Out Of The Mouth Of Babe... The Riches...

"I cant believe it. It s amazing. I'm going to cry because of this chocolate milk." (Discovering a new sugary alternative to Ribena)
"I think I'm going to cry. I love daddy so much." (Feeling emotional)
"You think daddy will speak to Father Christmas? I'd like a 4x4, the rally version." (Dreaming)
"It 's not very practical." (Playing with LEGO)
"It 's quite violent." (Having a peek at a TV programme)

He has also recently realised that 'frog', 'fog' and 'fuck' are all different words. Consequently, he has been practising them all week right out there in the streets of Strasbourg: "Mummy, fuck is a bad word. Fog is the weather all mixed up. And frog jumps. Fog frog fuck."

The Golden Age

What age is the golden age to start sticking to one language only with your trilingual polyglot? When does it all stop being merely a funky and super-amusing experiment? And when does the time come to stop playing and start considering his development seriously?

"Mummy, you speak French?!! Mummy, don't change languages! Mummy, il faut dire HELLO. Il faut pas dire BONJOUR!" My 4-year-old has now come into the habit of correcting me all the time and insisting on my exclusive use of English with him. It seems he has suddenly this month developed some strong resistance to mixing his three languages (English, French and Russian) and as a result come up with some techniques to prevent mummy from chronic over-use of French and Russian.

Recently at a restaurant in Strasbourg: "Look Mummy, the boy is speaking English! He wants some sausages and chips!" He is clearly becoming consciously aware of such a thing as 'language differentiation'. But what does that mean? Is that a sign that he is seeking stability and reassurance or is he actually just playing with me? Time will tell. But whatever the reason for his recent change of heart, it is clearly a sign of progress. And our job as parents is to channel it into the right direction and guide our little munchkins towards their perfect multilingual and multicultural future. Good luck!

Back To Black

With a black James Bond on the horizon and a dark gentleman having just been re-elected to run the US, I have been attempting to educate our lovely 4-year old about different races and colours...

Recently on the tube in London: "Mummy, show me your face please". Then pointing to the black gentleman sitting right next to him: "Lui, il a des grandes губки". ("He's got large lips")... Luckily, the gentleman in question did not speak all the 3 languages involved in this communique and was generally oblivious to the whole discussion. Which saved us an extortionate amount of awkwardness in public.

So all in all, with respect to education, progress is slow so far. My boy clearly fails to notice the different colours on people's faces and rather pays attention to other special features he considers far more important than colour.

Language Differentiation by Subject Matter

"Quick! Look at the pony!" - "C'etait pas 'a pony'. C'etait ослик."

I don't think anybody can tell me why most animals speak Russian in my son's world. Or why his dreams about the future are all in English. Or why the naughty words are all in French. The truth is, it is only natural that your multilingual genius will adopt a certain strategy when dividing up his world into logical language areas. Sometimes, it will end up in a Mommy-English, Daddy-Spanish, Gran-French system, whilst at other times it will all be about Bathtime-English, Playtime-French etc. It all depends on the child's individual circumstances and their perception of the world and the relative importance they allocate to certain matters in certain situations.

The Parent-Child War Tactics: You Choose

Attention please! All those parents who think their children will preserve their baby-like state and behaviour forever - beware! Those little cheeky monkeys are picking up on everything we use in our social interactions. Every single one of those tools and tricks: the undertones, sarcasm, double-meaning - the lot!

Just this morning, having gobbled up a breakfast worthy of a XVth century Scotsman, Clément sweetly asked for his "dessert" on top of that: "Mummy, you choose: the other sweets or not the other ones." And I said to myself, this is exactly the tactics I use when trying to persuade him to eat his veggies: giving him a choice, but that containing solely the options I approve of. How on earth does a 4-year-old process this in his tiny head?! Even General Suvorov would have been inspired by such effortless strategising and plotting.

The Beauty of Bureaucracy

I am trying to explain to my naughty 4-year-old that it is just possible that we may not after all be able to go celebrate Halloween in England. All this is owing to a bureaucratic error at a National ID Card Printing Center somewhere near Paris, where they erroneously popped an African lady's face onto my brand new ID whilst the afore-mentioned African lady received my face on her card.

 

All the 4year-old can comprehend is that mommy needs a new picture. "But.. Why?"

 

The beauty of bureaucracy - that larger-than-life machine that in this highly digital age is incapable of undoing what has been done digitally, thus providing us with real life scenarios that are so highly unbelievable that one tends to believe that they were all made up by someone living somewhere near Hollywood, LA, USA.

 

"Trick or Treat?" 

Hide and Seek

According to his French nanny, whilst playing hide-and-seek yesterday, the infamous 4 year old only managed to count to 3 in French, promptly stumbling on "Trois...um... a...". Nanny showed merci, as per usual, and let him count in English. By "Ten!", the kids were all well hidden in their secret nooks around the house. What joy it is to have such understanding and lingua-friendly adults around us.

A trilingual four-year-old. But not quite multicultural...

Well, the summer in England has been most beneficial in terms of Clément's cultural and linguistic immersion into all things British. Very much helped by the Masbro Children's Centre, the Hammersmith&Fulham public libraries and the Olympics in London. Starting off with a sort of a sign language and slowly but surely moving onto constructing full sentences and conducting conversations, such as "In my life, I have a dream... A rally car!" and "You are the best friend I've ever had."   

The new academic year has started off nicely with a welcome from the Russian School in Strasbourg which he now attends regularly. Shame that he cannot put his newly acquired skills to good use in Belarus. Who knows when his next trip to the East will be.

The teachers at his French nursery school are now complaining that he counts to 10 in English better than in French. Obviously, they wouldn't be able to asses his mathematical abilities in Russian as well.