September 10, 2004
Talking in tongues
Jacob's vocabulary is building up. He says "dit" and "dat" when pointing to things, and I know sometimes he is saying "kijk". Other than that there is mama, papa, dag, bad, ja and nee. But today at the children's farm in the Pijp while looking at his favourites, the goats and ducks, he very clearly said "geitjes" and "eindjes". He also says "woof" whenever he sees a dog. Is "woof" a word?
He hasn't said any English words at all but that's my fault for being so slack about speaking English to him. Its just really hard to not slip back into Dutch. But I have been making a special effort for the last few weeks and it is clear now he understands a lot of English now, even if he hasn't spoken any.
And this morning he said very clearly and distinctly, "Jacob", the Dutch way, Yakob . (Thats another thing I've only just started getting serious about, calling him Jacob as pronounced in English)
My brother sent me a copy of The Bilingual Family which I finally got to read while we were away. Its really interesting and also shed quite a bit of light on some of the weird things happenning to my brain lately, especially where English is concerned. Seems English is no longer my dominant language. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested.
Was it coincidence that while we were away most of the people we met to talk to were somehow themselves involved in bilingualism? Either as teachers or parents who'd raised bilingual kids.
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