And I'm popping in again!

[enviromommy]

Hi, all.

I posted here a few months ago, but I changed my user name and it retroactively changed the name on all my posts. I don't want to say what my old name was because I (stupidly) used my whole real name. Here's the link to my most recent post here:

http://welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201093

Anyway, I am going to try to be more part of this board. I am continuing to speak only French with the baby, and some with my three year old, who can generally respond to some simple commands in French now, but the others haven't really progressed. It's been a really busy year!

The idea that the baby could be bilingual still seems like an impossible dream to me - I can't wait till he starts talking to see what language it comes out in.

[Lucy in Australia]

Hi :) We're in kind of the same boat. I really regret not speaking more French to my older boys, so this little baby is getting it with both barrels :D It's very funny to listen to her. She is almost 16 months. The other day she was encouraging her brother to throw her up in the air, and we always count before we do. So she was following him around, going "Un, deux, THREEEEEE!!!!" I'm confident it will all get sorted out in her little brain eventually :)

[enviromommy]

Hi :) We're in kind of the same boat. I really regret not speaking more French to my older boys, so this little baby is getting it with both barrels :D It's very funny to listen to her. She is almost 16 months. The other day she was encouraging her brother to throw her up in the air, and we always count before we do. So she was following him around, going "Un, deux, THREEEEEE!!!!" I'm confident it will all get sorted out in her little brain eventually :)

That is completely adorable!! Well, we can encourage each other to keep it up. What is your background? Are you a native French speaker?

[Lucy in Australia]

Well, we can encourage each other to keep it up.

Absolutely! Yes, I'm a native speaker. I grew up in France and we moved to Australia when I was 12. Fortunately, my French-speaking mother is still around and lives next door so I speak French to her pretty much every day. Even so, I've found I constantly need to watch French programmes/movies and read French material to keep it up. We're going back to France to see family in a couple of weeks, so that will be the real test :D

How about you?

[enviromommy]

Absolutely! Yes, I'm a native speaker. I grew up in France and we moved to Australia when I was 12. Fortunately, my French-speaking mother is still around and lives next door so I speak French to her pretty much every day. Even so, I've found I constantly need to watch French programmes/movies and read French material to keep it up. We're going back to France to see family in a couple of weeks, so that will be the real test :D

How about you?

Oh, you are so lucky to have your mother there to speak with! I'm not a native speaker, though my level is near-native and I don't have an accent. I was a French major in college, and went to law school in Paris and worked as a lawyer there. My second child was born there, but we moved back to the States when my DD was 3 and my first DS was 18 months. I had hoped we were going to stay in France, so my plan was to speak English to my children and have them learn French by living in France, but then we moved back before they learned any French, and I didn't manage to switch to speaking French to them. I'm trying to fix it now. I was so excited this morning - I said to the baby, "Il est où, papa?" and the baby immediately looked right at my DH. DH said he thinks the baby responds better to French than to English. Yay!!!