Dedalus66's Language Odyssey

[rdearman]

Congratulations.

[iguanamon]

... Anyone else have experience with raising children bilingual/multilingual?

I will add my congratulations as well!

PM, who also is near Melbourne, has a lot of experience with this. Check out his log PM's Multilingual Family Adventures in a Monolingual Wasteland. If you ask, I'm sure he'll have advice for you.

[dedalus66]

Many thanks everyone - and also thanks to Iguanomon for the link. Although, I must admit, my location is no longer accurate - I still live in Victoria, but no longer in Melbourne. I'm in the rugged north-east of Victoria, the High Country - you'd think that there would be fewer opportunities to speak foreign languages here, but it is actually reasonably linguistically diverse.

I'm trying to memorise nursery rhymes in French/Italian - so far I know "Au Clair de la Lune" - the first 3 verses (my fiancée is sick of me singing that) and "Frère Jacques", as well as "Batti Batti le Manine" in Italian. Anyone have a personal favourite or a childhood favourite that they'd like to share?

[MorkTheFiddle]

Oddly enough, although I grew up in a monolingual English-speaking home, and although French is not a heritage language, "Frère Jacques" was one of the first nursery rhymes I learned as a child. I don't remember the circumstances of learning it at all.
Given that the second 'e' of frère is pronounced--at least how I learned it--it was an introduction--though I hardly knew it--to some of the pronunciation of French poetry.

[dedalus66]

The months have passed, and things are just as hectic. My little boy is now 8 months old and developing at a rapid pace... Indeed, quite the opposite to my own linguistic adventures. However, I have been inspired by my partner resuming giving tutoring lessons and have booked a lesson to speak some conversational Italian. This will be a reasonably attainable short-term goal - improve my Italian with consistent practice. Very much looking forward to continuing the Odyssey.

[dedalus66]

The languages have taken a bit of a backseat to life these past few months, but I'm back and with holidays beginning tomorrow, I'm going to set a simple goal: do something foreign language related every day. Watch this spacec!

[dedalus66]

I've been putting in some time with Romanian (a side project based on my interest in the Romance language family), but ultimately my goal is to perfect my Italian. Listening to podcasts while doing the dishes is one of the more effective methods I find - vocavbulary acquisition is my big goal over the next few months.

As for my child, it is fascinating seeing him grow up bilingual. My wife is French and we speak French at home - for a while his French was a lot stronger, but spending more time with family you can see he is starting to understand quite a bit of English as well. There are certain words I'll use that I know he will know in one language, but not the other and it is quite incredible to see how quickly he picks up ideas. I sometimes throw in some Italian, but not quite sure I want to throw in a 3rd language at this point.

[dedalus66]

The Odyssey never ends - we've been listening to Italian songs (Testa, gambe, spalle e pie, ci vuole un fiore, il cocodrillo come fa, etc.) and my son loves it. I hope to keep this going - for a while it was our dominant language! But life can at times get in the way.

In terms of personal interest, not a lot of time for that. But soon enough!