I've always wondered how people can keep several languages straight in their heads and be able to speak and understand them. There's a family from Taiwan in our church ward who speak Chinese (I think that's right), learned English in Canada and now have their kids in French Immersion. That would just be too much in my head. I learned a bit of French in elementary school, followed by five
years of high school french and one year of college french. I never learned to speak it well, although I could read, write and conjugate verbs.
years of high school french and one year of college french. I never learned to speak it well, although I could read, write and conjugate verbs. Then came the mission. I went to Portugal. My french training helped me fake my way through the Mission Training Center language lessons. I just took French words and twisted them to make them sound Portuguese. My instructor would usually know what I was trying to say and then quickly correct me, it worked like a charm. Since both languages are latin based, they look similar however they don't sound alike. After Portugal I could read French, but couldn't make any words come out of my mouth.
Although Paul also served his mission in Portugal, we don't practice our language together. We barely understand eachother in English and Paul's Portuguese grammar is, well... bad. He doesn't like being corrected. Our conversation skills are also limited to gospel related discussions, finding food in the grocery store and general navigation, not much more. Portuguese is, however, a very handy "secret parent language" to use in the car or at the dinner table when something has to be said in front of children who already know how to s-p-e-l-l.
Five years into our marriage, I found myself working as a "teacher on call" which is the fancy British Columbia way of saying substitute. I was often assigned to French Immersion classes where my name would make one think that I know French. Yeah, whatever, I just told the kids that they were to speak to me in French and I would respond in English. That always worked.
Now Hayley is taking French Immersion at school. Since Hayley is now a "francophone" and we have a French name, I (not so) cleverly named the blog "Nosso Petit Jardin" or "Our Little Garden". It was only today that it occurred to me that I had mixed up the pronouns, the title is partially French, part Portuguese! How ridiculous! It should be "Notre Petit Jardin" in French or "Nosso Pequeno Jardim" or "Nosso Jardinha" in Portuguese.
I'll never be a linguist.
