dolfinho

We have just spent 3 weeks in Australia and Julia's vocabulary and control of English has expanded so much! She spent most of her time with her cousins (4 and 7 yo) and of course she tried to copy everything they did or said. "Excuse me", "don't!" and "nothing" were quickly introduced to her by them. She is now more emphatic with "please" (when she really wants something that one is not giving her). Australian animals are now mentioned daily: kookaburras, platypus and cockatoos. Dolphins, however, comes mixed with Portuguese (golfinho). She says "dolfinho".

Interestingly, she spoke quite a lot of Portuguese with me when we were there (sentences normally mixed with English). She only spoke in English with me when she didn't know the word in Portuguese. She didn't speak Portuguese with anyone else, but likewise sometimes could say a word in Portuguese that she still didn't know in English (and once she learnt it, she would swap to English). However this is pretty much the same reality here in Namibia, as I'm the only one speaking Portuguese. I'm curious to see how it will be when we go to Brazil in February.

When formulating sentences in Portuguese, she normally mixes both languages - particularly if she wants something. Most of the time she says "I want" in English and the rest might come in Portuguese (if she is speaking with me). Sometimes she says "Eu quero" (= I want), but not as a rule. She will tell me "I want to sentar aqui", and if I don't address it soon, she will turn to Mike and say "I want to sit down here". My guess is that there are 2 reasons for her difficulty with formulating sentences in Portuguese: it is the minority language and words can be very long. And oh lord, she is only 2 years and 2 months, what else would I want? :-) I'm a proud mother.

On a final note, many people in Australia were really amazed with the fact that Julia is learning 3 languages (and is already quite functional in all of them). Australia is a geographically isolated country and bilinguism/multilinguism (and the multi-cultural family) is something relatively new. Inevitably, this reality seems to be changing. We spent a couple of days in a caravan park on the beach where I saw 2 little girls (+- 8 yo) teasing a third one because she didn't know how to count up to 10 in Italian. They were doing it out loud and telling the poor girl that "she should know how important it is to know a second language".

here we go

yes, she is trilingual: "mummy, abre, plix. tangi". and this is just the beginning.

(=mummy, open please. thanks)

Tangi, meme.

It's official now, Julia says sentences that we can clearly understand. It's unbelievable how her capacity to communicate has improved in the last 2 months! She repeats a lot of what we say.

I've noticed that in Portuguese we have lots of words with 3 or 4 syllables (I have never paid attention to that before), and it seems a bit of a challenge for her. I do a lot of pronouncing in syllables with her, so we have been practicing different sounds, which is a lot of fun. So we say for example, lâm-pa-da, or ca-cho-rro, I pronounce each syllable and she follows me.

She says "I want to sit here", which for me sounds quite complex, or "I want to read a book", or "I want one bic" (biscuit), but no sentences in Portuguese. It's clear English is the main language at the moment for her. While Michael was away (for 1 month), her vocabulary in Portuguese increased a lot. Now that he is back she is again focusing more on English, which after all is the "family language".

But the funny think is she doesn't say "thank you" or "obrigada". It's ONLY "tangi meme", which means "thank you madam" in Oshivambo (meme = madam, woman, or mother), and she does it regardless if it is for a man or a woman.

language diagram

Very much inspired by all the family diagrams I've stumble on recently (babelkid, multitongue, bilingualism, trilingual+1), here is our language diagram. Still quiet simple. English rules, but who knows what is going to happen in the future... Afrikaans will need to be included soon, once BK is further exposed to environment. And of course, so far there is only one BK around, but hopefully it will change...

Flog! Flog! Flog!

When I started this blog, I knew that would happen - I would commit to something that I simply could not keep up to date! Shame on me. Life is really hectic and I apologise for that. Here is a summary of what has happened recently:

Julia is about to turn 2 and I can confidently say she fully understands English, Portuguese and Oshiwambo. She doesn't say many sentences but honestly she chats SO MUCH that I am sure she is saying much more than couple of sentences, but mummy and daddy simply can't understand. It's her own language. She does say few sentences like "mummy shower" frequently, or "é a vovó" (that is gramma), but that's all I can get.

She says lots of words in both English and Portuguese, quite good vocabulary. The last few weeks she started repeting a lot of what we say, and she loves new words like aranha (spider), acacia or marula (both indigenous trees we planted recently). Tia Lina (Auntie Lina, my sister), is i-a-ina (repeated 50 times a day). I don't know about Oshiwambo because I can't understand a word apart from greetings, but when she is with Maria, Nampa or Kornelia they are only communicating in Oshiwambo and she is totally into it. She says a lot "nene alala", which is a mix of Portuguese (neném) and Oshiwambo (alala, no idea how to write it but that's the sound) - "baby wants to sleep".

From Michael's notes -- Oshwambo speakers normally mix the Ls and Rs, so they might say light when they mean right. One day Julia and Michael were watching The Muppet Show and she start jumping and yelling Flog, Flog, Flog when the frog appeared (she loves him). Michael looked at me and said, oh yes, she IS INDEED learning Oshwambo. :-)

I think it's very clear for her that mummy and daddy speak different languages. Some words she says in both languages (i..e. flower/flor), she tends to point to me in Portuguese and to her dad in English. So I guess she is starting to get into the "One Person One Language" mood. Also, something funny is if Mike tries to talk to her in Portuguese (for example read a book), she laughs and gives him a hug. Sort of "good try dad". So cute. Alternatively she gets mad at him and start yelling "no! mummy mummy, mummy". The same if either of us try to speak in Oshwambo! She doesn't take us serious, which is hilarious.

The challenge over the last few weeks is that she is already out of nappies but needs to communicate correctly if she wants to go to the toilet, otherwise - accident! Toilet training is already a challenge in itself, but she is facing a bilingual toilet training, mostly because I was the reference for her in the process and of course I used the Portuguese vocabulary. However most of the time she is only with Maria, or at the kindergarden, and in both cases they use English words (now I come to think that I'm not sure if Maria uses any Oshwambo word in this situation). She knows the toilet vocabulary in both languages, but I think she still mixes a lot (pee-pee/wee-wee/pipi/xixi/poo/cocô) regardless the recipient of the message. Last week I noticed she was saying xixi to Maria who did not notice it. I talked to the teachers and they said "oh yes", and told me of 2 accidents that happened probably due to the bilingual process. So now they all know, but most important she knows and she is getting better at that.

expanding the vocabulary?

for the sake of documenting, here are some new "words":
"au-au" for dog
"quack quack" for ducks
"nana" for banana
"caca" for poo (in Portuguese)

I'm not sure how it should be, but I think she is not evolving much on her vocabulary, I see other kids her age saying more "real" words, like "thank you". But it does not worry me at all. I'm happy to see that she understands a lot in both languages. Body parts, books, toys in general, i.e. "choose a book" or "where is your armpit" and she answers correctly both in English and Portuguese. For some words I've noticed she answers correctly in Oshwambo as well. And she looks really intrigued when I greet Maria in Oshwambo - as if asking "how come?!".

first words

Julia, 15 months.

1- Dodói, pronounced by her as "tatai".
Dodói is how you say, in Portuguese, "wound" or "ill/sick" when talking to children. Over the last month she saw her dad's leg with a big wound and one of my fingers with a band-aid. She loves the word now, and loves to cuddle us if she sees we have a "tatai".

2- Água (water), pronounced "aca".

3- Pé (foot), pronounced "péi" or "pái".

4- Mãe, mamãe, mum and mummy, used in both languages. In Portuguese, she pronounces as if she were not native speaker: "máie".

5- Papai and Daddy, in both languages.

I wonder what she is speaking in Oshiwambo... Apart from "meme", which means "mum" or "mrs" (she uses sometimes), I haven't been able to identify anything else. But she does communicate all day long with Ovambo people... so she will probably teach Michael and me in the future.

Daddy

Julia and I have been in Brazil since the 25th of November. At first, she was amazed with so many exciting people and things and toys and trees. We came alone, and even during the 3 long flights she was totally fine and happy. On the 3rd day, though, she got scared. And she cried all day long, in a tone I hadn't heard before. She was clearly sad and, to my view, missing her dad. Julia and Michael are very close, he is the one who gets her in the cot every morning, reads to her almost every night, and they have lots of loving moments by themselves. But on the 3rd day in Brazil she realised all the exciting changes meant there was no more daddy around. And she also realised that all of a sudden not only mummy was speaking Portuguese with her, but everybody else. I suppose that was strange. On the 4th morning we talked to Michael in the skype, and that's when she said, for the first time clearly and loud, "daddy". And she waved to him. I could never imagine Julia was to speak her first word, in English, during her trip to Brazil.

(I am not considering all the mama-dada-baba. And I wonder if she was already saying daddy before, but not yet understood?... Who knows).

Eyes-nose-mouth

For some time I've been teaching Julia "eyes, nose, mouth" (in Portuguese). As I say each word, I touch her face, then we touch my face, etc. Last week for the first time I asked her "where are mummy's eyes?", and she touched my nose. I thought oh well it was just a coincidence (that she touched one part of my face, even though the wrong one -- but we love any achievement, even if a bit wrong, isn't it?). But she kept doing it every time. Some days later, her dad asked where were his eyes (in English), and she did the same! Now when we ask she stops before touching our nose, and thinks a bit, but often touches the mouth or nose before the eyes. She does it right in the third attempt.

I recently realised she is really learning things pretty fast (oh so obvious but I suppose you know what I mean?), so I'm all the time trying to teach her new words and concepts. Yesterday during a nappy change she was clapping hands but suddently I asked her where is your foot? And she showed me her foot! As straightforward as that. Is it quite obvious for a 10-month baby and I'm a bit out to lunch? Maybe.

I always think Portuguese will be in disadvantage here, because English is the predominant language at home (and second I think it is Oshiwambo, between Julia and Maria). But I might be wrong.

Little chatterbox

It might be a bit early to start this blog, as Julia is still not speaking any specific language but her own. Indeed my decisions are quite often premature, but the reason for that is so I have an opportunity to think/register every little (and sometimes seemingly meaningless) language development of Julia. I am sure they will add to something interesting later on, and show us lessons in terms of what is and what isn't meaningful.

I read in different places, and the Pediatrician confirmed, that children who is bi/tri/multilingual tend to speak later. It seems to me they need more time to absorbe information and understand that there are different ways of saying the same thing, and different receivers for each way. So I am quite impressed with the little chatterbox we have at home. Although the dialogues are sequences of baba-dada-mama--therefore not really comprehensable--, she has clear intentions. I think the video below shows that quite well. I wasn't expecting it so early, she started with 6 months.

So now I wonder which language she will choose for her chatterbox routine... or will she choose one?

Chatting over dinner

Julia about 4 months ago, making a very clear statement (!) about something that only her dad understood (he was the one behind the camera). She was about 7 months old at this time.

The first

First post, never an easy one. So here we go. My name is Clarisse, Julia's mother, Michael's wife. I'm a Brazilian, married to an Australian, living in Namibia. Julia will be 11 months soon. Her first words are still to be understood, but they are already been said. Lots of dada-mama-papa, sometimes as a clear statement, others more as small chat.

There are three languages at home:
- Portuguese: my mother tongue, language I speak with Julia,
- English: Michael's language, the language we speak between ourselves, and Namibia's official language (although you might want to name what they say Namlish), and
- Oshivambo, one of the Namibian local languages, spoken by Maria, Julia's nanny. They are together everyday, so a big part of her awake time she is with Maria.

Both Michael and I work a lot from home, meaning we can eventually give her lunch or read a book during our working hours.

I have been reading a lot about how to raise a trilingual baby, and recently found interesting resources and blogs from families on a similar situation as ours. It's definitely exciting and I feel like embarking in this adventure that is to watch Julia's endeavours. Because I love action research, I decided to register her development in this blog. I am sure this will be something interesting for us as a family to revisite in the future, and maybe even to share with others (although I can't promise much on that side).

Of course I'm not English native speaker and I won't bother my husband asking him to review every post, so please bear with me.

So here we go...