Who else speaks Frenglish?

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(Edited)

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Learning a new language is a fun way to keep your mind busy. It is also a fun challenge that will pay off later on whenever you travel or make new friends from different countries around the world.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet and the multitude of resources available, one can master any language as long as he has the will to learn it.

When you are born into a mixed family where both parents have English as their second or third language, that`s where the fun starts.

Teaching a new language to my child was bit challenging at first, but it was fun. It still is. Especially when he combined words from his mother tongue with the target language and two other foreign languages he has been exposed to. It was a bit odd for us too as English has been our common language for so many years.

When it comes to learning French, most of the times, the verbs are those who get transformed and get automatically the French accent.

My son started learning French last year and now that school is done mostly online, we worried that he will forget the little bit of French that he had learned. Thus for the past two months we spoke to him only in French which helped him improve.

It was tough in the first days as he was used to speak English at home and have only some small conversations in French at school, during class.

At the beginning, whatever word missing from the his vocabulary got either the French é for nouns and the -er or -ez for the verbs.

Those of you who speak French even a little bit, will understand what I am talking about. Here are some examples of Franglais(Frenglish) sentences that cracked me up.

  • Huggez -moi, maman! (Hugg me, mom!)

  • Je veux whistler comme papa! (I want to whistle like dad.)

  • Il a gagné le jeu, parcequ`il a cheaté. (He won becase he cheated.)

  • Toi, tu as besoin de 5 points pour catch-up-er avec moi. (You need 5 points to catch up with me.)

  • Je fais deux pas en back. Puis je marche backer, backer! (I make two steps back. Then I make two more steps further.)

  • J`ai forgetté le mot. (I forgot the word.)

  • Dis -moi le rule en francais. (Tell me the rule in French.)

  • Ma tablette n`est pas updaté. Elle a besoin des new jeux. (My tablet needs an update. It needs new games.)

  • Je payé des dollars, tu sellé la ice creme. ( I pay for it, you sell the ice cream.)

  • Je vais lander sur l`ile. ( I will land on the island.)

  • Jette-moi le ballon et je vais le kicker back de retour. (Throw me the ball and I will pass it to you.)

Frenglish or Franglais is a common thing in Montreal as a lot of people are bilingual. Actually, most of the people that I have met here throughout the years speak three or four languages.

Being able to switch from one language to another is a great skill for adults, but it can be a bit challenging for children as they end up making a language soup. They tend to add in a sentence words from all the languages they hear at home or study at school, without realizing they should stick to only one language.

When kids are exposed to more than two languages, it takes a bit longer for them to assimilate the vocabulary, but they will absorb it nevertheless. The funniest moments were when he formed logically correct sentences, but linguistically wrong!

When raising bilingual or trilingual children the general rule is that each parent should stick to a language. That did not work for us, so we dropped the English completely and overnight our household turned into a French speaking one.

We ditched phone calls in our native languages or work related calls when he was around. All his cartoons and activities were switched to French. We read to him his books in French. (That came as a big disappointment for him to see that we can translate the story, as he hoped that he would listen to the story in English, given that it was written in English.)

He call this move the French prison. We had tantrums, cries, moods and grumpy faces, but we did not cave in. He had no choice but to pick up his game and start talking French.

Today I put a new cartoon series in French for him and he loved it. At the end of it, he thanked me for talking to him only in French cause he was able to understand what was happening. It is not mission accomplished yet, as we have a long way to go until he is fully fluent in French, but we are definitely on the right path.

What about you? Do you teach your child a second language? Would you care to share some of your tricks or experience?

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Drop me a line in the comments section below if tou like what you read!

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@2020 Lavi Picu aka Lyme Poet. All rights reserved.

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8 comments
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Hi, interesting topic, I been traying to learn english for many year, I hope one day, Greetings form México.

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Glad to hear you enjoyed the topic. ;0)

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Les joies du Franglais ;)
Ça donne lieu à de belles expressions :

Québec : On va se parker dans ce stationnement
France : Nous allons nous stationner dans ce parking

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Les deux pays ont de belles expressions, c`est vrai! ;0)

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My goodness I love this so much.

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Glad to hear you found it funny! Thanks for the support!

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Would you say it's easier to pick up a language when in childhood or as an adult?
I'm trying to teach myself German and French so I can (it's mostly so I can read some of my favourite writers and thinkers) but I have this block. I sometimes chalk it up to being too old (is 33 years old?).

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For children it is a bit more easier than adults but that does not mean one can`t learn a new language. Especially at your age! ;0) I do not speak German so I can not talk about it. Except for a first class I took in university where I was stunned to see the length of a word and how different the sentence was formed, I have no clue how hard it is to learn it. French on the other hand, is easier to learn once you mastered the verbs.

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