Yes, my daughter is starting to translate between us now. Here’s what happened tonight:

I’d asked her what she’d done in preschool.
“Gespielt” (played).
“Und was noch?” (And what else?)
“Und noch andere Sachen.” (And other things too.)
Dad doesn’t understand “andere” and asks what she said.
“Rien papa. Je dis à maman, j’ai fait quelque chose.” (Nothing, dad. I said to mommy, I have done something.)

Reminder: This is not mixing, this is switching. (And translating :-))

Jedes Mal, wenn wir uns das Bilderbuch “Conni am Strand” angucken, fragt meine Tochter mich, wie die Möwe auf der zweiten Seite heißt. Am Anfang habe ich geantwortet “weiß ich nicht”, aber die Frage kam beim nächsten Mal natürlich wieder. So habe ich, unter Berufung auf die traumhaft illustrierten Emma & Max-Bücher von Marlies Kahlsdorf, meiner Tochter erklärt:

“Alle Möwen heißen Emma.”

Gestern Abend war der Papa dran mit “Conni am Strand”. Stolz erklärte ihm unsere Tochter:

“Alle Möwen s’appellent Emma.”

Our girl is in school now. Her first day was quite memorable in that, as we were early and waiting at the door, she knocked on it and called “Lehrer, aufmachen!” (Teacher, open up!)

When I asked her after her first (very short) day what her teacher had said, she told me “alle hinsetzen” (sit down everyone) and “alle auf die Toilette” (all to the toilets).

Yesterday, after her second full day at school, she was washing her hands, pushing up her sleeves. I remarked on that, and she said “Ja, wie in der Schule. Lehrer sagt, Ärmel hoch.” (Yes, like in school. Teacher says, sleeves up.)

I like it that she doesn’t repeat the teacher’s (or more likely, the teacher’s assistant’s) words in French but gives me the translation. 🙂

Last night, the three of us were sitting together when our daughter started asking me a question:

“Pourqu- Warum…?”

That was not the first time in recent weeks that I noted her switching languages when addressing herself first to one, then to the other parent. Sometimes she will even repeat the same sentence to each of us.

It seems, however, that this distinction is reserved to us, or at least to family or familiar people; For on Sunday, on two different playgrounds, she spoke to a German girl in French and later to two French girls in German.

To be continued…

Aujourd’hui, j’ai reçu cet article d’un ami :

C’est vrai qu’on se demande comment ils font. Et moi, je me demande aussi, comment font les chercheurs pour obtenir leurs réponses ? Ils doivent trouver des moyens ingénieux, comme nous avons vu nous-mêmes lors de nos diverses participations à des études sur l’acquisition du langage.

We both noticed recently that our little girl (3 years 3 months) builds her mixed sentences with the verb at the end. So while French vocabulary is dominant, in grammar, German seems to rule. Interesting, isn’t it?
An example from tonight:

Moi veux lieber à la salon dormir.

(Notice also that she still uses “la” for most everything.)

We finished our holidays with a few days at my mother’s who is a retired school teacher and takes care to speak a lot with our little girl. They both love looking at books together, and one richly illustrated fairy tale book is a perennial favourite. So there they were, looking at a story, and my mother was telling it by the pictures (because, really, fairy tales are very gruesome when you get down to it). “Look, and then he meets a granny.” (pointing to the granny)
My little girl: “C’est pas la même.” (The old lady didn’t even remotely look like her granny.)
When my mom didn’t react*, my girl corrected her sentence to: “C’est pas la gleiche.”
That’s a start. 🙂

* We’d specifically asked her to pretend not to understand our girl when she speaks French unless it’s an emergency.

A few days after we returned from our ice cream intensive holiday (see my previous post on the subject), we went to the beach in Normandy and bought an ice cream before heading home. My little girl ordered her cornet of strawberry ice cream and a little plastic spoon all by herself – in German!

Tonight my little girl and I were doing a puzzle when she had to go to the bathroom. Reminding me not to continue without her, she informed me: “Ma-ya tout de suite wieder.” She amended/added immediately to: “Ma-ya komm wieder.” *
In case I hadn’t understood, I suppose. 🙂

* “Ma-ya” is her expression for “I am” or similar, according to the sentence.

C’est toujours rigolo (au début du moins) quand les jeunes enfants mélangent deux mots similaire. Ainsi, le fils d’une amie jouait aux pirates qui vont “à l’ascenseur!”
J’ai compris que ma fille était arrivée à cette étape-là quand elle commençait à me dire tout ce qu’elle allait faire “dimanche”, alors qu’elle n’a pas encore la notion des jours de la semaine. Ça donne des phrases comme “On va au toboggan et dimanche on va à la piscine.” ou “Je regarde la petite princesse et dimanche je regarde Conni.”

On verra, dimanche est un autre jour !