Our little girl has very few words she actively uses in both languages. Usually, when she has one word, whether German or French or an onomatopoeia (such as “wauwau” for “dog”), she sticks with that, even if she understands perfectly well when we say “Hund” or “chien”. For some strange reason (and to my obvious […]

Our little girl’s active vocabulary still tends to be mainly French, but when she has a word in one language, she usually sticks with it. The other day, Daddy asked her for the French version of one of her first words in German, namely cheese (Käse/fromage): Daddy: “Tu sais dire fromage?” (Can you say “cheese”?) […]

I was looking forward to this, or rather, I was curious about it. Mixing languages is a stage most bilingual kids go through, and normally it sorts itself out with time, once the child realises there are two different sets of vocabulary and how to use them. Correcting is not recommended, at least not in […]

The other day, at the swimming pool, my little girl didn’t want to get dressed. We were in the communal changing rooms reserved for the baby swimming group, and another child her age came in with his dad. At some point I told her “Guck, der Junge zieht sich auch an.” (“Look, the boy is […]

Last weekend I took my little girl to see her granny (“Oma”) in Germany. It was an occasion to speak and hear only German for a few days, as Daddy stayed home. Oma doesn’t speak much French, and I had to translate “lait” and “chat”, but also “ouais” which she sometimes says instead of “oui”. […]

Comment élever un enfant dans le bilinguisme, c’est le titre d’une émission passée cette semaine sur RFI, avec comme invitée, Barbara Abdelilah-Bauer, fondatrice du Café Bilingue et généralement spécialiste dans la matière. Pour l’instant, l’émission qui dure 26 minutes est encore disponible sur le site de RFI ici. (Si le lien ne marche plus, j’ai […]

After another two-word sentence tihs week, “maman encore” (mommy, do that again), my little girl has finally mastered the word yes. “Oui” (mostly) and “ja” (occasionally) replace her longstanding “hm” that we’ve generally taken for assent to far. There’s also “là” (there) when pointing at something, which she had not used in that way before. […]

Ich freue mich immer, wenn ich neue Initiativen zur Zwei- oder Mehrsprachigkeit sehe. In Bremen gibt es seit kurzem einen deutsch-chinesischen Kindergarten mit Krippe, Drachenkinder e.V. Intressant zu lesen ist das Infoblatt “Immersionslernen” (PDF) auf der Website des Vereins, nicht nur für Deutsch-Chinesisch.

I might or might not have mentioned that our girl, when she’s in the right mood, will repeat words after us. With one exception: If she already has a word for something (like “mau” for “cat”), she won’t say “cat”, however often we say it. She’ll stick with “mau”. So I guess her onomatopoeia should […]

As our little girl is closing in on her second birthday, I can’t help comparing her language skills to those of her peers. Her daddy told me the other day about his colleague’s girl (two months younger) who put her sleeping bag on her parents’ bed and declared “Moi dodo là.” That’s a full sentence, […]