Split Personality

The American brain asks for "malamelon"

The French brain needs wine

It’s pretty funny when your little girl (no longer a baby) starts to express herself. And even funnier when it’s in two different languages. My old fears of her not speaking English are completely gone and I can’t believe how much time I wasted worrying if she’d get enough English or not since she’s clearly extremely intelligent (come on, doting mother obliges).

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in her brain and how it actually functions, how all her little neurons and synapses are developing and connecting. And it all seems rather strange to think, based on the theory I studied in university, that her language brain is split in half. And somewhere in her head, it all is organized and “normal” to be speaking two languages.

She’s made the leap from baby to little girl so quickly, sometimes it seems like she even changes overnight. She goes to sleep at night babbling in Suzanneisms and wake up in the morning and speaking full sentences. She’s taking more risks, climbing (but luckily still hasn’t figured out how to get out of her crib!), exploring and talking non-stop. I wake up most mornings to her singing or talking to her animals.

I was scared that our two week vacation mostly spent with her great grandparents, would mean her not getting enough English. But my linguistic gymnastics (speaking to everyone except Suzanne in French) actually seemed to reinforce the Mommy’s language is different from everyone else’s. . I’m pretty sure she realized that we have our own, secret (?) language just for the two of us. She even makes the phonetic distinction between Mommy (me) and Mamie (her great grandmother).

So, at 26 months, Suzanne has a French and English vocabulary that’s far too long to list on this little blog. She seems to have a fairly balanced vocabulary in French and English, and even tries to find replacement words when she doesn’t know the one in the correct language (ex she called the ice cream cone “stick”) but surprisingly, she makes more sentences in English than French.

And on Saturday, she began her career in simultaneous translation. As we were having breakfast with Bryony (Suz’s special person), Jerome was speaking in French; Suzanne turned to Bryony and translated it into English for her. Is that not cool or what?

She’s putting words to her feelings, which is nice when your little girl walks around all day saying “happy Suzanne” or “I love you too”.

She’s also begun mastering numbers up to 8 but for some reason always skips 5 and 6, which is surprising since she used to count to “high five”. Besides the actual integers she’s recognizing quantities like “a little more” (cookie), “another” (ponytail) and “enough” (milk), “I don’t like”(cheese) and hurts (or fait mal). And did I mention that she can recognize a half dozen letters? As my mother says (not biased at all), she comes from good stock.

She’s doing some language mixing like "manger outside" which she loves doing. And she’s constantly asking questions like “What doing Mommy?” “Where go Papa?” which both reflect a French grammar structure but are clearly English.

She definitely knows what she wants like “Suzanne wake up” (when it’s time for bed) or “Suzanne stay bath a little more”.

And the best part is that she’s got a sense of humor. When I asked what she wanted for dinner, she replied “eat food Mommy.” Well of course, a mother has a lot to learn, huh?

She’s still negating her sentences with the French pas (Pas like it) but who cares about the language mixing when her split brain is so clearly functioning on a much higher level than her two parents’!