German bears

Studied loads of German today and also did quite a bit of German with Springy with her teddies doing the talking. ;) C and Springy also had a walk around the harbour with Lily; Lily met some other dogs (we don't think she fully understands she's a dog) and got to play with one on the green. Poor Lily keeps trying to make friends with the swans too ("Wow - big hens. Hello!") but all they do is hiss at her and try and peck her.

Language Ideas

This worked so well today. I have a BBC German CD and phrasebook out from the library. Springy and I played restaurants and then shops. I was the customer and I had to order from the menu (Speisekarte) and didn't talk English to her. She was amazing in terms of comprehension because I barely spoke in English to her (used German, pointing, hand gestures etc) but I guess because of the similarities between English and German and the language roots it makes it easier to work out.

We did shops with her play food (some Haba ones from ninnynoodlenoo and things like pinecones, conkers and so forth). I asked for a lemon, an apple, a pear (ein Birne), strawberry and so on and she had to work it out and bring me the right thing. If she got it wrong I just said "Nein" and shook my head. It worked really well and I'm going to be doing this much more. Immersion through play :)

This is also an excellent link and resource for Comptines (nursery rhymes) in French:

http://comptine.free.fr/

Commands in foreign languages

This was something discussed on the Enki conference which is to use commands in a foreign language which the child responds to physically to help immerse them in a foreign language at times. We do this anyway (although French and German are our 2 languages of choice) and it does work and keeps those pathways open.

STOP

1. French - arrêt
2. German - Anschlag
3. Spanish - parada

OPEN YOUR BOOK (I looked the Spanish up on Babelfish)

1. French - ouvre votre livre
2. German - öffnen Sie Ihr Buch* (I use the formal 'you' with her so that she will sound more respectful to German speakers)
3. Spanish - abra su libro

GOOD MORNING

1. French - bon jour
2. German - guten Morgen
3. Spanish - buenos dias

This is something I forgot - the other week we were out and Springy heard some non-English speakers and was able to discern that they were speaking French. It felt wonderful to know that her ears are tuned into French as well as English. I really want to be able to take her to France for a week but we will have to see (money is very tight at the moment).

The countries that I dream of seeing with my husband and Springy are France, Austria, Finland and Norway. I'm too cowardly to have all the vaccinations for places like India.