Post by Judit on Mar 19, 2015 0:52:06 GMT 9
This is what happened...
We had friends over from the UK for a few days. My son understands nearly everything in English but doesn't use it much. He prefers talking to me in Hungarian, but I know he can actually speak the language because he does so when we visit his Godmother (one of my best friends whose ML is English).
He was acting in a very strange way the first few days...he wouldn't say a word of English, wouldn't even answer to the easiest questions like "What colour is the sun?". He would just point at something yellow and laugh in a weird way.
And he was very naughty and mischievous on those days with lots of crying and whining, his behaviour really got us worried!
During breakfast if I said, "Samu could you get the milk from the fridge, please" he would do it, and I could tell that he understood most of our conversations, but he really didn't say a word to them for a few days.
Then we went out for a pizza one night and my friend (Samuel's Godmother) came along (with her Italian husband and bilingual baby) and something clicked. We were chatting in English the whole evening and when we came out of the restaurant and said our goodbyes it just happened. Samuel started speaking in English. And in full sentences!! All the way back to our house, and then at home. And the next day our friends flew back to the UK!! The strangest experience of our trilingual journey...
Something else has happened since then too. I give private lessons to a couple of children during the week. A few days after that our friends left, Samuel came into the room where I work, sat at the desk, got a book and told me that he wanted to study just like Federica (a student of mine). I opened the book and asked him questions about the pictures. He described everything in English and said more, more... We "studied" for nearly 40 minutes!!
And he still asks me to "study" from time to time.