¡Dame cinco! or… ¡Chócala!

When we were recording our last session of Habla Blah Blah music in Mexico, some of my previous “translating” errors became glaringly embarrassing causes for continuous chuckling at the studio. I turned to Maria (Sánchez Lozano), one of our female Spanish singers, and I said in my coolest purr, “¡dame cinco!” She, honestly, just looked at me. In perfect English, she said, “What do you mean?”

It turns out that “Give me five!” doesn’t translate! The intention does. The meaning does, but the words? No. The phrase is a colloquialism. It’s slang that differs by region and culture, though all people in the world practice some form of this casual communication… bumping knuckles, slapping skin, etc. After laughing at my naiveté, we translated, or better termed, we deciphered the correct phrase for it in Spanish and then French.

Tope là, in French, loosely translates to ‘touch this’, but it’s slang, so don’t try to find it in the dictionary. Fascinating, right? I started getting really excited… how would this translate in Greek? Russian? Chinese? Hindi? How cool would it be if you knew how to say the equivalent of “Slap me some skin, brother” or “Give me five” in any language. You could travel the world with your children and instantly offer signs of peace to strangers in a casual way. It would be a gateway phrase into another culture, another family, a new friendship!

Flash forward about a year later, and here we are. We want to do this, but we need help. We need people. We need YOUR expertise and connections. It gives me goose bumps (another phrase that I love to translate across languages because it doesn’t translate verbatim) to think of the possibility of assembling a collection of HIGH FIVEs across as many languages as possible. Send this to all of your friends! Go viral!! Let’s translate this song to as many languages as possible and put together a HIGH FIVE album that celebrates world peace and communication.

Here is a link to all of the downloadables that you’d need in English, Spanish, French – the music, the lyrics, and the instrumental.

Can you translate? Or do you know someone who can? Can you sing it in another language? Please, please send it in… written, recorded, or filmed, and we will publish you. I treasure the nuances of any language, and I love that some meanings just don’t translate perfectly.

Help us make the HIGH FIVE project come to life and take the challenge!

{First photo by  TheModernGypsy. Second photo courtesy of Amy Conroy}

When Aidan (my now 4.5 year old) was 3 years old, he decided that he was going to refuse to do anything “Chinese”. He used to lower his head and shove his hands deep into his pockets when asked to speak Chinese. He one day declared that he didn’t want to speak Chinese anymore. My son decided Chinese wasn’t cool, or hip, or relevant to anything he was interested in. Everything fun was in English, his Chinese friends all spoke English with him, and I understood English too.

Over the years, I had searched for Chinese language resources for kids under 6, but couldn’t find anything that engaged long enough to benefit. I kept thinking there was a lost opportunity here, since the best time to learn/maintain languages is before the kids are 6. Since I’m conversationally fluent in Mandarin, I thought speaking to him at home would be enough, so I didn’t spend too much time worrying about the lack of language tools. But once I realized outside influences were competing for his attention, I knew I needed additional tools to re-spark Aidan’s interest in his mother-tongue. Forcing Chinese down his throat wasn’t an option for me, because I’ve seen how that type of influence leads to rebellion later on… parents speak to their children in the mother-tongue and the kids respond in English.

I’ve been in the videogame industry for over a decade, and after several moms approached me about the idea of leveraging the ever-so-popular tablet to become a language-learning tool, I jumped on board. This tablet-based tool is called Peach Ice Cream Adventures (PICA), and it will be a language-immersion adventure game specifically designed for 3-6 year olds, with Spanish, Chinese and French being the first three languages we are developing. What started off as a joint effort between three moms wanting a fun way to keep a mother tongue in the family has blossomed into a realization that there is a need for this tool extended beyond our own children and our own immediate needs: A Boston City Councillor of an inner city district wants PICA for his preschools/K1/K2.

If we raise enough money to make PICA, an awesome company called Isabella Products will be donating tablets pre-loaded with PICA to the schools so we can run a pilot next summer!!! And if that works, I have plans to roll out in other inner city schools as well. Kids from inner cities are usually have limited or have no access to the latest tools, but we want them to be part of the first.

We are using a fundraising platform called Kickstarter, which is a funding platform for creative projects. For a lack of better terminology, it is a pre-ordering platform that lets interested prospective customers pre-purchase (via pledges) to support the development and launch of the product. One catch is that Kickstarter is an “all-or-nothing” deal…you need to raise a minimum of the dollar amount or PICA can’t be made. We have 12 days to get enough pledges to get PICA into the hands of our kids and those in inner cities. Pre-order some cool Spanish (or Chinese or French) tools today to help us reach our goal. Folks pledging/pre-ordering as a gift for a special child in their life can let me know, and I’ll email a beautiful holiday card that states a purchase was made on the child’s behalf.

Click to pledge and pre-order by Dec. 17

Vicky spent the past 12 years in the videogame industry, and became passionate about making STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education more appealing and accessible to youth. Inspired by her older son (now 4.5), Vicky launched an early education enrichment program that uses STEM principles as a vehicle for Chinese language immersion. The success of the enrichment program has led her to start digitizing her curriculum by creating tablet-based language-learning games, specifically aimed at 3-6 year olds.

My husband (a native French speaker) and I (an advanced non-native French speaker) have raised our two boys bilingually since they were born. They are 7 and 10 and in the 2^nd and 5^th grades. We normally live in the US and spend five to six weeks in France every two years. But, we wanted more! We are currently at the mid-point of a five-month stay in France.

Although we have been pleased with their bilingual progress while living in the US, it was important to us that they spend an extended period of time in France to truly experience daily life in their second country, as well as to focus on literacy. Although both of our boys can read at an age-appropriate level in French, we have found that one of the most difficult challenges of our bilingual lifestyle is making sure that our children can write in their second language. Life is already so busy with school and other activities in the US that it is hard to fit in study of French grammar or other subjects in French.

Though we have been thinking about it for a while, we organized this entire extended stay in France fairly quickly, in about two months, including finding lodging and signing them up for school — though I would not necessarily recommend doing it that way! Our boys’ bilingual progress was truly our sole motivation for the trip and when we saw a window of opportunity, we jumped on it. A side benefit is, of course, that we all get to spend time abroad together. I also benefit from speaking French in a real-world setting. For various logistical reasons, we decided to spend one semester abroad instead of an entire year.

The French school year starts later than it does Colorado, where we normally live, so the boys had a few extra weeks of vacation. The flip side of that is that they were bored by then and needed the stimulation of a school environment. They will also spend less time in school this year than any of their French or American classmates and we need to work on the side to catch any concepts falling through the cracks, especially math. In France, their public school is walking distance and there are only 100 students, both of which we appreciate. Since the boys’ spoken French was already strong when we arrived, their overall integration was smooth and they made friends quickly. There is no school in France on Wednesdays for elementary school children, and the boys spend all day mid-week with their grandparents, which all four of them enjoy very much.

For our younger son, grammar is not yet heavily covered at his age and he is doing very well and keeping up in all subjects. Our older son’s peers have already studied various grammatical concepts in depth in earlier grades, however, so he does get frustrated at times with tasks like verb conjugation. (Un)fortunately for him, his mother (me) is a French grammar nerd so we can and do have marathon study sessions at home. He is a talker though and loves to give presentations at school, even in French. Also, while he loves being half-French, the adjustment has been harder for him. When he is frustrated, he tells us (or his teachers!) that it doesn’t matter — he will soon be returning to the US! That has shown us that coming for half a year was not ideal.

My husband and I are continuing to work for our US-based company/clients remotely, which is a blessing and a curse. We couldn’t have taken this trip without that possibility, but it is draining to constantly straddle two time zones and to speak English with our US contacts while in France.

Overall, though, the positives far outweigh the negatives and we are very pleased with our trip so far. The cultural and linguistic progress the boys have made is totally worth any inconvenience as is the time we have spent here together as a family and with extended family. I am already planning our next extended stay!

Eve Lindemuth Bodeux is a dual national, American by birth and French by marriage. She is one of the few people who can claim to have been born in Alaska. Although she has now lived in Colorado for 18 years, she still considers herself an Alaskan at heart. She is a fluent French speaker and is a self-employed professional translator, working from French to English for clients in the US and Europe. She and her husband have raised their sons, Axel and Luka, bilingually since the boys entered this world. She sees her children as citizens of the world and loves that they sometimes correct her French.

I was one of those very lucky kids who attended a dual language immersion school. Although I moved around a lot as a child — living in 5 countries in 3 continents by the time I was 14 — I spent five solid years at my mother’s alma mater back in Peru and I was instructed mostly in English from 4th to 8th grade.

As far as I remember, I only had a handful of courses, including Historia and Geografía del Perú, in Spanish. The rest of my school days were spent immersed in English in a Spanish-speaking country. By the time I entered 5th grade, my private school required all its students to take up a third language. I chose French, but I could’ve chosen Italian or German just as easily.

So, I thought it very strange when I moved to the States and found out that, although offered, I didn’t really have to take a “foreign language,” until I got to high school. And then, I only needed two years of this foreign language in order to graduate. In reality, since I already spoke a foreign language — as in my native Spanish — I could’ve very well taken a test and I could’ve been exempted from this requirement.

But because I’d been taking French since 5th grade — albeit only a couple of times a week — I signed up for it as one of my electives when I entered my neighborhood’s junior high school in Miami, and I continued taking it until my junior year in high school. I eventually picked it up again as a sophomore at the University of Florida (in fact, you can almost say college French is the reason why Ana and I are friends today). Since then, I’ve taken courses at the Alliance Française on and off for the last 15 years.

All this to prove that I’m obviously a huge lover of languages and to confess that if I had the money, I would spend the rest of my life traveling and learning other languages. And so, it pains me to no end to read articles like the one from Forbes Ana sent me earlier this morning. Titled “America’s Foreign Language Deficit,” and written by two prominent Cornell University professors, the article exposes the sad state of affairs this nation is facing in terms of teaching its students foreign languages.

While I love to think that more and more people are embracing bilingualism in this country, the reality when it comes to foreign language offerings available to our students is pretty bleak. Check out some of these discouraging figures from the Forbes article :

• The percentage of public and private elementary schools offering foreign language instruction decreased from 31 to 25 percent from 1997 to 2008.
• Instruction in public elementary schools dropped from 24 percent to 15 percent, with rural districts hit the hardest.
• The percentage of all middle schools offering foreign language instruction decreased from 75 to 58 percent.
• About 25 percent of elementary schools and 30 percent of middle schools report a shortage of qualified foreign language teachers.
• In 2009-2010, only 50.7 percent of higher education institutions required foreign language study for a baccalaureate, down from 67.5 percent in 1994-1995. And many colleges and universities have reduced or eliminated instructional offerings in “less popular” languages.

Speaking more than one language is an invaluable gift, but in a highly connected world like the one we live in today, it’s become more of an indispensable skill.

As fierce proponents and supporters of bilingualism, Ana and I want to make sure that our voices — and that of all the other parents who believe bilingual is better — are heard loud and clear by anyone and everyone who has a say in changing the discouraging numbers above. We’re in the process of trying to figure out how to do that, and we promise to let you know when we do. In the meantime, I leave you with this call to action by the authors of the Forbes’ article:

We ask parents to urge their children to attain proficiency in a foreign language, whether or not schools require them to do so; PTAs to lobby school boards; faculty members and deans in colleges and universities to re-visit foreign language requirements; readers of Forbes to write to their elected representatives.

{Photo via Fiona Bradley}

A few months ago I let my Facebook friends know that Sabrina used three languages in one day for the first time! This, of course, was a milestone because we have been speaking entirely in Spanish to her, though she hears English daily, and is exposed to French in very contrived settings, like through read alouds and French children’s videos.

Before our daughter was born, almost two years ago, we decided to attempt to raise her with three languages. Most people we have met that are trilingual, in addition to the research I have done, either lived in different countries where they had the opportunity to learn three languages or each of their parents spoke a different language. Our situation is unique in that my husband and I are bilingual, yet we do not live in a country where a third language spoken is an official language. In other words, we decided to add a third language into the mix because, while there are social and cognitive benefits, we thought if monolinguals can successfully raise bilingual children, then why can’t bilinguals raise a trilingual child?

I have a clear plan in mind, although I have to admit I ran into some roadblocks. For instance, part of my initial plan was to enroll Sabrina in French immersion summer camps, although the only French immersion school I could find in our city requires full-time enrollment, which I am not ready to do yet. We continue to stay on their waiting list, though we realize Sabrina may not get full French immersion until she is at least three years old.

The following list are strategies we have incorporated to expose Sabrina to her third language:

1) Children’s Books in French! My husband reads them to her before bedtime. *He lived in Switzerland for 4 years and speaks some French.

2) Little Pim. We watch the videos in French and review the vocabulary flash cards.

3) Petralingua: We use their songs to learn vocabulary.

Though the list is short, she is picking up the vocabulary and using the words she knows in the appropriate contexts. For instance, we were in the produce section of the grocery store and she said “une fruit” while pointing to apples. She is also using the French word for teddy bear “nonours” and “poupée” for doll when referring to her toys. The next strategy we are going to implement includes attending French read alouds of children’s books. I learned that The French Legation Museum in Austin occasionally has a read aloud session in French for children!

There is a part of me that wonders how trilingual she will become and how many other limitations we will face since it is not a language we both know well, nor is it a language that is predominately spoken in our city, like Spanish. What I have come to realize is that becoming bilingual or trilingual is a privilege and that many children do not have that option. Worse yet, children who grow up speaking two languages and are not from middle or upper class backgrounds don’t seem to get the recognition for being able to speak, say Spanish and English, like those that do! I believe that part of my work as a mother and as an educator includes making sure all children have the option of learning another language in addition to making sure that those who grow up as heritage language learners are also valued for the language skills they bring to the classroom.

{Image by Patricia Oliveira} 

Photo credit: ConsipiracyofHappiness

As I typed out the title of this posting I could not help but form a smirk on my face. Here’s the deal. The further I delve into the work of identity construction in my doctoral program, the more I realize that individuals take on multiple identities depending on the context they are in, including several other elements that come into play. Even in the previous sentence I wrote there are several words I would have to define to explain exactly what I mean about identity construction and how it happens to possibly relate to living a trilingual life. Herein lie my dilemmas as a bloguera/academic writer:  almost everything that makes up academia has made me question the most general observation or statement about language acquisition.

I guess what I am trying to explain is that no matter how I attempt to shape our lives so that Sabrina learns three languages, she will always be negotiating her identity, just as we all do. What’s amazing is that many of us don’t even realize that we do this. At least I didn’t prior to studying the concept of identity. Sure I was conscious of the way I acted differently with family, friends, or colleagues, but if we were all aware of the little nuances that influence how we think, what we say, essentially who we are at a particular point of time, we would realize that learning multiple languages is not black and white. This is part of the reason I always question any language program, whether it’s for kids or adults.

Speaking of language programs, now that my bebita is 7-months-old, I have decided that most of her language learning is probably going to occur at home until she enters kindergarten. Most of the “day care” settings I would like her to participate in are mostly for children who are there full-time or nearly full-time. I learned that there is what they call a “mothers day out” and then there are “day care” settings, both of which have a different ambience. If there is a “mothers day out” with a Spanish or French immersion component, then I have not found it. That being said, my new plan is to continue exposing her to Spanish at home and create a time during the week to listen to French. Somehow, I have a feeling that I will constantly be adjusting our little plan as she gets older and as our lives change.

In fact, there are times when I ask myself, “Wouldn’t my life be a lot easier if I just spoke in English all the time?” When I start to think about language and how I want to expose my daughter to it as she grows I start to consider everything that is tied to acquiring multiple languages. I guess this is one of the reasons I am pursuing a PhD. I guess it only makes sense that I question and consider the multiple elements ties to learning languages. Its conflicting internal struggles like these that remind me of one of my favorite quotes, “Give me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.” This quote rings true to my heart with various topics in life, but for some reason when it comes to language I just cannot seem to stop questioning how it functions.

Photo credit: whiteafrican

My daughter, Vanessa, loves languages. Nothing could make me happier because I love languages too!

We’re about a little over two months into our Trilingual Adventure with Little Pim – our journey to expose Vanessa to her third language: French, and I’m happy to report that things are going much better than I expected. I try to speak to her in French every single day, even if it’s not for an extended period of time. We either listen to Little Pim’s French Bop CD, watch one of the DVDs from the series, read the few books we have in French or I just simply reinforce the latest vocabulary she’s been learning by using it during our everyday conversations.

At the suggestion of Little Pim’s founder, Julia Pimsleur, during our last Skype consultation, I’ve made it a point to speak French while I give Vanessa a bath. I have to admit that I wasn’t too sure it was going to work out, but it has been an excellent tip.

Before I implemented this new “rule,” I explained what it was all about to Vanessa. I don’t think she was too convinced either, until we actually went to the bathroom for her bath. Julia had mentioned that she used to line up little toy animals on the ledge of the tub, call out each of their names, and her son would dump the correct one in the water. You can’t imagine how much fun this is for a child!

I decided to start with something a little bit easier because we haven’t gotten around to learning all the animals’ names yet. She only knows chat (cat) and chien (dog) from Little Pim’s flashcards and she also knows ours (bear) from a particular book we’ve been reading which I promise to write about very soon. Anyhow, to make sure she’d able to play without getting frustrated about not knowing the answer, I lined up a bunch of different colored blocks she has in the tub which go along with a bateau (boat) – she knows this word very well because she learned it during French summer camp.

I think we used about 6 or 7 different colors and I just called them out and had her dump each one in the water. She was in heaven and, after a couple of tries, got every single one of them right. To change it up a little bit, we’ve also been using her little rubber duckies which are all dressed up differently to play this game. Another variation has been for me to say a number and for her to count the duckies or block and dump the amount corresponding to the number. A few nights later, I decided bath time was a good enough time as any to introduce the names of body parts. Granted, she already knows a lot of them thanks to the ever-popular tête-épaules-genoux-et pieds song (head-shoulders-knees-and toes)! Either way, I’ve been introducing additional terms ever since. Vanessa is so into it that whenever I tell her it’s time for her bath, she always says something like: “Y es la hora de hablar francés, ¿verdad?” I guess I’m know experiencing what the time and place method is all about!

Since, as we all know, the best way to learn another language is to be exposed to it in fun and meaningful ways, I’ve been searching for other options in our journey to become trilingual. I know there’s a French playgroup quiet a bit north of where we live and I’ve been wanting to make it a point to go check it out because I truly believe in the power of playgprous. However, I really haven’t been able to find the time to make a commitment to something like this and I’d hate to start something and not be consistent. So, when fellow blogger, Eve Bodeux of Blogging on Bilingualism, let me know about a local French camp which takes place once a month on Saturday, I immediately jumped on the idea.

I promptly got in touch with the teacher to ask her all kinds of questions about the camp. I was a bit nervous because Vanessa would be the youngest of all the kids in the group and because the teacher told me all of them already had exposure to French. Either way, I figure the only way to find out would be to try it out. So, I signed her up and took her two weeks ago. I couldn’t believe our luck when I found out that the teacher was actually Vanessa’s French teacher during the two weeks she attended Denver Montclair International School‘s French camp this summer! I was worried no more. When her father picked her up, five hours after I dropped her off, Vanessa didn’t want to leave!

What can I say, my girl loves languages .

Disclosure:  This post is part of a series of entries made possible by Little Pim.  The stories, outcomes, and opinions regarding this trilingual adventure are all our own.

As I mentioned in the past, my 4-year-old daughter, Vanessa, attended two weeks of a French immersion summer camp in August. She was incredibly enthused and I was very proud of everything she learned: counting to five, some of the colors, and at least two full songs. She know how to say “Bonjour” and “Au revoir” and “Je m’appelle Vanessa.” I wanted to use the summer camp experience as an introduction of what is to come in the next three months.

In an effort to make this venture into a third language more of a reality, we’ve partnered with the fabulous Little Pim and will be using their entertaining and educational products and materials for our trilingual adventures. The plan is for me to document Vanessa’s progress through regular posts and to also bring you expert advice in the form of vlogs of the consultations we’ll have with Julia Pimsleur Levine – Little Pim’s founder –  to help us along our journey!

Today, we bring you our first vlog, an interview with Julia regarding some basic tips for introducing a new language and putting Little Pim products to use. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this dream of mine finally becoming a reality. I’m so happy we’re doing it with Little Pim, but more than anything, I can’t deny it thrills me to say that it looks like my daughter has the same love of languages that I have! In fact, a few days before she started pre-K last Friday, she asked what language was going to be spoken there, when I said English (and once a week Spanish for one hour) she was a bit disappointed. “¿Por qué no francés, como en la otra escuelita?” she asked.

Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWb7AtNa8Q

Disclosure:  This post is part of a series of entries made possible by Little Pim.  The stories, outcomes, and opinions regarding this trilingual adventure are all our own.

Photo courtesy: JAG Photography

My four-year-old daughter, Vanessa, just finished two weeks of an immersion language summer camp…in FRENCH! I’ve been wanting her to go there since last summer, but things didn’t really work out the way I’d plan them and so we had to wait until this year. And, I’m actually glad we did!

French is my third language and I’ve spoken to Vanessa in French in the past although not in a consistent or structured way. In fact, before her brother was born and when I used to stay home with her, I signed her up for toddler French lessons at our local Alliance Fraçaise. Although she was too little, I’m glad I did because she did get some exposure to the way the language sounds. So, she was not hearing it for the first time when she attended the French Summer Camp at Denver Montclair International School – the full immersion bilingual private elementary school in the city.

Each of the two weeks she spent immersed in French from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. had a different theme. The first week it was all about water – they even went on a field trip to the pool! Since I knew about the themes before hand, I made sure to incorporate the vocabulary she was learning each day on our way back home from camp. One of the things that stuck the most that first week was a song she was talk about a little boat. She also learned how to say “Bonjour”, “Aurevoir” and “Je m’appelle Vanessa.”

The second week, which was the last week of the camp, the theme was back-to-school. So it was perfect because she was taught the basics: numbers, colors, shapes and letters. What stuck the most this time around were the numbers.

I must say I was extremely proud of her when she announced, to no one in particular, at the end of the first week of camp: “Yo hablo tres idiomas. Españo, inglés y francés.” (“I speak three languages. Spanish, English and French.”).

Want her to prove it to you? Check her out in this video I took of her over the weekend:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l_LWuqrLPU

From the start, I knew she probably wouldn’t learn a lot because, after all, two weeks is really nothing when it comes to language learning. But, I did know that the exposure would be a great way for me to transition into a more formal situation where I’ll actually be more consistent about teaching Vanessa a third language. And, to that end, if you follow us on Twitter, you might have already learned that we are incredibly excited about our new partnership with Little Pim. I’ll let you know more of the details very, very soon, but for now, suffice it to say that I’ll be using all of Little Pim’s materials in my journey to start Vanessa on her third language and I’ll be documenting her progress right here during her first three months. Although I know it’s not going to be easy, I have a willing participant and I’m work hard to remember, above all, that we need to make it fun!

What do you think about the idea of exposing your children to a third language? Any tips for us as we embark on this incredibly exciting journey?