. Then we did a few more with other words and when I came upon a word we’d already read, I’d show it to her and said, “Put this beside the same word”. That way she was really having to tune into what the word looked like. Then after she put the two words beside each other or one on top the other, I’d say the word again for her to practice.
She amazes me with her distinguishing the different languages. She’ll take a Portuguese word and say it with a Spanish accent and say, “forte” [for-tay] is Spanish “forte” [fort-chee] is Portuguese or sometimes it’s not as exact as that because she’s just sort of making up the Spanish word by making the Portuguese word have a staccato accent like Spanish has. But she really recognizes the differences and loves doing the books on tape that are bilingual teaching Spanish stories and songs. I’m not crazy about their methods because they use English when there’s really no need but she seems to get sometime out of it. Today in a Portuguese song, the singer used a word of English and Sydney said, “Hey, that’s English!”
