Festive Fun - 2012 Edition

Christmas is behind us, 2013 begins tomorrow.  We missed Christmas day this year as we got more than our fair share of festive germs, so there’s a 48 hour period covering the 25th and 26th that didn’t include any sprouts, crackers or raisin-laiden cakes.  The coughs are now subsiding and we’re all on the road to recovery, so it’s a good time to take stock of this Noël’s assorted events.

This time of year is a strange balancing act, where we try to get the right blend of Monsieur R’s Christmas memories and mine.  We’re still trying to work out the role of the Père Noël, who in France leaves gifts for children with all their family members, whereas in the UK, he leaves his gifts in the stocking and lets parents, grandparents and everybody else give their own presents.  When we’re in France for Christmas I have to try to remember who I’m thanking for gifts that Puce receives, trying not to give the game away…

A local Christmas pantomime has always been one of my family’s traditions, although as teenagers my brother, sister and I slumped in our seats as my father wholeheartedly joined in with the audience participation (Oh no he didn’t!  Oh yes he did!).  Decades on, the family has grown and we now all join in with the same gusto, showing Puce the way and although Monsieur R might not get all the references to local football teams, it’s become one of his favourite festive dates.

A combination of feeling poorly and the lashing rain outside has provided the perfect opportunity for catching up with Christmas programmes on iplayer.  Being able to watch programmes on demand was something that I really missed in France and I’m certainly catching up on that service now.  I was delighted to discover that Series 2 of Allo Allo was available, so after a brief explanation as to the use and abuse of outrageous French accents, Monsieur R was made to watch an episode, from a purely educational perspective.  Hopefully he’ll now understand what people are referring to when they say they will zay theez onleee wunz.

And of course, as the Christmas bling fades, we look to the indulgences of the New Year, first up being the Galette des Rois for Ephiphany.  Monsieur R uses the recipe from Marmiton – over 700 reviewers can’t be wrong!

Bonne année, bonne santé et bon appétit!

Catching an accent

Puce is 5 and a half.  There seems to be some confusion between the English "5 and a half", "5 years old" and the French cinq ans - I haven't quite got to the bottom of it, but when I do you'll read it here.  She now speaks confidently in both English and French, proving wrong anyone who thought all the usual things would prevail: confusion/inability to express herself in either language/late language development.  Attention now turns instead to her accent.

Accent is a tricky thing.  We all have an accent in our own language, then there's the accent you have (or don't) when you speak a foreign language.  When I was learning French, the aim was to be able to talk "with an accent", making an effort to mimic the sounds of the language, without going so far as to sound ridiculous.  I managed quite well and was quietly confident about my (French) accent when I began working in France.  So I was really disappointed to be quickly told that I had no accent...where had I gone wrong?  It took a bit of time to understand that the French see things the opposite way around - having no accent means that you don't speak French with an English accent.  So it was actually a compliment - but not the first or last time that I missed the compliment.

I don't have much of an accent in my own language, although I spent most of my life in Scotland where accents are distinctive.  I was therefore keen to see how Puce's language would develop, especially when we lived in France. Without realising it, I was working on the assumption that Puce would "catch" the accent that she heard the most - presumably mine, in English, because that's what she heard daily.  To my dismay, as her words became sentences, it rapidly became clear that Puce had picked up Charlie & Lola's accent; other parents in a similar language configuration confirmed that regardless of their own regional accent, their children had started to talk like Charlie & Lola, especially when saying "No" (such an essential part of the toddlescent vocab), and it began to sound more like "noooow".  I remember sometimes being taken aback when Puce would produce a word from what sounded like a different dialect in English, so far was it removed from my own accent.

On top of all this, there's the subjective element of how other people hear accents.  Friends and family on both sides of the Channel have always been keen to point out how endearing Puce's "petit accent" (ie, English twang) is in French or "her darling French accent" in English, which can be quite irritating as it undermines the hard work that's gone into getting this far.  I always maintained that Puce did not have a French accent when speaking English (which I still stand by), nor an English accent in French.

Monsieur R filmed Puce giving detailed instructions about making soup when she was 2, involving liberal use of potato and carrot peelings marinated with parsley stalks.  I was initially against getting a camera, I hated the idea of becoming a parent who watched their children through a lens.  But now I can admit that it's great to have these visual reminders of years that passed in the blink of an eye.  It's also the equivalent of having an eye witness and I have to admit, watching recently, Puce did have an interesting accent - not distinctly anything, but with a twang of something else.  But the benchmark for both me and Puce is Jane Birkin in French and Allo Allo's Rene in English; as long as we don't sound like them, we're doing OK.

Le goûter franco-écossais

Le goûter is not just a snack; it's a cultural institution that seems to be hard-wired into the psyche of French children.  As a new parent discovering French childhood at the same time as my daughter, I underestimated the importance of le quatre heure and how useful it is when you have a child with an incredibly sweet tooth, as I do.  I watched as her French grandmother would make a cake or biscuits, pour le quatre heure.  There  was no question of scoffing the whole lot as soon as they had cooled from the oven.

Although we are now in Scotland, le quatre heure remains one of the meals of the day, as it is considered in France.  Puce starts nervously asking the time just after lunch, not, as I thought because she was recently given a watch, but because she's scared I might forget The Four O'Clock.

This weekend, a punnet of local Scottish strawberries got turned into a small jar of jam, which in turn became a French goûter classic, biscuits called lunettes - reminiscent of the Jammy Dodgers I loved when I was little, but with the added fun of getting yourself covered in icing sugar...

Recipe from marmiton.org, my favourite French recipe website.

  

Miam miam!

Making a vinaigrette

...or how to share language through an activity - an edible one no less!

C'est quoi la France?

Puce was recently given this book about France.

It's rapidly become a firm favourite in our house for lots of different reasons.

Monsieur R likes it because he can use it to talk to Puce about things from France...

...the little bits of everyday life that you take for granted when you're living in the country.

Puce likes it because the colourful drawings are full of details and she can spend ages looking at the pictures and asking questions...

...and it's not just about the France that she knew...

And as for me, I like it because it's a beautifully sized book for little people, it's presentation is child-friendly without being patronising, the style is cartoon-like without over-simplifying and doesn't shy away from dealing with more complicated subjects.  I like the way they've defined The French not simply as being "people who live in France", but a more inclusive definition of "people who are linked to France", so people like Puce who were born there but don't live there can feel part of that definition...   

It's one of those wonderful ludo-éducatif books that France does so well.


For our family, it's a petit souvenir de la France.

Editions Milan, La France

Where we’re at: inside the bilingual brain

Puce has officially strolled out of toddlescence and has hurried on to embrace the heady heights of being 5.  Her communication skills in both languages seem to grow by the day, and she continues to switch with ease between one language and the other, from one parent to the other.  I heard her using a French subjunctive verb the other day and couldn't help hissing to Monsieur R that I was in fifth year at high school when I started learning subjunctives… It was recently pointed out that she even changes her non-verbal communication, depending on who she’s talking to, using more gesticulations and facial expressions when talking to Monsieur R, à la française.

We recently went to a talk by Professor Antonella Sorace of Bilingualism Matters, all about bilingualism in children.  We don’t need any convincing of the benefits of bilingualism, but what is really fascinating is how far-reaching the impact of bilingualism can be and just how early babies (newborns!) can distinguish different languages.  For bilinguals, the notion of language as a means of communicating, rather than an end in itself is obvious.  They “notice” how language works and can differentiate between form and meaning, knowing implicitly that an apple is a pomme, is a manzana, is a mela…it doesn’t matter if the word changes, we’re all still talking about that nice, juicy piece of fruit hanging in the tree.

There were clarifications as well: bilingual children aren’t necessarily more intelligent (or more confused – depending on which piece of unsollicted “advice” you listen to), but they are more efficient at certain tasks than monolinguals.  They can be more precocious readers, but (I felt relieved to hear), they tend to manage to transfer reading skills across alphabetic languages.  I have often wondered whether learning to read in English would disadvantage Puce when it came to French, leaving her with an indelible anglicised edge to her reading in French.

But the real light-bulb moment was when Professor Sorace addressed the thorny issue of language mixing.  This is the sign that most parents of bilingual children look for as being the beginning of the end for the minority language battle.  I remember trying to stamp out French words that cropped up in English sentences, worried that it meant Puce would be unable to communicate “properly” with her English family without recourse to a dictionary; family members who felt the need to learn French so they would be able to “help” her in later life would then be proved right…

Whereas the calmer, more removed and certainly long-term view is a lot more optimistic.  Put in context, language-mixing often arises from being in a situation and using words that pertain to that situation – and it’s something that the parents often do.  I will raise my hand as being guilty straightaway; despite trying to speak to Monsieur R only in English for the last year before we left France (for both Puce’s benefit and his), it’s often easier just to refer to things that are franco-français (oops) in context, in French, rather than wasting 2 minutes looking for the English approximation.  An eavesdropper would have a hard time following my side of the conversation as it meandered from one language to another (I always prefer swearing in French though – much more satisfying).  It all comes down to the expectation that our children will Do As I Say, Not As I Do, which is the recurrent snag when it comes to most aspects of parenting.

The second thing to remember is that their language mixing is unlikely to be random.  Bilingual parents will probably know what I mean – your child says a sentence which is grammatically correct, but there may be a couple of words “borrowed” from the other language.  I always felt a bit torn over this; when people asked me if Puce mixed languages in the early stages of speech, my gut reaction was to say No, as this somehow didn’t feel like the arbitrary grasping at words that “mixing” seemed to imply.  It felt more sophisticated than that.  So now I have my explanation – I wish I’d had it years ago.

The other element to language mixing takes us into uncharted territory as Puce is an only child: how do bilingual children interact between themselves?  They probably use the same word-appropriate tactics that we adults do, especially with other children who have grown up in similar configurations.    When I ask Puce about how they chat at La Petite Ecole, the best I can get is a gallic shrug and an “it depends, sometimes English, sometimes French”.  I quelled the desire to start on about the reasoning for going all the way to French school in Edinburgh at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning to just end up speaking English…when the calmer, more long-term view took over and reminded me that actually, this is a subject I know nothing about.  I’ve never grown up bilingual, constantly shuttling backwards and forwards between two different worlds, much less playing in carefully constructed linguistic environments designed to favour language development with other children.  I have become bilingual through choice and hard work, but I will always be on the outside looking in as these little ones whirl through their games and songs.

There are so many other experiences and configurations out there…what do you think?  Is language mixing a risk or a skill?  How do your little linguists adapt?  I’d love to know…

French Family Cooking: Secrets de Cuisine Part 1

Now we’re living in Scotland, French is the minority language.  Monsieur R continues to share his language and culture with Puce in the same way as he did while we lived in Lyon – la cuisine.

Monsieur R likes to be in the kitchen “preparing” something; I often wonder whether he takes it as a personal challenge to use every single utensil in the kitchen, even if he’s just re-heating soup…grumble grumble from the head dishwasher.

No matter how much time I spend in proximity to French people in their kitchens, or eating food they have made, I can’t get any closer to copying how they do it.  It took me a long time to figure out that what I thought was reluctance to share recipes is actually their approach to cooking: la cuisine au pif.

La cuisine au pif is what I call "guestimating".  You start with a recipe, then you adapt and develop depending on what’s in season, what you have to hand and what needs using up (les restes).  It relies on two factors: the knowledge of certain cookery rules and the confidence to leave the beaten path of the recipe world.

When it comes to cookery rules, the French Delia Smith is Françoise Bernard.  The ancient, stained and battered version of her Les Recettes Faciles is Monsieur R’s reference point if he ever needs to check anything kitchen-wise.  Few photo’s, the pages are laid out in a no-nonsense manner with indications as to the frugality of the meal, remarks from the author and tips for anyone trying the recipe (always written in the feminine…which probably wouldn’t get past the political correctness test today, but it makes me smile).

As to the confidence required to cook au pif, that can only come by being around people who cook and take pleasure in “preparing”, tasting and eating what they make.  Puce has always sat with her papa on a Sunday after the market and made a “soupe” with the discarded potato peelings, parsley stalks and carrot tops, while he “prepares” the meal.  She has gradually become more involved in making the vinaigrettes that accompany salads, naming the ingredients and counting in the number of spoonfuls.  We’re now lucky enough to have a little patch of ground for growing, so she is in charge of collecting the bouquet garni, parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves.

Goûte-moi ça is an expression I have heard many times over various dinner tables; it can sometimes sound almost like a challenge, rather than just “taste this”.  Whereas it is actually an invitation to partake and to enjoy.  I share my language through activities: making and doing. By the same token, Puce’s involvement in the kitchen and at the table will make French cuisine and language something integral in her life, as it is in the lives of her French family, to be shared and celebrated - whatever the language we’re talking.