On Another Roll...More Language Lessons...

I love the ball of yarn we get wrapped up in around here sometimes with language.  Lilly oftentimes needs me to translate what Bella is saying in Chinese (and even more often, I have to translate the reverse direction for Bella regardless of who is talking to whom.)  Today, our conversation went like this:

Lilly: "Mom, what does "ting bu dong" mean? (Chinese for "I don't understand (what you're saying)")

Me: "I don't understand what you're saying."
Lilly: (more loudly and slowly) "MOM!  WHAT DOES 'TING BU DONG' MEAN?!"
Me (laughing): "it MEANS 'I don't understand what you're saying!'"

And, for my friends who read this blog but who are not on Facebook to have read this earlier today, Lilly was so tickled today.  This afternoon, Lilly came running over to me beaming and said "MOM! I talked to Bella in English and she answered in ENGLISH! That makes my heart so happy!" The question she had asked Bella in English was "Are you my BFF?" and Bella's answer was "Yep."

The Snowball of Learning is Rolling...

...and it's fun to watch it pick up speed everyday as Bella's brain makes connections and learns new things.

Everyday we hear new English words coming out of her mouth.  Sometimes she simply repeats words for the fun of hearing the sounds come out of her own mouth, but usually she uses these words with a degree of comprehension.  She notices phrases that are familiar when hearing them on TV or radio.  She repeats new phrases that she hears others saying--in the neighborhood, shopping, at church, etc. 

Backing up, she and I still speak Chinese all day long.  I encourage her to speak English to others when we're out or with friends, and I sometimes will repeat phrases in English after I've said them in Chinese.  But that's exhausting and for now, I want to focus on keeping her Chinese as much as we can.  She and Lilly mostly speak Chinese to one another when they are playing--it has been equally fun to watch the Chinese synapses in Lilly's brain begin to fire again.  Sometimes Lilly's word order is reflective of English grammar but she inserts the Chinese words she is hearing me use with Bella.  Bella seems to understand Lilly's Chinese with no problem.

Chinglish is beginning to kick in for Bella.  For example, the Chinese word for "this one" is "zhe ge" (pronounced with a "j" sound).  Bella has turned the English "this one" into a Chinglish "zhish one." 

Some of her growing list of new Enlish vocabulary words of late (the ones that I can remember right now...I really need to write things down as she says them so I can remember!):

• All done!
• Please
• Good Girl!
• Sank You! (Thank you)
• Hold on!
• Let's go (said with an extra syllable so it sounds like "Let's-A go!"
• Night NIght
• Bye Bye
• See ya later.
• Hi!
• cold
• hot
• itchy (always said in a very whiney tone of voice for some reason)
• brush teeth
• neeeeeed help!
• here you go.
• Love you!
• funny!

Increasingly, Bella asks me to translate every single conversation that takes place within earshot.  Now that she is starting to learn some English, I think she is hungry and desprate to piece together what she's hearing and not be left out of conversation at any time.  I try my best to accommodate her, but it is absolutely exhausting and sometimes the conversations have nothing at all to do with her; in those instances I just tell her they weren't talking to her and she moves on. 

One of Bella's favorite things to do is to simply write.  She loves paper and pencils and pens and crayons and markers.  She and Lilly spend hours simply on the floor with papers between them, with Bella attempting to copy letters.  Bella cannot walk past a sign without searching the words for letters that she recognizes--mostly words that start family members' names such as "M--Mama," "L--Lilly," "A--Anna,", "B-Bella and Baba"  Her writing has really progressed from just scribbles to more purposeful lines that are actually starting to resemble letters.  She says she can't wait to go to school with Lilly so she can learn to write too.

It's the Little Things...

...that make my heart happy. 

Today we delivered some of Anna's too-small dresses to a neighborhood friend (it will be years before they fit Lilly and Bella).  As we approached their door, my friend opened her door with a wide smile and arms full of her own daughter's too-small clothes to pass on to Lilly and Bella (neither of us had known the other planned to deliver hand-me-downs today...).  It was a funny moment.   I so appreciate the blessing of sharing clothes and other no-longer-needed items with others.

But to top that off, after I had explained to a very curious Bella what all the things were that our neighbor had just handed us, I said to her (in Chinese and also in typical mother-fashion): "they just gave us all of these clothes for you and Lilly!  What do you say to her?"  Bella, smiling widely, began to say "谢。。。“ (Xie...) but before she got to the second 谢Xie in Xie Xie she stopped herself and said carefully "Sank You!"  (yes, with an "S" rather than a "Th") Oh my goodness, I was so proud!

Just a few minutes later, we headed to our neighborhood park for some sun and sliding before lunch.  When we arrived, the slides were all wet.  Two very disappointed little girls didn't know what to do.  One disappointed mama didn't know what to do at first either...I hadn't brought a towel and didn't want to totally soak my own bottom by sliding down first.  They were really wet.  So...Superdad to the rescue!  Tom arrived in response to my cell phone call with a nice big towel and took care of all that water for his girls.  Hooray for Superdad!

Within another few minutes, who arrives at the park but Anna (Jie Jie or "big sister" as Bella calls her) bringing with her a tote filled with stuffed animals.  The three girls proceeded to play a game of petshop, using playground mulch as their currency, and--for the first time ever--Bella engaged in imaginary play with Anna. 

Oh my heart. 

Love those little things.  They all add up to big things.

Language Lesson for the Day

Taking a break from the more serious posts, let me tell you about our 10 minutes of "Chinese only" at dinner last night.

Not only did we learn the Chinese word for "fart" (or, as Tom vehemently insists that we refer to said bodily function when speaking English: "flatulate"), but we also discovered that there are distinct words in Chinese for "fart" (ahem, so sorry, "flatulate"), "stinky fart," and "poisonous gas fart."

Maybe it doesn't seem as funny to you this morning? So sorry to spoil your coffee. It was, to us, EXTREMELY funny last night. And it felt good to laugh so very hard together. Even though Bella had really no idea why her family was in hysterics with tears rolling down our faces.

Aren't you glad you checked the blog today? You never know what you might learn!

The Latest in Language Lessons

It has been a good long time since I have posted any language-related stories here.  But I have to share the latest trend I am seeing in Lilly. 

We are still speaking lots of Chinese at home, but her predominant language is most definitely English.

For the most part, she is very understandable, even to total strangers.  But there are still times when her speech is slightly unclear, even to me.  She used to get extremely frustrated really quickly when I had trouble understanding her.  I knew I had about 3 chances to say "I'm sorry, sweetie, what did you say?  Can you say it again?" before she would either shut down or throw a fit.  Not pretty.  So over time I leared new strategies of helping her express herself like "Can you show me?" "Can you tell me what it looks like?" "Can you tell me in Chinese?" "WHere did we see/do/hear it?" and a host of other questions that help her find a way to make it clear to me what she is talking about.  She is a smart cookie and we almost never have fits anymore.  Praise the Lord.

Well, here is our latest twist on communication barriers, now that she is learning all her letters, wanting to know how to spell things, and attemtpting to write names and words.  When I have trouble understanding her, she will simply pause what she was trying to say, and "spell it."  Except she can't spell.  Tonight, for example, while she was in the bathtub, it went like this:

Lilly:  "Mom, please you bring lotta' Paw Paw Kits" to the bath?
Me: "What did you say?  Paw Paw Kits?"
Lilly: "No!  You know, Paaaw PAAAAW Kits!  WAY lot.  THIS MUCH" (stretching her arms way wide)
Me: (knowing I'm on strike two now...) "Hmmm....what are paw paw kits?  Can you tell me more..."
Lilly, interrupting: "Mom.  Listen.  T - U - V.  You know, paw paw kits."

Me: (laughing at her attempt at spelling what she was requesting, and relieved that my mind had finally interpreted her request (not in any way due to the spelling) "OH!  Polly Pockets!  Sure.  I'll bring you lots."

Lilly: "why you laughing?  No laugh at me.  WAY LOTS mom, ok?"

That girl simply cracks me up. 

Language Lessons

Up until recently, as I've posted before, Lilly has been speaking a happy blend of Chinese and English--"Chinglish"--as we like to call it. Even now, although her English is increasingly fluent and prominent, Chinglish is her primary language. I speak Chinglish fairly fluently, but it sometimes makes for confusing conversations with others!

A difference I am beginning to see, however, is that it appears that Lilly is beginning to notice that there are two languages. For instance, when we read stories at night or before naptime, frequently I will translate whatever the book of the day might be into Chinese for our story time. Recently, as I began to read a page in Chinese, she turned in my lap and looked at me with a quizzical look and said "what you doing?" Knowing she was referring to the language, I responded in both English and Chinese "speaking Chinese!" "Oh!" was her reply. Ever since that day, anytime I start to read in Chinese, she'll turn and exclaim "that's Chinese!" Sometimes she'll request that I read a book in Chinese (which, unfortunately, I am sometimes unable to do--either I simply don't have the vocabulary or the book really needs to be read in English to be effective, such as "Goodnight Moon." The rhymes would just go away!).  And thanks to Aunt Wen, we now have several children's books written in Chinese, which have been fun to try to read together.

Anyway, yesterday, as we were driving Anna to swim team practice (it was a gorgeous day to be at the pool, might I add), Lilly asked me "Mom, what does yellow mean?" Now frequently she will pop a question out of the blue and I am left scrambling for contextual clues to know what prompted the question and what she is really asking. In this case, I assumed she meant the yellow traffic light since we frequently seem to have conversations about red, yellow, and green lights and what they mean when you're driving (e.g. "Mom, go! Why you stopping?" "I have a red light". "Oh." Yes, she's a backseat driver).

So in this instance I answered "yellow means 'slow down, get ready to stop.'"

She tried again, "No, what does yellow mean?" (we also frequently have conversations where, unsatisfied with my response, Lilly will simply repeat her question as if my answer will magically change).

I again replied "it means 'slow down, get ready to stop.'"

More frustrated, she said "No! What does yellow mean? Is it "lu se?" (which is the word for "green" in Chinese).

"Oh!  No...it's huang se."  Now I understood what she was asking.  She proceeded to recite each color that she could think of in English and then in Chinese, asking for help now and then with the ones she didn't know.  I was pretty impressed with her and realized that, even though her primary language is Chinglish, she is starting to get it!

She keeps me on my toes...now I need to go look up how to say "pink!"  Never learned that one...