September of James 3.5 Years, Sydney 5.5Years

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September 15, 2007

My parents have been in town. I love overhearing Sydney talk to them...hear how her English is doing. Today she was about to say something and started to say it several times, with different beginning ways. Then she paused and said to my mom, "I'm trying to think of how to say it, there are lots of ways to say it."

September 20, 2007

Sydney's now in kindergarten and James in preschool for the first time. One half of the students in kindergarten at her school are not English proficient. Most are fluent in Spanish. Sydney told me today that the students who speak Spanish talk to each other in Spanish and she understands some. She said people think she's "Espanhola" (Spanish). She said that's weird because mainly she just says "hola" to them.

She adores her French class. They have it for 20 minutes each day so I'm pretty impressed. I was frustrated that they taught French and not Spanish but with the school's demographic, I can understand why they didn't choose Spanish. I'm still not sure I would have gone with French. Their reasoning may be that French is a widely spoken romance language so other romance languages like Spanish will be easier to learn.

She comes home saying her new phrases: Como t'allez vous? Como tu t'appele? Je m'appele Sydney? Oui! She has a book in FRench that she bought at Goodwill. It's called "J'ai Peur" (I'm afraid"). She wants to take it to her French teacher and tell her that she can borrow the book to use in her classes. She asked me how to say "borrow" (using the English word) and I told her in Portuguese. She said, "NO, in FRENCH" I love it. I've forgotten nearly all my French but when i look up the words, I know how to string them together and how to pronouce them. I'm guessing it's "Voulez vou emprunte mon livre?"