Franishglish - Part 2

Teaching and learning three languages is quite an adventure, but we didn't expect any less than that. I already talked about it a little bit a few months ago when Olivia was starting to say her first few words, and it is time for a little update on the topic :)

So on the positive side, we're super happy to report that Olivia understands - and speaks - all three languages. Well, "speaking" might be a bit strong here, but she says words in all three languages, and the more she learns, the more he goes the less she mixes languages in the same sentence. We still get a lot of "Mig poupee bye bye dodo" and "Viens, maman, spiser morgenmad", but hey, that's to be expected while she sorts all that out in her head :)

Touche pas a ma pomme.

I can stand!!!!

We trying to teach her about colors and numbers, and we end up with some funny thing - like, she will know that Groen in Danish translates to Vert in French.....but she can't always find the green object that we're looking for :) Or she will go "un, two...fem".

One of little "sorting colors" game. While I sew I let her play with the buttons, she loves being my little helper :)

For the longest ime, Olivia wouldn't say "merci" to me. No matter how nicely I'd ask, or if I was trying to bribe her with a cookie, she would just reply "tak" with a big smile. And "tak" again and again, and would go into an uncontrollable laugh because she knew that she was driving me nuts! Funny how they get it so early on. Anyway, over the christmas break I decide "that's it", and on the way to my parents I just said "You won't get your pacifier until you say "merci""....I had to work for it a bit, but 10 minutes I heard a little shy "me'ci"......turns out, I think she was mostly afraid of mispronouncing it - yes, even at here age! She practiced a little bit and I stopped my threats :D

Sometimes we feel that we are not speaking as much to Madeline - I mean, we still talk to her a lot, but you just put so much focus on your first child when they join your family, you try to do everything perfect, and then comes the second and you have to juggle so much more that you just don't have the time to do all of the things you used to do when you only had one child. But it's just the way the cookie crumbles, and I am sure we speak to her enough.

We read and we sing and we dance. ok, ok, the dancing part may not have much to do with languages, but it has a lot to do with happiness, and that's got to count for something :)