When Raising Bi-Lingual Children Goes Wrong - A Laugh for Your Monday

My children speak French (Papa's native language) and English (mine). My two-year-old son speaks a combination of both within any given sentence. Fortunately, I can understand nearly everything he says, regardless of which language he's speaking, even when it's all mixed up, such as, "Mama, I want to eat flocons d'avoine (oatmeal)."

The clarity of his speech is that of a typical two-year-old. Sometimes he is very easy to understand and other times it requires astute listening and translation to make sense of what he's saying. "Yes, I did," comes out very clearly, whereas, "Ookit! A nunna fie," meaning, "Look it, another fly!" doesn't. He can't quite get the "L" sound in where it's needed.

This weekend we had a huge garage sale, with strangers tromping up and down our driveway while the boy played. The day before, we had walked to and from school, about a mile away, and he ended up with very big blisters on the sides of his toes. In French, the word "blister" is "cloque."

In front of several people, including a friendly, 70-ish, grandma-type, my son loudly called to me, "Mommy!  See my big cloque?!!"

He said it very, very clearly. As usual, sans (without) the "L".

He always makes me laugh!