Yesterday morning, my little girl made me laugh. She took my arm, looked at my watch (upside down) and declared “C’est l’heure pour chocolat.” (It’s time for chocolate.) Of course I had to share that story with my mom. So when we called her last night for a little chat, with the loudspeaker on so […]

One of the cutest expressions from my little girl was her name for this: “bébé Maria” Yesterday she called it a “Marienkäfer”. And today she asked me for “Apfelsaft” instead of her usual “jus pomme”. Where does time go?  

A multilingual friend of mine whom I interviewed for this blog a while ago read my recent post asking Why not English? Here’s her reaction: Forget English, German is the tongue that we all wish to know, to emigrate to the country of jobs and money!!! (that’s what they say everyday on Spanish TV). But […]

You might have noticed we like cows. The other day, near my aunt’s, we drove past the local elementary school. Next to it was a farm, and two young cows were curiously looking through the fence. (Maybe they were hoping, like Pippi Longstocking, that some wisdom would come out the window and stick with them.) […]

A couple of weeks ago, we were staying with friends in Germany whose son is the same age as our daughter. I’d hoped this would get her to activate her passive German vocabulary, and it did. Here’s one very cute example:

The other day, I showed my little girl some photos of a newborn calf a friend had sent me: Her reaction: “Oh, c’est mignon !” Her reaction: “Pirate !”

Over the long weekend, we went to see friends in Germany whose son is the same age as our little girl. The two hit it off right away, but for the first day and a half our girl used the method of “if he doesn’t understand me, I must repeat and speak more loudly”. “Viens, […]

We just spent a long weekend with monolingual German friends who have a son almost exactly our girl’s age. (More on the effects on that on our little girl’s bilingualism later.) These friends are clearly unfamiliar with the concept of bilingual families, but the question they asked proved interesting. It was fairly simple: Why German, […]

This weekend, we had a German friend staying with us who doesn’t speak French. Yesterday evening, our little girl wanted to play with her and asked: “Jouer ballon.” (play ball) She repeated her request several times, even though our friend told her (in German) she didn’t understand and I suggested she ask in German. In […]

Last night, Daddy read our little girl a bedtime story. Unlike with my stories in German, when she listens to one in French, she will repeat the sentences or their final words. Settle down for Carolus et Rolf le Terribleand listen to the “echo”! Story from: Les plus belles histoires du soir – éditions Fleurus […]