Que est-ce que c’est?

We’ve had our first case of French invading Punk 1’s German. She’s been reciting the ABC song in all her official languages for the last little bit. In an awesome display of enthusiasm for singing learning and languages usually more than once a day, and often more than once at any one time. But we don’t mind, and even Punk 2 has been picking up the French version, having long ago mastered both English and German versions. In fact, the German ABC song has been one of his favourite bedtime songs for months now.

But back to the point at hand.

Last night, as part of her bedtime routine, Punk 1 decided to belt out all three versions, rather than have me sing a bunch of sweet little lullabies to her (she’s growing up way to fast!). First the fake versions we love to make up on the spot that mess up the order of the letters, and then each language in its proper version.

• No problem in English. It continues to be her strongest and likely favourite language.
• Then in French, also without any real problems although if what I remember from learning French is right, she definitely has an English accent for some letters. P for example sounds very much like ‘pay’, that kind of thing. Likely caused by her SK teacher not being a francophone herself, and whose French, according to my friend who speaks French and whose own kid had this woman as a teacher in grade 3, is “barely good enough for babies”. But Punk 1 knows the order of the letters and is all into it, so it’s all good.
• Then on to German where, at the very end of the regular song, a ‘dooble-vay’ snuck in! Immediately she looked at me and burst out laughing, before finishing the song in German. So yes, she noticed the little intruder, but couldn’t think of the right sound in German until I told her.

It’ll be interesting to see how this will play out in the coming months and years. So far, her English is rarely if ever sprinkled with anything in another language (unless it’s something for which there is no equivalent in English, like Stollen for example), whereas she can be quite generous mixing English into her German if I don’t watch her*. We haven’t heard enough French from her yet to see where it fits in, but as they are now expected in school to use French for commonly said things, I assume we’ll hear more of it around the house as well. I don’t think she will allow it into her English, but I think it could go either way with her German.


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*The reason I don't like for her to code-mix and –switch is not that I think it's wrong. I don't, and in fact do it all the time myself when I’m speaking with people who speak the other language. The reason I'm fairly strict about this with her is that she very quickly takes it from a word here and there first to partial and then complete sentences, so there's not much German left. And that's what I'd like to nip in the bud.