Dagbreek

This week, I was talking to Michael and Julia in English (he doesn't speak Portuguese, so the family language in English, obviously), and Julia told me to speak in Portuguese with her! Amazing. She is still making an effort to speak Portuguese. When she speaks in English, I rephrase her sentences in Portuguese so she can repeat them. She is still a little gringa though, with her strong English accent, mixing feminine/masculine words, and mixing verb tenses. But she promised me she will teach Portuguese to Nicholas!

It's interesting to see how much she understands what a language is. The concept of a language. I have no idea how old I was when I realized that there was something called language. However, as both my mum and aunt were English teachers, I suppose "the understanding that there is a language named English" was somehow present in our lives from early on.

Our expatriate family life is definitely an open mind in this sense. Beyond Portuguese, English and Oshiwambo, we have playdates with families who speak primarily Afrikaans and German as well, so her exposure to other languages is getting broader. On that note, recently she's been quite keen to learn Afrikaans words. I can't help her at all, but we ask her teacher for the correct pronunciation of some words. The word of the week is Dagbreek (daybreak/dawn). It's the name of a school we pass by everyday. I was always saying da-g-breek, but it turns out we should say darr-breek. So that's it, we are now learning together!