November 2008 of James 4.5 years, Sydney nearly 7 years
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November 2, 2008
The kids still obviously love Stella, but have complained about her of late. They say she yells, "Nao fala ingles!" ("No English!). Not sure what to do about that. She has her methods and I have mine.
November 3, 2008
I have a new friend in town who speaks Portuguese to her husband and kids. Her husband is Brazilian. She's Mexican and her Portuguese is amazing, even the accent. You'd never know she speaks Spanish when she speaks English and Portuguese. Anyway we've started hanging out her. Her husband was home the other day when we were having tea. James kept saying things in Portuguese that (I assume) he assumed only I could understand. Slightly rude things he'd never say in English. "I want juice" or "Can I take these potato chips home with us?" I kept telling him, "James, everyone here understands you, they speak Portuguese." We'll have to work on that if we visit Brazil. Maybe we could work on Esperanto. Kidding.
They loaned us the BEST video. It's called "Sitio de Picapau Amarelo" (The home of the yellow woodpecker). It's so rich in Brazilian culture. At first I had real trouble understanding it b/c the characters have crazy accents. The kids caught on more quickly than I did. It cracks me up though because there's this character named Emelia who is very precocious and independent. She's a doll come to life who couldn't talk for a long time and now that she can talk, she does so non stop. After watching, Sydney speaks with her voice (higher pitch) and her mannerisms (certain phrases, hand gestures). I love it!
November 8, 2008
It's interesting to hear James' translations from Portuguese to English. We had friends over this weekend and I was serving a pecan pie. I don't know how to say "pecan" in Portuguese and doubt they even have them, much less a vocabulary word that's common enough for even a Brazilian to know. So I've always called it "torta de nozes." When my friend asked what was for dessert, James told him excitedly, "Pie of nuts!"
James corrects me and laughs if I make a mistake in Portuguese. Today I said "Sydney's room" incorrectly (they have 2 words for room...one for a bedroom and one for a room like the playroom or dining room and I used the wrong one. He seemed so pleased with himself. It hits me then that this really is one of his first languages.
I also notice James does something I do. Just after he's said a word in Portuguese, even if he's speaking English to Stephen, he'll tend to say the next word in Portuguese. So if he says, "Mamae..." he might inadvertently say, "Mamae quer" ("Mamae wants"). It is exactly as I do, only lasts one word, then he goes back into English. It's as if the switch is just slightly delayed in our brains.
November 9, 2008
I was looking at the neighbor's lawn. They are a family who has a student living with them, Boneface, from Cameroon. He had been racking and it made me laugh the way he had done this perfect vertical row, not a speck but vertically instead of horizontally like you most often see. I said, 'That is so funny!" Sydney didn't understand so I explained how I'm used to seeing it. She replied "He's African, of course he does it differently."
Another interesting cultural moment was when I tried explaining how the cow is viewed in India, how they can walk freely in the streets and how they are not a part of their menu. Sydney said, "They must have lots of chic Filets!"
November 10, 2008
Interesting discovery. Sydney and James are quite used to people repeating (without knowing what they are saying since they aren't Portuguese speakers) things I say to the children or things they say to me. But this time, Stephen, my husband, did so. Sydney became annoyed and said, "Daddy, that's not funny."
November 16, 2008
Today I was restless and got Sydney to do some floor exercises with me. We were counting our reps in Portuguese first, then she started doing it in French. It was hard for me to do it in Portuguese while she simultaneously counted in French. No problem for her though. Portuguese really is her first language.
November 18, 2008
Last night I was listening in on a conversation during bedtime story time. Sydney wanted Stephen to read one of our bilingual books. He said that mamae doesn't like for us to do that, that she prefers to read them only in Portuguese. She pleased saying, "But I don't understand it in Portuguese. It has too many big words." I was curious about which book it is b/c she's never complained about any I remember. It turns out it's one I've never read. It was way over her head as far as content (about hating a girl in school who was a bully and school being "hell"). Not sure what that was all about.
James was listening to some music in English. He asked, "Can you understand this?" (It was hard to understand as some music is). I said no, and he said, "Music in Portuguese is easier to understand."
November 30, 2008
We had friends over last night, a woman I knew from grad school. Her father is Italian and mother is American. She has a pronounced Italian accent but impecable English. Her husband and her's plan is to have their little boy speak Spanish with the nanny, ENglish with the father, and Italian with the mother. So it was funny b/c there were several languages being spoken (often at the same time, if we were both reprimanding our kids while others of us were chatting.) I LOVED hear Italian. It is most definitely the most beautiful language there is. And I was pleased by how much I understood, though I think most of that was the limited content (he's 3) and the context (she was basically saying the same things to him--"share" and "that's great!"---that I was saying to my kids.
I'm writing about this mainly because when she first started speaking Italian to her son, I felt uncomfortable. How weird is that? I kept trying to pinpoint why I felt uncomfortable. It wasn't that I wasn't understanding and thought maybe she was saying something about me. (That's why some people I've spoken to have said they feel strange around a parent/child speaking another language). It's similar to how you feel with a long pause in the conversation. You're looking at each other, but can't converse because she's talking to her son. And we can't look at her son and her because we feel silly, knowing we don't understand what they're talking about. I think the feeling disappates when you begin filling in the "silence" by talking to other people around--even though it means talking at the same time the Italian is going on. It's as if you much get over the ettiquette rule of only one person speaking in a small group. By the end of the night the awkwardness was gone completely.
