An American in Corsica
May 25, 2023 18:25:23 GMT 9
Post by Megan on May 25, 2023 18:25:23 GMT 9
Hello! I'm excited to be joining this community of other multilingual families around the world. A brief introduction: I am American, married to a Corsican. My husband and I met in the United States in 2013. We moved to the UK in 2016 and our daughter was born in London in 2018. In 2020 we moved to Corsica (an island off the south of France).
My husband is bilingual in English and I have an advanced level of French. This allowed us to do MLAH with French whilst living in the UK so as to maximise our daughter's exposure in what was the minority language at the time. When we moved to Corsica we swapped to MLAH English. Public schooling starts the year your child turns 3 and we enrolled our daughter in the bilingual (French/Corsican) track.
Today our daughter speaks English with us and my family, French with her family in Corsica and the community at large, and Corsican 50% of the time in her school setting. My husband took 4 years of Corsican during his secondary school years so he understands some basics. I know a handful of words and expressions. Increasingly the population in Corsica is changing and the region is making big efforts to preserve the language.
Our daughter understands all three languages well and she speaks both English and French proficiently. I am unable to assess her level in Corsican but her teacher says that she is very at ease and spontaneous so I think it's going pretty well. Visits to the United States and from family/friends have helped us to keep the minority language well-supported.
I consider us to be pretty rigorous in speaking our minority language exclusively with our daughter but we are guilty of mixing certain French words in and at times our daughter's sentences are essentially 'franglais'. I have two areas I'm unsure how to address. I speak the minority language with my daughter when we are with non-English speakers but on occasions when we have friends over who do not speak the minority I either repeat in majority language or I switch languages so the other children can understand. I'm trying to find the balance between respecting the fact that English is our family language and including people when it concerns them (such as a conflict over a toy).
The second area I wonder about is media consumption. My daughter is starting to ask for us to read more in minority language or to watch TV/movies in minority language. For books we have a mix of languages and I do read to her in majority language but I've explained to her I cannot translate minority language books to majority language, which she seems to accept. For media I put everything in minority language when we are at home and she watches in the majority language when we go to the cinema or watch with other majority-language speakers. I ask myself if she will feel left out because she doesn't share the same names/references for movies her peers watch.
I'd appreciate any advice or insights this wonderful community could share. Many thanks to all!
My husband is bilingual in English and I have an advanced level of French. This allowed us to do MLAH with French whilst living in the UK so as to maximise our daughter's exposure in what was the minority language at the time. When we moved to Corsica we swapped to MLAH English. Public schooling starts the year your child turns 3 and we enrolled our daughter in the bilingual (French/Corsican) track.
Today our daughter speaks English with us and my family, French with her family in Corsica and the community at large, and Corsican 50% of the time in her school setting. My husband took 4 years of Corsican during his secondary school years so he understands some basics. I know a handful of words and expressions. Increasingly the population in Corsica is changing and the region is making big efforts to preserve the language.
Our daughter understands all three languages well and she speaks both English and French proficiently. I am unable to assess her level in Corsican but her teacher says that she is very at ease and spontaneous so I think it's going pretty well. Visits to the United States and from family/friends have helped us to keep the minority language well-supported.
I consider us to be pretty rigorous in speaking our minority language exclusively with our daughter but we are guilty of mixing certain French words in and at times our daughter's sentences are essentially 'franglais'. I have two areas I'm unsure how to address. I speak the minority language with my daughter when we are with non-English speakers but on occasions when we have friends over who do not speak the minority I either repeat in majority language or I switch languages so the other children can understand. I'm trying to find the balance between respecting the fact that English is our family language and including people when it concerns them (such as a conflict over a toy).
The second area I wonder about is media consumption. My daughter is starting to ask for us to read more in minority language or to watch TV/movies in minority language. For books we have a mix of languages and I do read to her in majority language but I've explained to her I cannot translate minority language books to majority language, which she seems to accept. For media I put everything in minority language when we are at home and she watches in the majority language when we go to the cinema or watch with other majority-language speakers. I ask myself if she will feel left out because she doesn't share the same names/references for movies her peers watch.
I'd appreciate any advice or insights this wonderful community could share. Many thanks to all!
