June of James 3 Years, Sydney 5 Years
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June 21, 2007
Amazingly James and Sydney seem to have Portuguese "under their belt." These last two months, I have felt a sense of relief that "yeah, they can do it!" After all my cheerleaing to other parents, it's odd I ever doubted it. They speak to each other in Portuguese even without my prompting as long as I'm in the room. When they leave the room, they switch back and forth. But when one of them wants to tell on the other (even while out of the room), it's always Portuguese to make sure I can hear.
The Feliz Preschool is a go. Got the budgeting afloat. Only problem is there are few students. But you have to start somewhere. I think our location is one problem. Some parents have called from Raleigh. Also, the largest population of Brazilians in this area are in Cary...both long drives to Chapel Hill.
I see in general that speaking foreign languages to your children is becoming more acceptable and that even kids seem to "get it." Today at the gym, a child we'd never met heard me talking with Sydney. She was around 4 and said, "I speak French and Spanish." I asked her a simple question in French and she didn't understand. I asked her to count and she got as high as 7, then went into a nonsense language, laughing. But just the fact that she knows what's going on, that it's sorta cool to speak another language, is a step in the right direction.
June 22, 2006
Last night I read to the kids in Portuguese, then put James in bed with prayers. The ritual is then to go pray with Sydney. As I entered her room, I could hear she was reading a book to herself. (In English) When she saw that I was in the room, she said, "desculpe" ("sorry"). I asked her what she had to be sorry about and she said, "porque estava falando ingles" ("because I was speaking English"). Gee whiz, am I brain washing or something?
June 29, 2006
James wanted to read a library book (or wanted me to read it to him). Sometimes if books are in English, I'll just say, 'this one's not in Portuguese' and he'll find something else. But I'd looked at this one an knew it was easily tranlatable. As I said yes, he said "e' em ingles e portugues' ("it's in English and Portuguese). Guess he tought it was like his bilingual books that have both languages on the page.
He had this "fossolized error" in the present terse verb "I can" (In Englsih the best example is to ay that he was saying "I cans") So Sydney and I kept repeating the correct form. He'd say, "Why, why not 'I cans'?" And it's like, "good question....go ask the Latin speakers why they made verb conjugations so annoying...but don't blame me." He finally got it and we praised and praised him. He looked like he'd won the lottery and now whenever he gets it right he looks up and smiles, waiting for his hard-earned praise.
I talked to a girlfriend of mine who I've known since high school. She's been really supportive in this whole wiki diary and told me, "If I had kids, I'd teach them my second language even if it is all dilapidated." I got the best image of that in my head. Mother with child and mother kicking some old jalopy to get it going. God, I wish everyone had that gumption.
It's an odd dynamic with Becky and Vorakarn around (they are friends from Brazil I met years ago and both speak Portuguese well). When they're here, I don't have my code language with the kiddies. I'll notice them laughing over what I've just said to the kids (usually for good reasons...I have a very direct way of addressing children...no baby-ifying the language). It's just so nice having this language no one gets that I get spoiled to it.
Speaking of codes, within our nuclear family there are certain words we end up sort of inventing. James sucks his arm, has since he popped outa the womb just as some kids like a paccie or their thumb. He leaves big round hickies on it, yuck! Brazilians tend to really be put off by it. Stella and Mariana both discussed how it was self-mutiliation and shouldn't be allowed and if they saw him do it, would take his arm out. eventually he'd quit sucking on it when they came in the room. Anyway so the main word he hears for suck is "Chupar" (pronunced shu-par). Average Portuguese word, most end in -ar. So when we say it in English, even Stephen calls it, "chupping his arm" or "James, don't chupe your arm" in an anglicized way. We have other words we do like that, just can't recall them at present.
June 27, 2007
This morning I was putting on lipstick alone in my bathroom and Sydney came in, startling me and saying "Que bonito" ("How pretty!) I replied automatically, "Thank you" and then corrected myself "Obrigada." Sydney laughed like I had made some sort of real faux pas. She said, "Mamae, voce falou in ingles!" ("Mamae, you spoke in English.")
