Bilingual Poop Phraseology

About a month ago, my Dad told me that I'd no longer be able to keep a running tally of her words, now that she's progressing so quickly with her language. Well, he's right (that feels good to hear, huh Dad?!). Though she definitely has the words that she picks up and makes a part of her daily vocabulary, her general tendency now is to repeat words, many words, that she hears throughout the day--sometimes right after she hears them, and often hours later, leaving us utterly impressed that she even heard and processed all that she did! This change has left me a little stymied as to how to proceed with this here blog, if it's now no longer a matter of adding words to our growing lists--where is my deepest satisfaction going to come from if I can't watch the lists grow? Am I actually going to have to seek satisfaction from being with this sweet child, and listening to her cute little voice say all of these amazing things?? And just share stories as they touch our hearts, as opposed to "keeping score" on the German vs. English "battle"?!

Apparently so.

So, here goes. Circle up. It's story time.

The first anecdote of the evening (ok, LATE night) has to do with poop, once again. While I understand that not everybody "enjoys" talking about it as much as I, it happens to be a HUGE part of our lives these days with a 20-month old (in 3 minutes!). So, humor me while I tell yet another caca-concoction...

In the past, I've written about how Kaya, along with many other budding bilinguals, generally picks a term in one language or the other, generally according to the ease of sound production, and continues to use that term despite understanding the other. Last week Friday, however, as we were in Santa Cruz on a visit with my aunt and uncle, Kaya uttered her first exception. As I've mentioned, Kaya also likes to tell us what's happening in her pants--not always with the greatest accuracy, though it's increasing quickly with every passing day (and with every successive cloth diaper, after a week of disposables). So, in her communicative fashion, Kaya was babbling away in the back of the car, and began to tell Harry and I that she had BOTH "A-a" AND "poop" in her diaper, by pointing to her diaper and saying both terms, repeatedly, back to back: "A-a, poop, a-a, poop..." One could come to some disheartening conclusions about how full her diaper might be after such a bilingual description--however, the most impressive part of that story is clearly the dual-language aspect, NOT the accuracy of the description. =)

Geoff was sadly unable to join us on our journey, slave for days to the nasty stomach flu (I'll avoid THAT body function story!)...so when we returned after a full week away, he was quite surprised as to how much Kaya's language had developed. He had a hard time describing how, exactly, it had changed...I think I can shed some light, though, being the linguistic note-taker that I am:

--She's making FOUR NEW sounds now with ease: H, F, L (in the middle of words) and S

Here's a few stories to illustrate the changes...

Before we left, I had been trying to teach her to say 'Hilfe', and Geoff was, naturally, working on its English counterpart, 'help'. She was able to produce "Hilthe" and "Hep". On our trip, after a 20-minute 'buckle game' (during which she would buckle the buckle, ask for my help by saying "hilfe" so I would unbuckle it, and then buckle it again), she mastered the term "Hilfe", which she now says about 80% of the time she needs my help. MUCH preferred to her previous attempts at help which left me feeling like running the opposite direction: "EHHH!!"

She also started saying "Haus" on our trip, and I swear I heard her say "Hund" (dog) once, though I can't be sure and I have my doubts, since she's only ever said that word in English....

My aunt and uncle had a couple of light switches in their house which were just low enough for Kaya to reach while standing on her tip-toes. They provided the perfect opportunity for her to work on her "an" and "aus", as she turned the lights on and off, over and over and over again. I wish I had a sound byte of the sound of her "s"--it's SO cute, a slight mix between an "sh" and a whistle...Tonight, while she was in bed, she seemed to be truly enjoying that she can now tell me when she wants me to turn her crickets off and on for her listening pleasure. Oh, and to piggy back on that story (Kaya is now 20 months!), she also can now differentiate between "aus" (off, out, from) and "auf" (on top of, open), as she demonstrated while we were in the kitchen and she asked me to open the cupboard for her ("auf").

My aunt Sue initially wanted to be called "Mama Sue" by her granddaughter who is a few months older than Kaya. However, over the months, it morphed into "Bubba Sue", naturally stuck, as all good nicknames do. Kaya apparently didn't like this nickname so much, however, and attempted to give her a new one that sounded an awful lot like a sneeze: "Aaaah Su" She is clearly capable of saying "baba", so it must be that she wants her OWN nickname for her 'new' grandma!

--She's stringing words together that she knows

I love this new tendency of hers. She's been doing it for a few weeks, but up until last week, it was only two words...often "MamaDada, DadaMama..." Last week, however, I heard her say three: "DadaMamaBaby"

And a couple cute little stories to end the eve (now early morn!):

Kaya has a new fascination with babies, and her baby (doll)...after we spent the afternoon with my friend's 4-month old, not a baby passes on the street that Kaya doesn't point out. So, she's been eager to spend more time with her 'baby', putting it to bed, covering it up, riding with it in the car (today was the first), and sleeping with it in her crib. For the past two nights, she has been saying "Ni-ni Baby", and stroking its cheek and chest, just as we do with her as we're tucking her in. And tonight, she clearly said "Ni-ni My Baby", as I often say to her (actually, "Mein Baby", but it's hard to hear the "n" when I say it). And Geoff said that he swears he heard her say, "Ni-ni my sweet little baby"...that would be impressive for sure. Where's the tape recorder when we need it!

It took Kaya 3 hours to fall asleep tonight...we were doing everything we could think of to help her, including rocking her, negotiating with her about disposables vs. cloth diapers, and dousing her with saline to help her stuffy nose. The thing that helped her most, however, at least in regards to keeping her from crying, was a long story that Geoff made up on the fly using a bunch of words that he knew that she understands. It became a story about a dog who played with a ball and met a squirrel and went to the park and ate peaches...or something like that. The part of this whole story that I loved hearing from him, though, was that she stopped crying as soon as he started telling it...and that when he was telling her "that the dog then went up to the squirrel and said...", Kaya filled in, with no prodding, saying, "Ufff, Ufff"! She's finally learning her animal sounds. Heehaw, reason to celebrate!

Oh, how I clearly love my child, because it's 12:15am, my throat hurts, and I can only hope that her 10:30pm sleep-time will allow us both more sleep in the morning!

Thanks for joining us in our 20-month update...til next time!
Tamara








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More Benefits of Multilingualism

To have another language is to possess a second soul.
— Charlemagne (742/7 – 814), King of the Franks

I was just alerted to an article written about the Benefits of Multilingualism. Though I have a few links to other articles like this one in my resources section on the right, I felt like it would be beneficial to post some of the highlights of the article here. Clearly there are moments in my life, and perhaps in yours too, when a reminder could be helpful...

One point that was made is that "multicompetence does not require perfect fluency in all the languages at one’s command...", meaning that I, and the rest of us in this endeavor, can let go of the belief that making mistakes in our non-native language will harm or take away from our children's multilingual experience. Letting go of this belief feels HUGE to me...

In addition to this valuable point, the author sums up a number of other important benefits, adding that "the advantages that multilinguals exhibit over monolinguals are not restricted to linguistic knowledge only, but extend outside the area of language. The substantial long-lived cognitive, social, personal, academic, and professional benefits of enrichment bilingual contexts have been well documented. Children and older persons learning foreign languages have been demonstrated to:

* have a keener awareness and sharper perception of language. Foreign language learning “enhances children’s understanding of how language itself works and their ability to manipulate language in the service of thinking and problem solving” (Cummins 1981);

* be more capable of separating meaning from form;

* learn more rapidly in their native language (L1), e.g. to read, as well as display improved performance in other basic L1 skills, regardless of race, gender, or academic level;

* be more efficient communicators in the L1;

* be consistently better able to deal with distractions, which may help offset age-related declines in mental dexterity;

* develop a markedly better language proficiency in, sensitivity to, and understanding of their mother tongue;

* develop a greater vocabulary size over age, including that in their L1;

* have a better ear for listening and sharper memories;

* be better language learners in institutionalized learning contexts because of more developed language-learning capacities owing to the more complex linguistic knowledge and higher language awareness;

* have increased ability to apply more reading strategies effectively due to their greater experience in language learning and reading in two—or more—different languages;

* develop not only better verbal, but also spatial abilities;

* parcel up and categorize meanings in different ways;

* display generally greater cognitive flexibility, better problem solving and higher-order thinking skills;

* “a person who speaks multiple languages has a stereoscopic vision of the world from two or more perspectives, enabling them to be more flexible in their thinking, learn reading more easily. Multilinguals, therefore, are not restricted to a single world-view, but also have a better understanding that other outlooks are possible. Indeed, this has always been seen as one of the main educational advantages of language teaching” (Cook 2001);

* multilinguals can expand their personal horizons and—being simultaneously insiders and outsiders—see their own culture from a new perspective not available to monoglots, enabling the comparison, contrast, and understanding of cultural concepts;

* be better problem-solvers gaining multiple perspectives on issues at hand;

* have improved critical thinking abilities;

* better understand and appreciate people of other countries, thereby lessening racism, xenophobia, and intolerance, as the learning of a new language usually brings with it a revelation of a new culture;

* learn further languages more quickly and efficiently than their hitherto monolingual peers; (YEAH BABY!!)

* to say nothing of the social and employment advantages of being bilingual – offering the student the ability to communicate with people s/he would otherwise not have the chance to interact with, and increasing job opportunities in many careers.

This, my friends, is why I teach language. And why I continue to stick it out when my doubts hold the reigns. Recently, Kaya's German "jaaaahhh" has morphed into a clearly English-sounding "yeeeaaahh". I can't help feeling a little sad and defeated...like I've "lost" one more word to the other language (how in the hell did I grow so competitive?!). But reading this list helps me get my little brain back on track, and remember that, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Once again, I can tell myself, Kaya will be fine. In fact, according to this article, it seems like she'll be even better than that...!

It's finally time to watch our words and our tone...

I've been "waiting" for this day, "dreading" would be a MUCH more appropriate term, for a long time. I knew it would come, I just wasn't exactly sure as to when. Well, tonight, after I got home from work, Geoff told me that tonight was the night...oh dear...

We hired a dog trainer while I was pregnant with Kaya to avoid this very thing.

I go to therapy on a regular basis to help us avoid this.

But alas, the time has come, where reality mixes with her spongy verbosity:

Kensa, true to form, was whining at the back door. Geoff, in his true form, attempted to be nice and gently tell her to be quiet. But, she persisted in her wascally husky manner, and continued to whine, long and loud. Surely learning from yours truly, Geoff decides to raise his voice at Kensa, telling her, "No, you stay out."

Within seconds, our budding bilingual says, in a tone more stern, loud, and definitive than we've ever heard her use,"No. No. Nein. Nein. Nein. Nein. Nein. Nein. Nein." No pause between the two different negations...simply a continual flow of bilingual no-isms.

On the one hand, I'm clearly dejected. I've been dreading this day, the day I knew would come, the day I "knew" I would hate as soon as it arrived on my doorstep. Life is hard, especially right now. I miss my mom. Geoff's hand is broken. And together, in all of our tiredness, we're raising a one and a half year old. How the hell am I supposed to keep my cool when my 2 dogs are whining, barking, and waking the baby?! As cute as they are, I can't quite keep it together all of the time when one of them runs away for hours and the other one keeps begging at the kitchen counter. I try, dear Buddha knows I try...but reality is brutal sometimes, and so is my tone.

How, oh how, am I going to keep my daughter from "inheriting" my harsh tone with my dogs? Patience? Acceptance? Meditation? No dogs?

I don't have the answer. But what I do have is a bundle of mixed emotions at the fact that, one, our daughter finally "Did what we do, not what we say," and two, because she did it bilingually. I know I have a choice to dwell on whichever emotion I want to...shall I focus on how ecstatic I feel for her smooth bilingualism? Or on the deep-seeded fear based upon the unknown of how to solve our plight?

The answer is obvious...and shockingly, it's not feeling so challengin--the happiness feels like a hot spring welling up through all the other emotions that come so naturally. And what a wonderful experience that is...


(It's not ALL bad...here she is feeding the canine beasts, who have come to love as one of their own!)




...

Two-way Conversationalist and Three-word Phrase

Handing us rocks along the N.Fork of the Little Santiam


I'm not exactly sure how to verbalize exactly what happened over the past week in regards to Kaya's language abilities...but something took place, for sure. The nuances are hard to put a finger on, but the closest I can come to summing it up is to say what implied in the title:

Kaya has become a two-way conversationalist.

She has been answering me with simple "ja" and head shakes for a while now (again, I'd have to check the blog record to remember exactly how long), but starting the middle of last week, and all this weekend, conversation with Kaya felt VERY different. Let me try my hand at adding a few details which may shed some light on what I mean...

-She responds to 95% of what we say to her or ask her, with not just a simple, "jah" like before, but now with a more heartfelt, "Jaaaahhh". I've got to get it on video because her tone just warms my heart and makes me smile almost every time!

-Even when Geoff and I are talking with each other, usually about her or something she responds. For example, while we were camping and swimming this weekend on the North Fork of the Little North Santiam, I was letting Geoff know what it was that she was wanting, what she was pointing at. "She wants the T-U-R-T-L-E," I said, spelling out the key word that I figured would upset her. "Jaah," she reponded, immediately, looking intently across the water and pointing at the big, blow up turtle.

Here she is before the turtle came along, enjoying the peace and solitude of the river with Dada.



-She now repeats things on her own, a great deal of the time, without us having to ask, "Can you say ____?". It seems that she chooses words that she either likes the sound of or thinks she'll be able to muster with her existing vocal abilities...

-On Wednesday evening, before we left for our camping trip, our neighbors, Lena and Andrea, both heard Kaya say, "Look at Mama," while pointing at me across the way. That marks the moment of her FIRST three-word phrase!

-She's been saying, "Hello, Mama" very clearly over the past three days...she'll start saying it, often when she's playing peek-a-boo through her "schnulli" (pacifier) string. She says it over and over again, continuing even longer if I say hello back to her. I'm very surprised at how CLEAR her annunciation is when she says it.

Her favorite word these days: Baaaow (Ball)

Two-Word Phrase Phase?!

I've read a bit about the phase when they'll start creating two-word phrases. In fact, just last night, I read that the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children "should" be able to create two and three-word phrases by the time they reach 24 months. Naturally, I wasn't sure when our little Kaya would start doing this, since the word on the street is that it often takes longer for bi- and multilingual children to start speaking. But I think we've entered our next phase...!

The more comical story (of two) is one that also leads me to believe that she's nearing her potty training phase as well: I went into the bathroom this morning, and Kaya quickly followed me in, with grunts implying that she, too, wanted to be sitting on her potty (which is on the floor just across from ours). When I asked her if she wanted to sit down, she said, "Jahh", and motioned to sit...but then spotted her rubber ducky in the tub. Doing the same as she did yesterday, she grabbed the duck from her toy bin, and put it on her potty, saying, "a-a", meaning 'poop' in colloquial German. What was different about today is that she not only said, "a-a" as she set the ducky on the potty, but that she combined with it with "duck" as she set it over the hole, making for her first official two-word expression: "duhh a-a!"

How proud am I?! The daughter of a mother with irritable bowel and the mother of a daughter with lingual poop skills. =) Could life be better than this?

Similarly sweet, as Kaya and I were lying in bed this morning, she said, "dada...bye bye" just after he walked out the front door for work. The words were a little bit more separated than her duck and poop phrase above...but I think it qualifies, too.

She's comin' along with this language thing, mixing her languages as they are expected to do until about 3 1/2 years (though I'll have to check my numbers on that one). To her, they are all words...two names for any particular items are simply synonyms to her right now, and will continue to be for a few years. Hence, mixing is only natural--there's no reason to keep them apart, as far as her brain is concerned. Until then, she'll just choose to use the synonym that is easiest for her to say, like "duck" (vs. Ente) and "dauh" (dog, vs. Hund), or the one that she learns first, like "a-a" and "Affe".

Nein!

Our daughter hasn't been a big "no" kid as many toddlers can be at this age. We've been very selective about how we tell her 'no', specifically avoiding the word 'no' and 'nein' to help keep her from being obsessed with the word and the concept (being of the Mindful Parenting viewpoint, we do our best to tell her what we want her to DO, as opposed to what NOT to do--when she's on the verge of something super dangerous that we need her to stop doing right away, we say "Danger/Vorsicht!" and distract her from the action). So, instead of no's, we've been getting sweet little head shakes when she answers our questions in the negative. The other day, I did hear her call out a long "Noooooohhh" when she saw something in her chair that she was unhappy about--but otherwise, she hadn't used No or Nein in true context...

...until TONIGHT! I feel like I 'shouldn't' rejoice over something I've been trying so hard to avoid, but the details of the story have me smiling somethin' big.

As told to me by my in-laws: Kaya was showing her Tante Jules her rocking horse at their house tonight. It's one of those big horses on springs that rocks back and forth impressively...but instead of hard plastic like we had as kids, it's soft and plush and says a variety of things. Kaya has ridden it a few times and loved it,(as you see here!) but the last time I was there, she seemed a bit spooked, perhaps by the talking? Whatever it was, she clearly wasn't interested in riding the horse any more that night. So, tonight as I said, she was "showing" her Tante the horsie, when grandpa walks in the room and asks Kaya if she wants to ride the horse. "Nein," she declared, adamantly. He continued to explain to her that the horsie was lonely, and that it might really like her to ride it. "Nein, nein," she responded, this time shaking her head. She's got it down, it seems...I'm curious what this will mean for our car rides and bedtimes and lima beans in the future. But despite my 'curiosity', I'm beaming with excitement that "nein" came out instead of "no", and that she combined it with the head shake to make it clear that she knew exactly what she was saying!

Also, as much as I have my concerns for how Kaya's German in the next few years will challenge some of the moments that she has with her other care givers (particularly her grandparents and Tante who see her regularly and don't speak any German), I am finding a deep level of excitement at the fact that this phase has begun. Because what that signifies is HUGE for me--the bilingual experience is setting in to the point that it will begin to make a difference in her interactions with others!

Yeeehaw and Giddeee-up!

Family Language Layout

After writing at length about my experience with German and why we chose the German over Spanish, I realized that I had yet to go into detail about our language situation as a family. I find that I enjoy reading about what others do, so maybe by sharing our situation here, I can offer some insight to others as well, or perhaps just serve as another example out there in the world of multilingual families.

As I briefly address in my profile, we use the One Parent, One Language (OPOL) method in our family. Geoff, my husband, speaks English with Kaya all the time while 99% of my communication with her is in German. Geoff and I communicate with each other in English, and the language of our community, Portland, Oregon, is English as well. So, German is the minority language of our family as well as in our community.

As I've addressed in older posts, when I am completely overwhelmed and beside myself with frustration or anger, I allow myself to speak English with Kaya. When I first came to terms with this need of mine, I would allow myself to speak to her at length in English, until I felt more calm. This would often be 3-5 minutes in English, with a minimum of 4 sentences or utterances at a time in English. After a conversation with another non-native German speaker who is also raising her daughter bilingually, however, I have gone back to focusing on staying in German 100% of the time, including those challenging moments. Soon, I will write just about that concept alone, but in the meantime, I'll say that I've gone from saying 4-5 sentences or more to Kaya in English when I'm overwhelmed to maybe one or none. I'm finding that it's enough, lately, to get out one frustrated comment in English in the most challenging moments and then immediately move back to German. I've also noticed that I'm better able to express frustration in German lately, so that I don't even need to move to English to express myself in those hard moments. That feels relieving and promising, for sure!