***
Between December and February, we spent 3 weeks in Australia and 2 weeks in Brazil. The impact of these trips on Julia's language abilities is incredible.
Looking back, I can't believe how unsure I was about her/our capacity to make it happen. We decided to try the OPOL approach, but I have always been a bit wary if this attempt would work, if that would make sense, if that wouldn't be too challenging. Since pregnancy I dedicated myself to speak only Portuguese with her, all the time, to avoid the baby speaking and make full and detailed sentences, to expose her as much as possible to my own language. It is strange to think that Portuguese is the minority language in my life today, but one that has always had such a central role in my family: my father is a journalist, mother is a psychoanalysts (with strong focus on psycholinguistics), aunt is an English/Portuguese translator/teacher, and sister is a psychologist. Writing and reading is what we do, daily - for earning life and for fun. It would be sad if Julia were not able to join us. So here I am, making me effort, trying my best, but doubting if that would really work.
BUT IT DOES!
I can finally say that she speaks full sentences in English and Portuguese, not mixing too much anymore. Improving as fast as she can. She also translates for her silly parents more commonly, just so they don’t get lost! It’s clear that she is getting better into swapping languages in accordance to the recipient (beyond mum and dad).
She had a lot of fun repeating Portuguese long/complex words (helicóptero, libélula, bailarina, papagaio, guanabara, "escada perigosa", and even "lagoa rodrigo de freitas"). She is so happy for being understood by others. In Brazil, there were just few times when she mixed sentences, as when she wanted to play with playdough, she didn't know how it was in Portuguese, so my mum told her, massinha. Normally she would be able to say "eu quero brincar" (=I want to play), but I guess she got a bit confused with a word that already has play in it, so her sentence came as "vovó, eu quero play massinha" (=grandma, I want to play with playdough).
And as a final note, she says por favor/please and obrigada/thank you in both languages and more regularly. So hopefully she is also turning into a polite young lady. ;-)
So far, so good.
