Raphaël in Brussels, Belgium
Jul 11, 2014 22:07:54 GMT 9
Post by Raphaël on Jul 11, 2014 22:07:54 GMT 9
Hello everybody!
This forum is a great initiative and I will gladly seize the opportunity to introduce my little multilingual family here.
I am originally from the German speaking minority in Belgium, thus German is my mother tongue. Languages have always interested me, which is probably why I got a degree in German and English literatures and linguistics. I have also worked for several years as a translator from English and French into German and I am still working in the translation industry.
Having learned French from the age of 8 and English from the age of 12, I am fluent in both and use them daily - actually a lot more than my mother tongue.
My wife is Bulgarian and she also speaks very good English and French. Additionally, she has a basic knowledge of German and is picking up more, along with our daughter Elina who is almost two years old. We live in Brussels, where French and Dutch are spoken.
We have decided to speak Bulgarian (which I speak decently, although by far not without faults) and German to her while she goes to a French speaking daycare.
From a practical point of view, I only speak German with our daughter, and I am more or less the only one providing German input. My wife speaks Bulgarian with her and she also has daily contact over Skype with her grandparents.
We have switched from speaking English to French (or Bulgarian) between us in our daughter's presence, to avoid introducing a fourth language.
So far, Elina picks up both Bulgarian and German words rather easily, sometimes she prefers a word in one language. She still often uses the first syllable of a word or repeats the first syllable, which makes it harder to say for sure what language she is using.
An example would be "water" which she pronounces "wawa" (most probably for the German "Wasser" but it might also come from the Bulgarian "вода" [voda]).
As far as reading time is concerned, Elina has never shown the patience to sit quietly to listen to a story; she much prefers looking at the pictures and turning the pages. I am still trying to figure out how to improve this behavior.
This forum is a great initiative and I will gladly seize the opportunity to introduce my little multilingual family here.
I am originally from the German speaking minority in Belgium, thus German is my mother tongue. Languages have always interested me, which is probably why I got a degree in German and English literatures and linguistics. I have also worked for several years as a translator from English and French into German and I am still working in the translation industry.
Having learned French from the age of 8 and English from the age of 12, I am fluent in both and use them daily - actually a lot more than my mother tongue.
My wife is Bulgarian and she also speaks very good English and French. Additionally, she has a basic knowledge of German and is picking up more, along with our daughter Elina who is almost two years old. We live in Brussels, where French and Dutch are spoken.
We have decided to speak Bulgarian (which I speak decently, although by far not without faults) and German to her while she goes to a French speaking daycare.
From a practical point of view, I only speak German with our daughter, and I am more or less the only one providing German input. My wife speaks Bulgarian with her and she also has daily contact over Skype with her grandparents.
We have switched from speaking English to French (or Bulgarian) between us in our daughter's presence, to avoid introducing a fourth language.
So far, Elina picks up both Bulgarian and German words rather easily, sometimes she prefers a word in one language. She still often uses the first syllable of a word or repeats the first syllable, which makes it harder to say for sure what language she is using.
An example would be "water" which she pronounces "wawa" (most probably for the German "Wasser" but it might also come from the Bulgarian "вода" [voda]).
As far as reading time is concerned, Elina has never shown the patience to sit quietly to listen to a story; she much prefers looking at the pictures and turning the pages. I am still trying to figure out how to improve this behavior.
)
