A friend today dropped by for dinner with her daughter, age 6.  Her daughter has learned Romanian through the dedication of her Romanian-born father.  Now, I don't know much about Romanian, but some Italian words came up in conversation, and it turns out that Romanian and Italian are so close linguistically that the only main difference is word order - everything else, from vocabulary to conjugations to pronunciation - is nearly identical.  A Romanian can converse with an Italian as easily as with a Romanian, apparently.

Now, Italian is also very close to French.  So this little girl, age 6, learning an "insignificant" language like Romanian from her father, will be able to speak Italian and French easily if she so chooses.

How marvelous is that!

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One of the things I loved about living in France was that I didn't have an American accent in French, so no one knew where I was from.  I don't know actually what I sounded like, but at least no one complained about my foreign policy.

There is a cute discussion currently on Mumsnet about how languages sound.  If you are discouraged about the way you sound while speaking another language, this will make you feel better!

Here's the URL, just in case your link doesn't work:   http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1314056-If-English-isnt-your-first-language-what-does-it-sound-like-to-you-Mellifluous-or-clunky-or-what

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Arundhati Roy (author of The God of Small Things) was on the radio this afternoon talking about her book.  Someone asked her about the richness of her language, and how perhaps growing up in India gave her a richness not found in authors in England.

Her reply was very interesting.  She said that she was surrounded by languages - various friends and family were from all over the subcontinent - and that English was the common thread.  She then went on to say that she felt that being able to express herself in more than one language made her expect more of each one.  She felt the need to be able to do the same things in English that she could do in other languages.

What a great way to explain how learning another language can so greatly enrich your use of another.  How learning a language expands boundaries, not just of cultures but even of language itself.

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Today I brought out one of my old Dora The Explorer books in French to read to the boys.  La Montagne aux Etoiles was boring.  Sooo boring.  Well, I've always found it boring, but the boys decided today for the first time that they found it boring too.  "Dis, saut! Encore!" Say Jump!  Again!  and again, and again.  We giggled at its boring-ness and decided that James and Scott were now officially too old for Dora.

All a long way around to stating the obvious: anyone want some Dora books and DVDs?  Great for learning languages!

:-)

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James is currently studying different forms of writing in English this term.  This week it is the news article.  James was asked to bring in a news article that he understood with a photo in it.  Well, I looked high and low for an article in a newspaper that he would understand - through a whole Sunday paper - without success.  Either the vocabulary was too difficult or the concepts too removed from his daily life.

Then James came up with a solution:  Le Petit Quotidien.  This was a kids' daily newspaper that we used to receive in France.  Full of photos, simple concepts, usually animal stories or science breakthroughs and other subjects meant to be of interest to children.  James picked one and brought it in.  Okay, it was in French, but he didn't think that should be a problem, as the assignment specifically said "that you understand."  Not, "that everyone understands."

Well, one big no from the teacher.

:-(  Poor James.

But I knew that's what would happen.  Now he has a random article about a landslide pasted in his book, probably not his choice.  Poor fellow.

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Top news of the night, the week the year:

Every child aged five or over should learn a foreign language, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said.

He told the Guardian that almost every other advanced country teaches a foreign language from that age, and the UK should set itself the same target.

Mr Gove vowed to "pull every lever" to make that happen, including encouraging schools to extend the working day.

It's about time!

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Yesterday James and I did a presentation to his school on France.  It was only a few minutes long, but the children assembled seemed to enjoy it (they loved the idea of a four day school week!) and James was beaming.  The funny thing was that both James and I dreamt of Samoens last night!  James dreamt of his friends and I dreamt of being back there.

Neither of us dreamt in French though!

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my computer guru and all around Good Egg, my website is back up and running.  Hooray!  Sorry for the delay.  You can blame ISPs generally, or the arrival of brother-in-law's first grandchild, or both, for the pause in production.

Baby Aaron is really cute though, so I personally choose to blame the ISPs.... :-)

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All this website stuff is a bit new to me and unfortunately we've had some problems with our internet service provider so I'm going to take the plunge and change ISPs:  watch this space, we might be gone for a day or two but please be patient and we'll be back shortly!

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I met a woman today at the school gates who was born in Columbia, grew up in Holland and has travelled extensively, most recently in Greece before arriving back in the UK.  Her husband was born in Ghana and they met in Holland.  And they love languages.  

As a result, they speak Dutch to their daughters at home, who learn English at school.  Last year they learned Greek at school, and this year they are about to introduce their father's native Ghanaian tongue.  Phew! English, Dutch, Greek and Ghanaian.  That is quite the mix!  

Makes my attempts at French look feeble, that's for sure!  

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T is (probably rightly - he is always right, the git) that the boys aren't getting enough French to keep up what they have learned.  They get an hour of very very very basic French at school, and French with me in the car on the way to and from school.  They aren't watching any telly at the moment, and their school homework has already kicked in so we are struggling to get that done let alone any extras.  

So what does he do?  Launch into French at the dinner table.  Now, if I launched into French, the boys would huff and puff and launch their toys out of the pram.  With Trev?  They giggle.  I don't know if it his facial expressions, his accent or his dire grammar, but they love it!  They respond.  Only after 20 minutes of uncontrollable laughter did they ask very nicely to switch to English.  

I wish I could swing that!

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T is often out at work coffees, lunches, dinners and days-long conferences with people from all over the world.  He somehow never fails to bring up my passion and hobby:  teaching children languages, this website, my book.  I'm not sure how he wangles it in all the time.  

Anyhow, usually he has a very positive response (at least that is what he tells me).  Recently he was dining in Amsterdam with an Italian colleague who was trying to teach her children English.  She found that the Italian schools in her area were so poor at English that instead she chose to send her children to a rather expensive American school down the road.  Even though it was costly (and a significant portion of her income), she thought it was worth it.  

Even if they do come out with an American accent.   (Can you tell I'm sensitive about that?)

In today's business climate it must be even more imperative for non-native English speakers to teach their children English, than for us English speakers to teach our children a different language.  All in all it is nice to hear about other parents making the effort, whichever language they choose, isn't it? 

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Today in the midst of a whirl of back-to-school shopping, the boys begged me to go to Starbucks.  While the idea had instant appeal (chai tea latte is my favourite drink at the mo), I decided to play hardball.  

"Only if you speak French from now until we get back home," I said.  Their favourite drink at the moment is chocolate frappucino - so their defenses were down and they gave in quickly.  So off we went around the shops of local Mall, chatting in French.  

Well, the back 'n forth of half French, half English (every time we forgot a word) was bad enough to feel ultra conspicuous.  But then self-consciousness took a back seat and we soon got into the rhythm.  Which was fine for the boys, who were really only talking to me.  I, on the other hand, was trying to talk to shop assistants at the same time.   Inevitably, it came out, as I was handed my shopping at Till No. 1.  

"Merci," I said, loudly and with a smile, to the bewildered look of the blond, dissheveled teenager serving me.

"Merci,' I said, to the little old lady serving me at M&S.  Don't think she heard me, phew.

"Merci," I said, to the Starbucks barista.

"Mercy buckets," he said, handing me my chai tea latte, served with an extra wide grin.  

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This morning James played happily with a long lost stuffed teddy - Tweety Bird.  Except that Tweety Bird in French is Grosminet.  So all we could here was imaginary play going on in French - Grosminet this and grosminet that.  Was very cute.  

It made me remember something I had read recently about a new start up in South America called Movie Mouth, where they are using popular movies to teach languages by slowing the movies down a little to make it easier to understand the words.  Now if they could expand that to the likes of Looney Tunes, Pixar and Disney, us parents could just sit back and relax, no?  

So if any of you know the founder of Movie Mouth, pass the message on.  My vote is for Bugs Bunny first, then maybe Beauty and the Beast, and Kung Fu Panda and Shrek, and ....  well, for James, Tweety Bird, of course.

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Today, after 8 months away, we re-started our normal Saturday morning routine:   

(a) get up late

(b) rush to the gym

(c) drop off kids in kids' club

(d) body conditioning class.

Despite rushing in 10 minutes late the boys jumped straight into the kids club, with the same children there and the same counsellors.  

Despite rushing in 10 minutes late I still fit straight into the aerobics class, with the same dance moves, the same weight exercises, the same stomach crunches.  

Eight months of a life changing experience abroad, and life is back to normal.  The same people doing the same things, week after week after week.  How very ... hmmmmmmm. 

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Today I remembered to speak French with the boys in the car, after a busy morning playing with friends.  The result went something like this:

ME [in French]:  "What do you want for lunch?" 

BOYS IN UNISON [in English]:  "Oh no, mum, we don't want to speak in French!"

ME [persisting in French]:  "You promised to speak French with me when we got to England.  English in the car in France, French in the car in England.  Remember?"

SCOTT [in English]:  "There was once you spoke to me in French in the car in France, so you remember, that Wednesday we dropped...."

ME [in English, half breaking]:  "That was once, and I bought you a toy for that, so it doesn't count.  You promised. [switching back to French] What do you want for lunch?"

SCOTT [resigned, in English]:  "Oh, okay, a cheese sandwich with ham on the side."

ME [in French]:  "I didn't understand you."

JAMES [in English]: "Oh do WE have to speak in French too?  I won't."

ME [in French]: "I guess that means you don't want any lunch."

SCOTT [very hungry, in French]:  "Cheese sandwich with ham on the side, please."

JAMES [very very hungry, in French]:  "Beans on toast, please." 

The moral of this story is:  if you want to shorten your battles, make sure they are very very very hungry indeed! 

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James can't sleep tonight.  I've been letting the boys go to bed later due to jetlag but tonight I must have put them too early as James keeps coming down.  First I sent him upstairs to count to fifty in French.  He came down to ask me what 40 was in French, so I sent him back up with the answer and increased the count to 100.  Then he came down having got to 100, so I told him he had to count multicoloured French moutons up to 200.  He came down saying that those French sheep were awfully fast, he had made it to 270 already!  Then I told him he had to count down from 270, imagining the sheep going backwards back over the barrière.  

He baulked at that (understandably!), so I gave him some milk instead.  

I think all that counting made him hungry instead of sleepy!

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