As a break from the more serious subjects I’ve written about in the past few weeks, I thought it would be fun to write about some of the language issues we’re currently dealing with Little Miss. If you have some speech funnies to share, please do leave them in the comments at the bottom so I can have a giggle also!
So, bringing up a bilingual toddler is fun right? Who said that? I think it is Frustrating with a capital F. I mean, how do you know what language she is going to speak in each time she opens her mouth and what about understanding those sentences when she combines both languages? Frustrating for Mum and Frustrating for her! Poor babe can’t work out why Mummy (or Maman as she also calls me depending on her mood) can’t understand her.
Until a few weeks ago, Little Miss wasn’t really saying anything but now it’s a constant dribble of bilingual blurb spouting from her mouth from 7am in the morning until 8pm in the evening, and if we’re lucky we get a two hour break at lunch time. That sounds harsh, but you try deciphering what a frustrated two year old is trying to tell you in 35 degrees heat and with extra kilos making you hotter than you should be and a blocked nose making you more temperamental than you usually are. Got the picture?
I am sure that somewhere, a Mum is going to look at this and think that’s so easy and wonder why on Earth I am complaining? Well, she is just really, very, very lucky and obviously didn’t get to experience the full on terrible twos at the same time.
So, back to Little Miss. As I said, it’s bilingual blurb. When she wants milk she says “mi-lait” which is half English with Milk and then French with Lait.
She doesn’t yet seem to have grasped that words have beginnings and ends and everything she says comes out without them. The other day she was in the pushchair and suddenly started screaming “apple, apple, apple”. Now, I took this as meaning she wanted an apple so got quite frustrated as she had only just had her snack and was telling her that there was no apple. Then a passerby stopped and handed me a hat – CHAPEAU except Little Miss was only saying APEAU which is part French for hat and of course I wasn’t expecting French at all.
So that’s pretty much the story of our communication at the moment. She says something, Mummy (or Daddy) grossly misunderstands and then there are tears. I was never any good at those games where you had the guess the actor or film just by clues so I’m not really very good at this game.
I’m loving that we’re able to communicate (eventually) but I’m really looking forward to less misunderstandings as I am zonked!
We’ve got the exact same thing going on in our house at the moment! Sadly my little 2 year old systematically chooses to speak English unless she only knows the word in French. So despite the fact that sometimes she knows both, like airplane/avion and boat/bateau, she just goes for English, except for ‘escargot’ or ‘cago as she says, we often don’t get the beginning of words.
I was also Mummy for the longest of time, despite the fact that I never once called myself that with her. She’s moved on after a good couple of months and I am finally Maman. But my goodness it’s an endless guessing game what she’s talking about most of the time!
Glad to know I am not alone! Your little one is doing the exact opposite to mine which is reassuring given that you’re in the UK and French and I’m in France and British. It’s really reassuring to know that it’s the opposite as it gives me hope.
I am so glad you are finally Maman, I am still Maman but sometimes Mummy.
Courage!
OMG I completely sympathize with you! My boys who are 18 months apart and spoke half English Half Italian, I had almost 3 years of the language mixing. I know some Italian but my in laws speak a dialect no Italian language course will ever teach you. It was so frustrating with the first because he would get upset I didn’t know what he wanted. He would say aguater for water, a cross between aqua and water. There were many others I have blocked from my mind. At least with my second the first could tell Mommy what he wanted. Hang in there it does get better as they get older.
Thank you for commenting 🙂 Again it is reassuring to know that this commonly occurs and is just as frustrating for other Mums!
Having your own little translator sounds great though and a real help! Maybe I should find a slightly older bilingual kid to hang out with us from time to time and they could help me!
I love the “aguater” we have similar with “eau (oh) ter” which I have figured out as thankfully she points at the same time.
It figures it’s self out eventually! I am 1 yr ahead and BiP still says “I want to play avec you” she doesn’t mix up words up as much as she used to and now she translates into english what a French person has told me just to be sure I understood! LOL!
That’s so cute and sounds a lot less frustrating 🙂
I never thought about how the fact that bilingual babies tend to speak later means they also do so at a stage in their overall development where tey are generally so much more easily frustrated. It sounds like hard work but I guess you just have to keep reminding yourself about all the amazing brain benefits she’s building up for the future!
That sounds like a good idea! I will make a mantra whereby I remind myself each time we are getting frustrated. The language difficulties are causing so much frustration for her right now as she is at home with us all day every day speaking English whereas normally at childcare she speaks French so may be better understood (not to mention they may be more used to it). She is desperate to communicate.
Last night I got a new word: EEH DOW which she has been saying for a few days now and I finally understood to mean SIT DOWN. The joy that crossed her face was amazing 🙂
My favourite is “Quick Quick, pee pee caca!”
Can you imagine what the French make of that one!
🙂 That will be a classic to be forever told! She still says it as well.
My kids are 6 and 9 now and the eldest one hardly ever mixes the languages anymore. We just substituted the correct word and repeated the sentence correctly in English. I think my favourite Franglais phrase was ‘cherche it mummy’ when ever something was lost! Nanna could hardly believe her ears till I explained what her grandaughter was really saying.
It is so hard, I remember it well. But it does sort itself out, and we now have a 6 year old who talks non-stop in both languages. It does take the patience of a saint though so courage 😉
Sounds like you have your hands full with little miss! I always wonder how bilingual kids process languages, I’m sure in time it will all make sense to her, and to you!
We are having the same ball of crazy at our house. Last week my nearly-three year old (recently started maternelle so he’s learning all sorts of god knows what…) kept saying that he wanted ‘papa uday’ which I figured was french for something. I asked him dozens of times if he could point to it or explain some other way. My husband figured it out immediately – it’s the name of a popular song on a music video channel they sometimes watch at the crack of dawn before I’m up…
And half the time it’s names which, now that we’ve been in France for more than 18 months, aren’t quite so unrecognizable. Our second child, at all of 16 months, doesn’t say Au Revoir, but rather Au Re-bye, with a perfect french barely-there R. Well, at least she’s mastered that sticky biscuit.
I try to remember that, two or three years from now, they’ll speak French better than I do… in fact mister nearly-3 already likes to correct my pronunciation.
Well, I could relate with this as we are French and living in London. I found out (the hard way) that there is no such thing as 100% bilingual. There is always a ‘dominant’ language. In my household, I am afraid that it is English.
Great fun ! Hopefully she will be a whizz in both languages soon. Lucky you !
I know I have French friends who felt it was important to only speak one language with them and not mix languages so even though they could speak English they only spoke French to their children and believed the children would pick up all their English out of the house, which did in fact happen and remarkably so …. knowing some obscure words …. and also using Subjunctive in French at the age of 3 which my French class of repeated adult learners struggle to do !!