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:

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 […]

A week ago, we were having supper together. The “main course” (followed by cheese and dessert) was over, and Daddy was taking the plates into the kitchen. We were ready to get on with the cheese, but there was something missing on the table. “Papa, Messer couper fromage!”

I love these situations: I’m picking up my daughter at her child-minder’s. The other little girl in her care, J., a few months younger, has brought her tricycle, which is parked near the door. (Incidentally, it’s identical to hers. When she opened the door for me and saw me wearing my bike helmet, then the […]

In the series, “I know what’s on my head” (see my previous post), my little girl wore her wonderful hand-knitted hat from her grandaunt the other day when we met with our German-French friends: When the other girl’s dad exclaimed “Du hast ja eine Tomate auf dem Kopf!” (You’re wearing a tomato on your head!), […]

Today our girl went out with Daddy. When they came home and left the car in our parking garage, she pointed to the fire extinguisher: “Papa, que c’est que ça ?” (“Daddy, what’s that?”) “C’est un extincteur. Pour éteindre s’il y a le feu.” (“That’s a fire extinguisher. When there’s a fire, to put it […]

I just noticed something interesting today. My little girl recently converted to muesli. I bought some fancy ones for kids at mymuesli (which I highly recommend), “Prinzessinnenmüsli” with strawberries and raspberries, and “Piratenmüsli” with tiny white and milk chocolate pieces. My little girl tried them both, and admired the beautifully decorated muesli tins they came […]

Did I mention that I hoped a stay with my non-French-speaking mom would get my girl to activate her German? It turns out this is sometimes easier than expected. The other evening, my girl (two-and-a-half) was delaying going to bed by slowing down the undressing process: “Maman, attends !” (“Mommy, wait!”) Me (slightly unnerved because […]