January 2008 of James, nearly 4, Sydney 6 Years
From BilingualWiki
January 3, 2007
I feel like one of those electronic translators. Every fourth word out of Sydney's mouth is English. She's getting the part about having to repeat the word I gave her. Or, like today, I just said, "In Portuguese?" and she said, "James fez assim pra mim" (James did like this to me") (doing the motion of someone hitting her on the headd) when before, she'd been more specfiic and said " hit me on the head." I can respect that strategy and use it often myself. James definitely uses it. I'd like their vocabulary to broaden, however.
It's frustrating because sometimes I feed her the word and am not sure if I've got it right. The words for melt, flush, etc. all sound alike. I'd really like to spend time in Brazil.
Sydney got several barbies for Christmas. I noticed that the new barbies do not have the "unbelievable" bodies that they used to have. She's gone from a D cup to a B, has a thicker (more realistic) waistline, and less buff calf muscles. Soon after the barbie gifts, we were reading a Brazilian comic book that advertised Brazilian barbies. They were very exposed, darker skinned and darker hair...just sexier than the US barbie. Sydney was so excited to go to Brazil and have a Barbie like that!!Ok, whatever works. Only a 6 year old would travel for hours to buy a different Barbie doll.
January 16, 2008
Last night something so great happened. One of my students this semester at Duke is Brazilian. She had read my wiki-- this part where it's journaling about trials and tribulations and excitement-- and came to class with a bag filled with Brazilian children's books, CD, DVDs. I was thrilled beyond words. I'm going to tell Sydney when she gets home from school today and we can read or watch a movie. The materials are Disney or some things that are very folkloric from Brazil- one called "Pica-pau amarelo" (yellow woodpecker). Honestly it's a little hard for me to understand-- all the references and such, since I didn't grow up in Brazil. I have a tape of some of it that I used to show my Portuguese students and we knew there were some jokes we just weren't getting. But it'll be great to share that with her. What a generous and thoughtful woman my student is!
Of late, James has been using his "own" words that he invents. He'll say, "Jubay" for example and then tell Sydney, "that means 'hungry'" He'll invent three or four before Sydney gets tired of his game.
Sydney told me this morning that the Spanish speaking students aren't allowed anymore to speak Spanish. She said she thought that was a good idea. I said it was like what she and I do and she looked very pensive as if to say, "Oh, yeah, I guess we do." Sydney knows that people are from other cultures but doesn't really understand what it means to be African American. She said something yesterday that really really upset me. One of her friends at school said that her mother didn't want a certain girl (one of Sydney's best buddies and my favorite student in the class...second to my daughter of course) to come to her house because of her dark skin. Doesn't that make you want to cry and then throttle that girl's mother? I tried not to overreact. We were entering TCBY and I said, "you know, sometimes mommies are wrong. God said that everyone is equal". She looked at me like, "ok, whatever...I've gotta choose my flavor now."
