James 1 1/2- 2 Years, Sydney 3 1/2- 4 Years
From BilingualWiki
August 25, 2005
Today I was talking to Stephen. He was in the other room so we had to raise our voices to hear each other. Sydney was standing in the middle of us listening to everything and translating everything we said. We were both speaking in English so I’m not sure why Sydney felt this was necessary but she did a good job. She would listen to me then run to Stephen and say, “Mamae said…” Then he’d shout back to me (still in English) and Sydney would come to me and repeat what he’s said in Portuguese. Sometimes it’s as if she doesn’t think I speak English. If she inadvertently picks up an English book for me to read for her, she’ll say, ‘OH no, you can’t read this, it’s in English.” I guess I encourage that because when she says a sentence to me in English, I’ll look lost and say “What?” and she’ll repeat it in Portuguese. She’s also a terrific circumnavigator. If she doesn’t know a word in Portuguese, she’ll just describe what she means. Let’s say she’s forgotten the word for “carnival”, she’ll think a minute and say, “You know that circus outside and people are having fun with music. I can almost always guess what she means.
Septempter 18, 2005
Today I read over some of the first few pages of this journal about my plans for raising Sydney (and now James) bilingual and there were so many things I changed my mind on or never quite followed through on. I wrote parenthetically in bold print how things had actually turned out. It was a bit depressing because some of the ideas were really good and I’m not sure why I never did them. But the kids are doing fine language wise which I guess is what matters. I’ve noticed that Sydney even appreciates other languages besides English and Portuguese. She’ll ask me how you say a certain way in Spanish or French. My French is so rusty that I bought a Fr/Eng dictionary off Ebay and keep it in the kitchen.
A couple of days ago, Thursday September 15, 2005, I was on our last day of vacation, just my husband and I were in Sapphire Valley in the NC Blue Ridge Mountains for nearly a week while my in-laws stayed with the kids. I wondered how it would affect Sydney’s Portuguese not too much though because I still paid her Brazilian babysitter/tutor to come for her 8 hours per week. I got frustrated on previous days trying to talk to Sydney on the phone because my mother in law was trying to help her by saying, “Now tell her how we went to the park,” “Tell her you’ve been a good girl today.” And Sydney would never say that because it’s in English and at the same time I’m trying to ask her things in Portuguese so we ended up not really communicating.
I told my husband that he could do the calling from now on because it was too frustrating (and depressing because I just missed the kids) but on our last night, I thought I could handle it. So she was trying to tell me something in Portuguese but was getting interrupted by Lois saying, “Tell her XYZ…” Sydney said to her, “She speaks Portuguese” and promptly came back to me to tell me the rest of her story which was basically tattle telling on her brother. It’s odd to me because she does other things that indicate she thinks I only understand Portuguese because oftentimes after someone says something in English, she will translate for me. I wonder if her motivation will be lowered once she realizes, “Hey, she does speak and understand English perfectly well!”
After the week with her grandparents, I did notice that English came more naturally to her than Portuguese. But, it was really already like that, just a bit more noticeable. People’s reactions when I tell them how I’m speaking Portuguese to the kids is, “How do they learn English? Will they be behind in school?” but what they’re not taking into account is that English is EVERYWHERE whereas the Portuguese is a bit contrived so I just do my best.
I think in general she does an amazing job keeping the languages separate and knowing who to talk what to. The other day I found it interesting that she was speaking Portuguese to me while we were alone in the kitchen and as soon as she saw Lois enter the room she switched (without missing a beat) to English to include her in the conversation, isn’t that amazing? She cracks me up correcting my Portuguese. Sometimes she’s right, since she’s actually a native speaker she hears little errors I make that I don’t pick up on. But yesterday (September 17, 2005) she corrected me because I corrected her grammar which she thought was correct (I was actually right and tried my best to explain it to her). She said, “Eu estou com fria” (literally, “I am with cold”) which is fine to say in Portuguese except that you have to use the masculine form of “fria” which is “frio”. So in my usual correction style, I repeated what she’s said in the correct form in form of a question. “ah, voce esta com frio” (oh, you are cold?”) and she said, “Nao, com fria porque para mulheres e’ friA (emphasizing that last “a” sound) mas com homens e’ friO. (No, with cold (here using a feminine form of the word) because for women it’s “friA but with men it’s “friO” (here using the masculine form). Normally this is the rule but only when you use the word as an adjective that’s describing a woman (fria) or a man (frio) but not when it’s a noun form of the word as it is in Portuguese. “I am with cold/hunger/jealousy/anger, etc.) I found it interesting that she had her own rule for this.
September, 20, 2005
Sydney corrected me more today. In Portuguese they have 2 words for chicken. One for the live one pecking around and another for the cooked chicken you eat or the frozen chicken you buy. I asked her about her “galinha” at the dinner table instead of frango and she corrected me. Also corrected my avÔ to avÓ. I’ve noticed that even though I correct her gently she still has trouble with “Eu sei” (I know) because instead she used the third person of the verb “Eu sabe” (I knows) and the same with the verb “to do” “Eu fez” instead of Eu fiz”. I don’t make a huge deal of this though because I don’t want her to be frustrated.
October, 26, 2005
This week has been Sydney’s first time in preschool. It was a very hard decision to put her in half day because I worried about it affecting her Portuguese (and I knew I’d miss her like crazy). She does struggle with Portuguese just a bit at first, forgetting words and such, but after we’ve talked for awhile, she gets back in the grove. There’s a little Brazilian girl (one of the families I’ve interviewed for this research) who’s in the class with her and has been in for at least a year. She doesn’t speak Portuguese anymore but she has good passive skills, her mom told me. I am friends with her mother, Gloria and asked Gloria what happened. She told me she already didn’t like speaking Portuguese but then it went further downhill when she went to preschool. I’ve noticed, seeing the 2 of them together over the past 3 days, that Gloria mainly speaks English to her. I asked her once, ‘Why aren’t you speaking Portuguese?” and she said she didn’t even register that she was speaking English.
I explained the situation to Sydney over dinner one night, just so she’d see that to maintain a language, it helps to speak it. She told me to send her to preschool with a book with lots of Portuguese words and that she would teach Bria to speak Portuguese again. Then today when I picked her up at school, Bria wanted to play, but Sydney told her in Portuguese that she was going home. Bria said, “What?” and I repeated it in Portuguese and asked her if she was going home. She seemed to understand what I said when I spoke slowly and used simple words. She answered, “Yes.” I told Sydney I was really proud of her for speaking Portuguese to Bria and when Gloria got there, she thanked Sydney profusely for helping Bria with her Portuguese. I said, “The only problem is that Bria will have our accent.” She said, “Sydney doesn’t have an accent.” I was shocked. I said, “really? But I do so I assumed she’d have my accent.” She told me that no, she speaks like any Brazilian kid and that hearing me speak, she wouldn't guess me as American because the accent isn’t very strong. She’d guess me as a native Spanish speaker who’s learned Portuguese. I was very happy about all this.
November 4, 2005
Sydney’s been in preschool for 3 weeks. I agonized over whether to put her in or not and with the push from relatives, friends, and the director of the YMCA preschool, I decided to enroll her. I looked it as short term and told the director that we will probably take her out in Feb which was fine by her. We are going to try to have the au pair here by the end of Feb. when James is officially 2. My reluctance came from not wanting her to be “in English” for 4 hours a day. I’ve watched closely for any changes in her language progress and it’s been amazing. Her vocabulary and facility in expressing herself in English has definitely grown/gotten better but even in Portuguese I see more facility, more desire to express herself and tell funny stories. She has been mixing the languages more, when speaking in either language. She usually only mixes in one or two words per sentence and it doesn’t slow her down at all, you’d think it was just a regular sentence because of the speed and meaning.
“Eu quero ajudar voce com o ’dinner,’ Mamae.” (Iwant to help you with dinner)
“And then he ‘pulou’ and fell down.” (and then he jumped and fell down)
I have trouble speaking with her that hour after preschool because she’s so excited and her brain is so in English mode, that she tends to speak mainly in English. I completely understand how tough it must be to switch over, especially since preschool exposes her so many new experiences…words she may have never used with me and may therefore not know in Portuguese. I try to just give her some time to adjust. She doesn’t want to talk some days when she gets in the car to drive home so I’ll tell her some stories about what her brother did while she was gone or who called our house, etc. just to get her hearing Portuguese. I also put in a Brazilian CD she knows while she just sort of spaces out from being so tired.
Correction has been taken to a whole new level because not only am I correcting mistakes in verb tense (Eu foi) and gender (uma dia), I’m trying to teach her the Portuguese words for ALL these new words she’s learning at school. I’ve even started keeping a pocket dictionary in my purse because I’m always needing it. I also made a deal with one of the other mom’s at Preschool who’s a native speaker of Portuguese, to come to me with her questions in English and I’ll do the same in Portuguese. The house is overrun with post it notes of new words I’ve learned and am trying to remember. The trick is not to make her frustrated. She said earlier this week, “Mamae, voce fala um pouco de ingles mas nao muito.” (Mommy, you speak some English but not much”) So she’s starting to figure out that if she speaks in English, I really could understand her but she’s just at the beginning of this realization. I usually just get a confused look on my face when she says a word in English, not like, “Hey, say it in Portuguese or I won’t respond.” But more like, “I really want to understand what you’re saying but am not getting it.” She’s become very good at circumnavigation (in both languages), “E’ aquela coisa aqul que eu uso na caixa de areia” (it’s that blue thing I use in the sandbox”) when she can’t remember the Portuguese word for “shovel.” But let’s say when she first struggling with the word, I had the feeling it’s a word she used to know but has probably forgotten or if I know she’s probably not learned that word, I’ll say, “ Ah, espada. Voce achou sua espada” (Oh, shovel, you are found your shovel.”) and I’ll try to use the word several times and get HER to use the word, “De que cor e’ a espada? Esqueci.” (What color is the shovel, I forgot?) “Ok, se eu quissesse cavar na areia, o que eu usaria) (So if I wanted to dig in the sand, what would I use?) Sometimes I’ll make up a silly song or poem with the word, “Eu procurava uma espada, e achei nas escadas!” (I was looking for a shovel and found it on the stairs” this is cuter in Portuguese because shovel and stairs rhyme). Sometimes though, especially when she’s just been in an English conversation with a friend or been at preschool, she just start saying everything in English. This is a hard call because I am so happy she’s so excited about whatever school activity she’s talking about and I don’t want to frustrate or make her feel like I don’t want to hear her stories, but what I generally do is interrupt mid sentence and say, (in Portuguese) “Wait I’m not getting it. You went where?” and then she’ll start back in Portuguese but still may need help, “Eu fui para um um lugar with pumpkins.” (I went to a …a…a place with pumpkids) And I”ll help her out, acting so excited to have understood and impressed that she went to a pumpkin patch, I’ll say, “AH, voce foi pra um sitio” which is the closest thing they’d have to a pumpkin patch in Brazil, ‘Oh you went to a pumpkin patch. I think the key is not to make language the focus. Make the focus on understanding the child. Give exaggeratedly excited responses when they actually do say some parts in Portuguese. Soon enough, with having conversation with you again in the language, you’ll see less English
November 15, 2005
Dreaming in Portuguese
This morning Sydney woke up early and came into our bed. Stephen had fallen asleep downstairs, laptop in lap, so since there was room and my alarm was going off soon, I let her stay in bed with me. I got little to no sleep, but I did notice that when she talked in her sleep, she spoke Portuguese with a few English words thrown in. The overall accent/rhythm was Portuguese, which I found so surprising because since preschool and since her dad being home more, I’ve felt she’s stronger in English.
November 16, 2005
This morning Sydney woke with a bad dream. Her bad dreams are always about wolves, probably because they appear in several of the books we read to her (3 little pigs, little red riding hood). I’ve been really happy about the non-television rule we made, because it means fewer things to be afraid of. Also, now that Christmas is fast approaching, I’ve found it so wonderful that she’s not into the commercialism side of Christmas like many of her friends. I really attribute some of that to the lack of advertising she’s exposed it. (We’re also not big shoppers in general, so I’m sure that was part of it too.) I just reread this paragraph and I sound like one of those icky moms who brags about only buying hormone free/organic everything for their kids. Sorry.
Yesterday James wanted some juice and kept saying “Ju!” I’ve been asking him to use the Portuguese word by saying, “Diga, ‘suco’” (“Say, ‘suco’). He keeps repeating “ju” when I ask him to say “suco.” So finally I’ll say, “Voce quer suco?” (Do you want juice?”) and insist that he say, “Sim, mamae.” It’s so cute when he says it. He won’t say it on his own, though, I have to say it first and he repeats and then gets the ever-sought-for juice. Stephen said I should not do that. That I should instead praise any attempt he makes at oral communication at this early age.
I disagreed for several reasons. First, I am praising him in that I always get excited when he says anything. I pay attention to his request by using a very animated voice to ask him to say “suco,” like we’re playing a game. Also, I think language learning starts in the womb. If I say, “Well, I’ll wait to encourage him to speak Portuguese since he’s just now learning to talk,” then, when do I make that switch over? These are formative language years and there’s no need to waste such opportunities given that you’re not frustrating your children or setting up the languages as some type of battle of wills. If one of the kids gets hurt and happens to tell me so using several words in English, I am course going to react and soothe. I would probably, just out of habit, repeat what they said in Portuguese as I comfort them—“Machucou o joelho?” (“Did you hurt your knee?”). So, they never feel that love or help is delayed because of the other language. But again, even using that word “habit,” the only way speaking the language becomes habit is by habitually doing it. Start early and be consistent. I’m trying to do this
December 2, 2005
It’s hard but I think Sydney’s finally getting the idea that one language may have one word for 2 different things and other times there may only be one word for things that in English have two words. So in Portuguese you use “porco” for the animal “pig” and the meat. And in English we have 2 words for “watch” and “clock” when in Portuguese, they are both called “relogio” though you can specify watch by saying “relogio de pulso” (“clock of wrist,” literally).
December 17, 2005
I went to the opera last night. I’ve never been a fan because it’s difficult to understand so I always want to scream, “Quit singing and talk some so I’ll know what’s going on.” This one was different. I loved hearing the lines sung. So today when Sydney awoke us, I started singing everything to her. She always has trouble remembering the word for toilet paper (paper hygenico) so I sang a silly song about it and repeated the words and sung her questions such as, “Will you be needing toilet paper?”) in a sort of operatic voice. She got into in after awhile and sang to me what she preferred for breakfast, etc. It’s a wonderful way to teach the language.
December 27, 2005
I really don’t like it when the kids say (and here I’m talking about in English) “yeah”. I’m okay without “yes” and “no” (I don’t insist on “yes mam” “no sir”) but I like a full “yes” coming from a child. Stephen doesn’t consistently correct “yeah” to “yes” and it makes me nuts. He puts up with so much, though, that I don’t want to make a big deal over it.
December 27, 2005
I really don’t like it when the kids say “yeah”. I’m okay without Yes mam and no sir but I like a full “yes” coming from a child. Stephen doesn’t consistently correct “yeah” to “yes” and it makes me nuts. He puts up with so much though that I don’t want to make a big deal over it.
December 28, 2005
I’ve been watching Sydney closely to see when she speaks English and when Portuguese to James. Today just the kids and I were in the bathroom and she was speaking Portuguese to James. As soon as my husband walked it, she switched to speaking to him in English.
January 1, 06
Today Stephen told me he was riding in the van with the kids and they were listening to a Portuguese CD. (That’s all they really listen to). Sydney said, “Daddy, it’s funny we listen to Portuguese music when everybody else speaks English.”
Jauary 5, 2006
It was funny when Stella (Brazilian babysitter) came today. I told her my husband would probably leave to work at the library but if not, he’ll be in the family room on the laptop. She said, “He is very focused!” I remembered how a few months ago, I asked him not to talk to Stella much because I’d like the kids to think of her as speaking exclusively Portuguese. He agreed. But then I forgot to tell Stella I’d done that--so she’s probably wondering why this man doesn’t talk to her. I explained and she looked at me like, “whatever.”
January 9, 06
Sydney mentioned this before in July of 04, about how she thinks it’s only women who speak Portuguese. Today she asked me if I knew any men who are Brazilians.
Sydney taught James how to Ching Ching (Cheers) with their milk cups. She’s really teaching him a lot of words but most are Portuguese
It’s been odd at dinner with the four of us at times because English is the language we speak when we’re together but I still address the kids in Portuguese and still want them to answer a question I’ve asked in Portuguese in Portuguese. Sometimes this is a bit awkward but at least Stephen understands enough Portuguese to be able to able to understand what’s said in Portuguese. (though a lot of time he doesn’t get it…sometimes he asks, other times he just lets it go).
It’s one of the few times/places I feel a bit unsure as to whether I should ask her, “O que?” when she explains something in English (mainly directed to her dad of course) and let her tell me in Portuguese. I’m not completely consistent either way…there are times when I’ll just continue the conversation as if I understood what she said in English because I want to hear her stories and not slow her down or distract him.
I talked to someone today who is a new father and has decided to teach his child Hebrew. He said he’s been amazed at the negative feedback he’s gotten from friends and family who think that since he speaks French and Spanish, that he should be teaching them those languages. “No one speaks Hebrew!” they tell him. He says that that is part of the reason he wants his child to learn. To learn about the heritage of the language (the man I spoke with practices Judaism and grew up his first 4 years in Israel).
January 10, 2005
Today Sydney was “reading” a board book to James, making the story up about the goats and cows and such as she went. I asked her to read it in Portuguese to him and she said, “But this book is in English, I can’t read it in Portuguese.” I forget sometimes that to her, she’s really “reading” the book.
We finally started back on our reading lessons today. She’s been asking about them and I decided it’s time to get on with it. To change the activity a bit, I made a book by stapling a yellow paper cover to white paper. She can decide the name of the “book” we’re going to make and then, like we did before, I had some words for her to learn. I found pictures of things in a kids’ magazine that all started with “m” and…I wanted the words to be really relevant to her so I sort of “lead” her to choose “macaroni” because I knew that today they were making macaroni necklaces in preschool. She just loved it! I think she liked that SHE got to find, cut and paste the pictures into our little book. Later she read it to James and showed it to her father so I know she was proud.
January 14, 2006
Today Robbie, our neighbor, came over to play. Stephen and I were eating lunch and could see and hear them in the next room. Sydney told him, “Before you can play with the train, Robbie, we have to read all these books.”
Robbie: Why?
Sydney: Because we have to.
Robbie: (Bringing the other basket with the books in Portuguese)
Sydney: No, we’re not reading those.
Robbie: Why?
Sydney: We have to read these (pointing to the basket of English books)
Robbie: Why? Still wanting to read the books in his basket
Sydney: (exasperated tone) You won’t even understand one word! Those books are in Portuguese. Look. (she starts” reading” one in his basket, but is not even reading it Portuguese. Instead it’s her little made up language that sort of has some Portuguese sounds and a Portuguese word scattered about).
Robbie: (Quickly losing interest)
Sydney: SEEEEE! I told you wouldn’t understand!
Robbie: (Heading over to the train set)
Sydney: We HAVE to read these books! (pointing to the English basket). How many times to I have to tell you?!
Sydney does “read” which means making up the story to go with the pictures or using memories from past readings to tell the story—in Portuguese to James. She said she’s a teacher teaching James. She was so proud today that she’d taught him to say, “Eu” (“I”). I head him say it later and was so impressed. I encourage her to teach him in Portuguese.
The three of us were trying to teach him “Tchau” the other day. When I said my last “tchau” to him, he said, “Bye!” He’s an interpreter already!
January 26, 2006
Clash of the cultures today with Stella, our babysitter. Both kids were sick so she was great to even come over. I called her beforehand and gave her a chance to back out. Anyway, when gets here and hears that the kids have been vomiting and having diarrhea for 2 days, she says it’s the “refrigerator virus”. That children shouldn’t eat leftovers and that I’m always feeding them leftovers. She said that the reason she never gives them the food from the fridge that I suggest is that she thinks their stomachs can’t handle the leftovers. She kept saying, “Go to the grocery more often, buy fresh vegetables and fruit and make everything right when you’re about to eat it.” She also said that in Brazil, they clean out the refrigerator once a month where here it’s more like once a year. “You need to clean everything out so the kids won’t get bacteria that make them sick.”
I was so mad! I know that oftentimes Brazilians don’t think so much about giving unsolicited advice, that it’s just a way of showing concern and wanting to help. But I’d been cooped up in the house being vomited on and doing all the clean up that goes with that, and I didn’t like being told that it was basically my own fault.
Since Sydney went to preschool, I feel English has become her dominant language. She still, howeve,r uses Portuguese grammar when speaking English. For “Green Day, she said to my husband, “Daddy, today is Day of Green at school!”
February 5, 2006
I was so excited today. I heard Sydney use the subjunctive!!! She said, “Ele quer que voce faca” (He wants you to do it.) That’s pretty tough in Portuguese. Took me years to finally get the hang of it.
Stephen told me he was talking to Sydney about walruses or something like that and she said, “I don’t even know that word in Portuguese!!” Then later she asked me how to say it, like a day later.
