For Easter I took off a few days and B and I spent some extra time with his family. One of the reasons we wanted to do this was the spend time with our nephew that we don't get to see very often.
Our nephew is 2 years 4 months old and knows that we are "Toto" (he has trouble saying Tonton) and "Tata" thanks to all the pictures on Papi and Mamie's computer.
The day we were supposed to take care of him during the afternoon turned into all day because the Crèche was on strike (yay for strikes! more time with nephew). When he arrived it was raining, or as he said "ll pieu! il pieu!"
I had already tried speaking in English with my nephew, but it was at Christmas when he wasn't quite 2 years old with lots of people around and it wasn't the best situation for him to understand why I was talking funny.
Back at Christmas time when I pointed to a dog in a book and said "Dog" my nephew would reply "Non, wa-wa!" as though he was concerned someone had tricked me into thinking it was called a dog. Same thing with his milk. "Non, lait." (said slowly like I needed special help!)
My in-laws were around for part of the day and did many of the regular tasks (lunch, diaper, nap) since they have the routine down pat, but I did get some one-on-one time, including on-the-fly translating of the Tchoupi books. (Cute, but afterwards B and I realized how sexist/tradtionalist they are)
In the morning, each time I pointed to something my nephew knew and said the word in English, he said to me "Non, Tata, non! Wa-wa/lait/papi/bonbons!" If I insisted, he would even put his hand on my arm, look in my eyes with his concerned face and repeat "Non, Tata, non!" B eventually started telling him that Tonton says 'lait' but Tata says 'milk', and after we each said that at several different opportunities he seemed a little less concerned about me saying it 'wrong'.
By the end of the day he seemed to get the gist of several expressions including "Turn the page" and "Do you need help?"
I was a bit surprised by my nephew's concern for me, but unlike most of the other children I know younger and older than him, he has never been exposed to another language. Whereas my Flemish Belgian friend in Toulouse has a 2 year old son who speaks 3 languages (Flemish with maman, German with daddy, and French with the nounou) plus gibberish just to keep everyone on their toes, my nephew has never had the experience of hearing another language or witnessing people use another language.
A few days later we were with my nephew again for Easter and I was speaking to him in English about pictures in a magazine when my sister-in-law said to him in French "If you don't understand what Tata is saying you can ask." I didn't reply to that, but I understood that comment as a concern of my sil, not my nephew's (which she confessed herself later on).
I hadn't thought about it beforehand, but my sister-in-law comes to English from the perspective of having studied it in school at a much older age where the goal was to understand each lesson and learn all the vocabulary. She was destabilized by that fact she couldn't understand what I was saying, and concerned that my nephew would feel the same.
With my nephew my goal is for him to understand the gist of what I'm talking about. If he gets the general meaning based on my tone of voice, gestures, and pointing, he'll associate the sounds with the meaning soon enough. On Easter, I don't think he said once "Non, Tata, non!" so he may have accepted that Tata talks funny but it's okay.
I initially felt kind of funny addressing my nephew in English in front of my in-laws, but I decided I needed to get over that because it was silly and because I'd rather teach him correct English than be corrected in French by him.
A couple times B tried to join me in the English conversation, but it felt strange since he had been reading Tchoupi in French moments before and I suddenly had this territorial reflex upon hearing less than perfect English. If he's going to hear English, it should be native speakers, not French speakers easily identified as French speakers.
We'll see how it goes in the future.... Hopefully we'll get to spend time with our nephew again before he forgets about funny talking Tata.
5 comments:
Ben's little cousin is older, 6 or 7, and since she's had English at school, she isn't freaked out when I speak it (which isn't really that often), but thinks it's neat. So something to look forward to when the nephew starts school? :-)
And his other cousin who is also 2 has a Luxembourgish, English-teacher father, so he's totally into it. But it means me and Ben can't have "secret" talks because more and more of the family is starting to understand us . . .
Are you practicing for your own?!
I've never spoken English with my French nephew who's now nearly 5. I think he knows I speak English and if you ask him to speak English he will talk gibberish. He's not started to correct my French yet but when he does I think I might have to switch to English.
I feel a bit bad now come to think about it that I feel so silly about the idea of speaking English in front of the in-laws. God help me when I have kids! eek
Understanding Frenchman's 6 year old niece is learning English at school and we've practised a few words and phrases together on occasion. But at Easter, when we explained to her that in Tata's family everyone speaks English ALL THE TIME and that Tata didn't learn French until she was an adult, she gazed at me in wide-eyed disbelief and went very quiet!
Interesting post! I actually never speak English to Max's niece and nephews in Annecy. Even though I've known them 7 years, I've always spoken French to them, which I think is because I was too shy when I first met them (and their parents) to speak English. The older 2 are in collège, so they are learning English and understand it's my native language, but the little guy is only 4 and looks at me funny sometimes because of my accent!
@Emmy Only practicing for our own in the general sense. Most of the other babies I know in France/Europe are already in multi-lingual families so speaking in English to my nephew is a new experience for both of us.
@Canedolia When I was teaching English in Foix I had the same experience in a CE2 class. A girl asked how I had learned English and when I explained it was the other way around (first spoke English then learned French) and she asked "Les gens parlent l'anglais tout le temps aux Etats-Unis?" it was like I'd blown her mind!
@Crystal If you met Max's niece and nephews when they were already speaking, it's normal to have continued in French. I'm just taking advantage of the fact that my nephew still has limited vocabulary in French. While he's learning 'chien' and 'chat' (instead of 'wa-wa' and 'nano' after Papi's cat Tamino) I want to teach him 'dog' and 'cat'.
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