Dictionary, anyone?

We've been using the Better Chinese program, mostly online for learning Mandarin. Today, my parents visited for the first time after their return from a trip to Florida. I'd had a bunch of things shipped to them while they were there, so the Better Chinese print materials, CDs and games arrived at our house today. I'm so impressed.
I also received a DVD I'd ordered called "Play and Learn Chinese with Mei Mei" which was a huge hit, especially with my daughter.
While I was preparing supper tonight, I heard something really amusing. Both the older kids were watching the video, but my daughter was talking--I'm not sure to whom; sometimes she carries on little conversations with imaginary partners--and she said, "Le monstre à manger le gâteau." Throughout dinner, she carried on in French, and was quite intent on educating grandma and grandpa about the meanings of words in French, but also came up with a variety of things to define in Chinese.
I have just one frustration. I am often called upon by my children to serve as a walking French dictionary, which is fine, because I often know the things they're asking, and if I don't, we've always got our trusty French dictionary.
Now, they're starting to do the same with Mandarin, and I almost never know the answers, which is also fine, but how does one look them up? I'm really not good enough with Pinyin (the romanization of Chinese) to guess at the pronunciation of words. I suppose that will come, in time. We have already started our classes in Mandarin, but I'm finding I'm learning just as much or more from the things I'm doing with the kids.
Actually, it's interesting, because at our first lesson, I was much less overwhelmed than my husband, who hadn't had the same opportunity to interact with the kids' materials.
Back to the dictionary, I guess we'll have to make ourselves some Mandarin-speaking friends really soon after we move so we can find our own walking dictionaries!

Chinese and French

Well, I never would have thought it possible, but yes, we are learning French and Mandarin. My husband and I begin Mandarin classes tomorrow, I've signed up to a couple of internet sights for Mandarin learning. I also found a reasonable used copy of Rosetta Stone. (I'd still love to find a copy of Pimsleur cheap, but I've settled for borrowing a copy from the library.)
I've found a wonderful, very comprehensive curriculum for my children. I may still use some of the resources I mentioned in the previous post, but after a LOT of Googling, I found Better Chinese. It's an incredible interactive curriculum including songs, stories, rhymes, games, animations, character and oral learning. It's simply wonderful, and the kids LOVE it.

So far, we only have access to the online segments. Since shipping from the U.S. to Toronto can be expensive, I've had some of the things shipped to my very accommodating parents while they are in Florida on vacation. It'll be like Christmas when they get home!
The Better Chinese program is brilliant because it has programs specifically designed for four distinct age groups, and uses so many different kinds of input, no child could ever be bored with it. It's so good, it's being used in some immersion programs.
I'm thoroughly impressed. My kids can already say, "I love my daddy/mommy/big brother/big sister/little brother/little sister/family." We're working on "grandma" and "grandpa" and they can recognize the words and characters for all of these as well as "cat" and "dog."
I'm really excited about what I'm seeing in my kids. First, they're doing all of this, and still speaking French around the house. And what's especially exciting is there seems to be much less resistance about learning Chinese than there seemed to be in the initial stages of learning French. That could be a lot of things--maybe because we've borrowed a ton of books from the library about China. Maybe because the anticipation of being there is starting to kick in (our flights are booked now--we leave May 19!). Whatever it is, I'm delighted.

Great change is afoot

I do apologize for my long absence. I have been trying to figure out how to get my head around something, what it means to our French learning, our lives in general, and this blog in specific.

I mentioned that my husband was away for three weeks. He was travelling in China. After much discussion since his return, we have decided to move there--possibly very soon.

I have been very preoccupied with researching Mandarin instruction, and generally trying not to be overwhelmed by the thousands of things we have to take care of before we can go. I go from being very excited one minute, to wanting to cry from premature homesickness the next. My husband is laughing at me because I keep thinking of all the very mundane things like how will I find phosphate-free, all natural laundry soap when I'm there? Or, what will I do about finding spelt flour, since that's mostly what I bake with? Oh, yeah, and then there's baking--I understand that few people have ovens in China.

We'll be far from family, so I will definitely be blogging, at the very least, as a way of letting family in on what we're doing from day to day. And I've recently received encouragement from Marie at Le Francais Facile that since Mandarin is radically different from French and English, and because children's ears are so open to languages, there shouldn't be a problem with studying both French and Mandarin at the same time. My initial thoughts are that I will find very different resources for learning Mandarin than I'm using for French. I'm thinking of Rosetta Stone (mostly for myself, although my son, who turned 6 this week, enjoyed the demo) and possibly some private tutoring. In addition, found a really interesting program called Active Chinese and a very intriguing homeschooling option at Little Linguists Academy.

Trying to look that resource up a second time, I stumbled on some interesting resources at Little Linguist.

I'd love to hear the thoughts of others. I promise I will continue the series of posts on resources, in particular, my experiences with Pimsleur and Michel Thomas.

French for mommies: Pimsleur versus Michel Thomas II

In a continuation from what I mentioned yesterday (or the day before--Blogger doesn't let you fudge your posting times, and I forgot to publish before midnight), I would like to suggest Michel Thomas over Pimsleur for the following reasons:

1. It is better for the absolute beginner. With Pimsleur, I think a large part of my success was having some previous background in French. Much of what I learned at the beginning I already knew, making me feel an immediate sense of confidence. However, if I'd little or no exposure, I think it would have felt much more intimidating. Michel Thomas, however, starts by showing similarities between French and English, and words one may already know in French from phrases that are familiar in English, such as C'est la vie, building the absolute beginner's sense of confidence in the language.
   
   
2. Michel Thomas focuses on finding patterns in the language, making the language "make sense" early on. For example, in French (unlike English), all syllables have equal weight, but the last syllable always carries the accent.
   
   
3. Michel Thomas doesn't start with the "Hello, how are you?" kinds of phrases in typical language programs. Instead, the focus is on the most commonly used words in French, and encourages guessing--a skill necessary for effective second-language learning. By the beginning of the second CD, you are able to say, "What impression do you have of the political and economic situation in France at the present time?" Impressive, non? Eventually, you get to the ability to greet, but after you've already mastered a lot of other, more sophisticated language.

More tomorrow.

French for mommies: Pimsleur versus Michel Thomas

I have harboured a lifelong desire to learn French. I loved French at first contact, but had an unfortunate series of bad teachers in high school and felt forced to quit.

Since then, life, it seems, has gotten in the way of any meaningful pursuit of French. I've considered classes numerous times, but was kept away, probably in part due to my bad experience in a classroom, partly because I'm picky--I taught English as a second language and figured I knew the "right" methodologies--partly because of expense, and partly because of convenience. I'm a mother of three children. When would I get out?

But when it was apparent to me that the right method for teaching my children wasn't going to creep up and hit me over the head, I decided to take matters into my own hands whatever way I could find. I started digging around at the library and fell in love with Pimsleur. Having said that, I think Pimsleur was working for me because I had some French background already--half the stuff in the first eight or so lessons, I already knew or knew parts of, so I had a good framework to assume the new stuff into.

However, more recently, I've come across Michel Thomas, and for me--so far at least--I'm only partway through both methods--it far exceeds what Pimsleur does.

This is adding up to a fairly lengthy post, and I have a lot more to say about both methods, so I'll continue this tomorrow.

Less active

We haven't been doing as much French this week, which is related to the reason my posts this week are fewer. It's not because the desire is not there. But daddy's away for three weeks, and we're staying at grandma and grandpa's house. Since my mom isn't so thrilled about us speaking French here, it's made it a bit more difficult to speak it as much as we normally would. It could be, too, that we're preoccupied with other things, and off our normal routine, so we're less inclined to think about it. I've noticed, for example, that I've been saying "Good night" and "I love you" at bedtime instead of "Bonne nuit" and "Je t'aime/Je vous aimez."
Another reason, likely, since I'm not preparing food in my own kitchen, I've not been inclined to listen to my own French lessons. We've been doing other things--sprinkling French throughout our day, but not as much, and I think it shows.

Speaking more French: little reminders

At church on Sunday, I saw a woman who is originally from Switzerland, and French is her native language. We have an understanding that she will speak French to me when she sees me, provided I can keep up. She often gives up on me, though. My comprehension far exceeds my production.

But I can speak, if given a little time to work out what it is I want to say. Sometimes I can't say the exact thing I intend, but I can think of an alternate way to get the same message across. On Sunday, I initiated conversation by saying (en Francais) "The sun is beautiful today, isn't it?" and she said "Yes, the spring is coming soon." In response, I chickened out and said in English, "We can hope." A moment later I realized I know exactly how to make that same response in French. I kicked myself, a bit, went back to her, and said, "Non, nous pouvons esperer." She looked a little startled, then smiled.

But it pointed out to me something I already know to be true about myself. I know more French than I make myself speak. But how to get it out? Honestly, it's a whole lot easier to speak in English. And the pace of homeschooling and keeping up with three kids under six is enough for any given day without adding something extra!

But I have begun to discover a few tricks. First, if we start the day in French, it's more natural to keep it going in French. To my shame, it's often my daughter (4) who initiates the switch. She's taken to calling me "Maman" instead of Mommy or Mama. That's often enough reminder for me to respond in kind. And although I despise TV in general, watching TV in French doesn't seem to have the same mind-numbing effect on my children, and starting the day with a French video can be just the thing to spur us to more Francais in the day.

We've also purchased French CDs--both the nursery rhyme/fingerplay variety and contemporary music. That helps set the tone, too.

I've noticed, too, that we speak more French after they've done their lessons, or during and after I'm doing mine. Mine are on MP3, and I'll listen to them while I'm in the kitchen, cleaning or preparing meals--with numerous interruptions, of course.

The other thing that's helped tremendously is learning the French that corresponds with a time of day--breakfast for example. Learning to set the table in French or have a bath using French words, for example, can mean that that ritual is done in French each time.

Naturally, we still slip and speak English when we could be speaking French, and I sometimes wonder if we'll ever really be bilingual, but we're working on it. The key is definitely a little French--somehow, someway--every day.

Site highlight: French fun

Here's an adorable--and really fun--site for learning French. It's called "French Fun," and it's a Blog Talk Radio broadcast created by Kelly Robic--an expatriate American living in France--and her son, Alex who teach French vocabulary lessons in 15-minute segments. It's designed for children 4-10.

Kelly leads Alex through teaching the lessons--and because it's Blog Talk Radio, you can hear the lessons! Alex has native pronunciation of French, and they do themed lessons. Recently, they did a lesson on love and Valentine's Day. Check it out!

Note: The broadcast starts with a brief, but somewhat annoying commercial, after which the broadcast begins. Just like TV, the commercial is several times louder than the rest of the broadcast. Also, note that the broadcast "loops." When it's finished, it will start all over again unless you close the site or navigate away from it.

French with children: winter weather

In Toronto, where we live, we've had one heck of a winter--the most snow I can remember in a winter for a long, long time. So I thought it might be appropriate to discuss some winter weather vocabulary:

What is the weather like today? Quel temps fait-il aujourd'hui?
Let's see what the weather is like today. Voyons quel temps il fait aujourd'hui.
It's cold/It's so cold/It's very cold/How cold it is!: Il fait froid/Il fait si froid/Il fait très froid/Comme il fait froid.

It's snowing. Il neige.
a snowstorm - une tempête de neige
snowman - un bonhomme de neige
two snowmen - deux bonshomme de neige
make a snowman - faire un bonhomme de neige
snowball - une boule de neige
make a snowball - faire une boule de neige
throw the ball - lance la boule
outside - dehors
winter - l'hiver

I put on (clothes)... Je mets...
Par example, Je mets mon manteau.

I take off (clothes)... J'enlève...
Par example, J'enlève mon bonnet.

(winter) hat - un bonnet
coat - manteau
gloves - une paire de gants
scarf - écharpe
boots - des bottes

Faves for French: product review of Storybridges to French

Today is a product review for a wonderful little resource called Storybridges to French. In the future there will be more of these kinds of reviews, as well as reviews for products that teach French to adults. (After all, we've got to stay une étape en avance of our kids!)

This is a little gem I found at my local library. I'm not sure exactly how I happened on it. French materials in our public library system can be somewhat tricky to locate. But you can isolate items according to audiovisual and children's categories, so that may have been how I dug it up. I initially borrowed it long before my efforts to teach French became as serious as they are now.

My kids love to listen to tapes on a Little Tikes tape recorder they received from their grandma a few years ago. A quick Google search reveals they aren't as easy to come by as they used to be, but probably worth hunting down on eBay. Our kids listen to little stories on tape and are just as excited about them as videos. I loved the Storybridges to French tapes the first time I heard them. Because they're oral, they make learning French accessible to children before they can read. The creator, Veronica Foster, and her two children Sydney and Sadie retell several well-known fairytales and fables--six in all: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, The Turtle's Music, The Nightingale, The Shoemaker and the Elves, and Peter and the Wolf. (There are Spanish, ESL and German versions as well, and the Spanish and ESL versions have more stories.)

Ms. Foster tells the stories in English, interspersed with French. She calls it "gradual immersion" because she builds from story to story, gradually using more and more French. It's quite brilliant, really. After each story is a short review or some questions. With the help of Sydney and Sadie, she encourages children to listen to and repeat the French even if they don't understand the words at first, because that's how we learned our first language. But the context of the stories makes the French readily understood, and very easy to learn. The speaking is very clear, and broken down into manageable little chunks.

The only small complaint I have is that quite frequently, Ms. Foster uses the phrase "Oh, mon Dieu," and has the children repeat it. I understand that this is a realistic part of French culture, but since we've taught our children not to say "Oh my God" in English, it came as quite a shock to them when they heard the English interpretation of this phrase. The only other note I'll make here is that the stories are Ms. Foster's own original adaptations. If you're a purist, you may not appreciate that there's no gobbling of the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood, for example. Instead, the grandmère offers le loup le poulet that le petit chaperone rouge brings her, and they all sit down for a picnic.

I had hoped to own a copy of Storybridges. It now comes on CD, and if you buy directly from Ms. Foster, you get a teacher CD with each story CD that has transcripts of the stories, games and tests, and more.

I must confess at this point, that although I probably couldn't count the money I've spent on French teaching and learning resources, I'm a relentless bargain hunter, and almost refuse to pay full price for anything. I waited and searched and finally found Storybridges--a retired library copy--used on Amazon for less than $13.00. Granted, I have the cassette version, not the CDs, and I have no additional learning resources, but I'm so happy we finally own this wonderful resource.

Teaching that sticks

Well, Pierre was back today by popular demand, but I may have found something that works even better. I've been looking into a method of teaching French to children pioneered in Canada by a woman named Wendy Maxwell. She uses various media to teach French, including plays and music, which I'm already using and/or working on, but the core of her method is the concept of "pared down language" and the use of gestures to make the language learning stick. She calls her method AIM (Accelerative Integrated Method). The method has received rave reviews, and is quickly being adopted by school boards all across Canada. The bold claim is that AIM users can achieve achieved in less than 1/2 hour a day. You can see why it's appealing!

I've known about Ms. Maxwell's method for a while now, but I'd been somewhat hesitant about it, since, as previously mentioned, I've been teaching my children sign language (ASL). The gestures Ms. Maxwell uses in her method are not the same. Her gestures are meant to be the most natural motion for the word. For example, for "walk," the gesture is the index and middle finger "walking" in the air, while the ASL sign is a two-handed motion with both hands moving back and forth in front--you can see the sign demonstrated on various ASL demonstration sites, such as ASL Pro. (Although there is one version of "walk" in sign that is identical to this motion.)

I'd heard of teachers who use sign language in their classrooms to enhance the teaching of French. The biggest argument in favour of it is that signing or gesturing involves different kinds of learners and different kinds of learning. It's visual and kinesthetic (involving the body). Like a picture, it gives a reference point for the sign when children may forget the words.

I wanted to try using sign to assist the teaching of French with my kids. Since I'm already a believer in using sign with children, the biggest hurdle for me was figuring out the "pared down language." Ms. Maxwell has isolated her pared down language to 700 of the most useful French words for children. The other day when I visited the Modern Language Collection at the library, I found a book with transcripts and detailed frequency summaries of the speech of native 9-year-olds. Most of the words were verbs, prepositions and adjectives (so it therefore didn't include the nouns you'd commonly learn in vocabulary lessons--words for clothes and food items and animals, etc. ). I copied down approximately 200 of the most commonly used words. I'll add to that some of the words most commonly used in teaching baby/child sign, available readily on the Internet, and some of the vocabulary sets like clothing and animal words.

I spent a chunk of time on the weekend making a chart of French words, and their ASL and English equivalent. I'm a little more than halfway through my work on the chart (of the core 200 words), and I already had a chance to put some of it into practice this week. It works great! The sign makes an easy and effective way to prompt my kids for a word they may have forgotten, and makes learning a lot of fun. Plus, there's the added benefit of learning more than one language at a time!

And it's not as hard as it might sound, once the initial work is done. Together with Pierre, we livened up a book my kids hadn't been so interested in using before, and they had a lot of fun with it.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll start a product review of some of the resources I've located for teaching French effectively.

fun & games

One of the things I know to "work" in language learning because of my experiences teaching English as a second language, is games. The problem is, when I taught English, it was relatively easy to find innumerable books full of suggestions for games and activities for the language classroom.

It seems that in the field of French as a second language teaching, it's not so easy. I've found a number of resources available in the UK, but with their price and shipping costs...well, I'm still looking for other alternatives.

I spent some time in the Modern Language collection of the local university library, and found some fantastic ESL-type activities that would be easily adapted for use in our home, with French.

In the meantime, here's a game Pierre introduced the other day. He and I taught the names of six objects. We used a candy (un bonbon), a pen (un stylo), a key (une cl), a ticket (un billet), some money (d'argent), and one other item I can't seem to think of at the moment. We also had a paper bag (un sac). The kids took turns hiding an object in the paper bag and the rest of us (including Pierre) had to guess what was in the bag by asking questions. For example, "As tu un stylo dans le sac?"

French with children: Nighttime

This will be a regular feature on this blog. I hope to pass on individual vocabulary words, but also phrases and sentences. We hope to be joined soon by an expert who can teach us even more:

Goodnight: Bonne nuit
Let's go to your bedroom: Allons dans ta chambre.
pyjamas: un pyjama
Put on your pyjamas: Mets ton pyjama.
First one arm and then the other: D'abord une bras et puis l'autre.
Go pee pee: Fais pipi
Let's go to the bathroom and brush your teeth: Allons dans la salle de bains et brossons tes dents.
Climb into bed: Grimpe dans ton lit.
Give me a goodnight kiss: Fais-moi un bisou pour la nuit.
Pacifier: une sucette, une tétine, une tutute
Here, take it: Tiens, prend-la.

If you'd like to try a French lullaby, here's a link to the sound file and lyrics for one:

http://www.mamalisa.com/blog/?p=31

If you have any corrections or additions (French isn't spoken the same way everywhere!) or any requests for a future vocabulary/phrase feature, please leave a comment.

Bonne nuit!

Speaking english

Okay, so this is a blog about learning French. So why am I writing about speaking English? Well, whenever someone chooses to teach a second language to children still learning their first, this issue invariably comes up. And it has some bearing in our situation.

Before I go further, it's going to be necessary for me to identify my children in some way. Since I'm not crazy about the idea of using their names on the Internet, here's how we'll refer to them:

Pumpkin - my son, about to turn six
Monkey - my daughter, 4 1/2
Sprout - my youngest (a daughter as well), coming up on two

So the issue people often get concerned about when it comes to teaching children a second language is that they may become confused--that their language abilities in the first language may be compromised in some way.

But my background is in teaching English as a second language. And part of my education was a healthy dose of linguistic training, so I know the research, some of which can be referenced here. I know that learning a second language often enhances a child's abilities in the first language, not the reverse.

And none of that changes my confidence that I'm doing a good thing teaching all my children, including Sprout, a second language. But Sprout is talking later, and a lot less clearly than either of my other children did. While Monkey spoke her first words clearly at about six months (!), Sprout was well over a year old before the first word appeared. At a doctor's appointment a couple of months ago, her doctor said she should have a vocabulary of 10 consistently-used words by now. He suggested that if she doesn't have a vocabulary of about 50 words by the time she's two, she should see a specialist. But the waiting list to see one of those specialists is six months long, so she's already on it.

I'm really not worried--as I said, I know the research--and there's actually some debatable evidence to suggest that children who are late talkers can be very gifted. Einstein, for example, was a late talker.

But it does raise issues, and make my decision to introduce French something I occasionally have to defend. And I'll admit to choosing to speak English to her when I'd be perfectly capable of speaking French, just because I want to hear her say something I'm sure I'll recognize.



Because I was thinking about all of this, I thought I'd make a brief record of the (English) words Sprout is using. Most of the time she babbles in a very meaningful way--as though she's convinced you understand her. She also uses sign language much more than she speaks (so I suppose she's learning three languages, but what a life-saver, since she's not speaking!). And when she speaks, it's often poorly enunciated, so my husband and I are continually saying, "Did she just say...?" "Didn't that sound like...?" "I'm pretty sure she just said..."

Sprout's signs: all done, more, milk, water, baby, potty, hurt, stop, please, thank you, I love you, up, book, and she shakes her head for "no" and nods for "yes." She uses these signs regularly, but she also knows the following signs, and will produce them when asked to: bed, brush teeth, eat, read.

Sprout says: mommy/mama, daddy, grampa, gramma, bye-bye, night-night. She also puts her finger to her lips and says "shhhh" when her dolly is sleeping. (These are all fairly clearly enunciated.) The following are rather unclear, but identifiable to family members: milk, banana, book, yes, that, I love you. She also says her brother and sister's names, but again interpretable only by those of us who know her best! She makes animal noises (moo, meow, etc.) and identifies correctly virtually all her body parts.

And once or twice, I've thought I heard a French word, but I can't be sure.

As I've mentioned before, she doesn't seem to care which language I address her in, and will respond appropriately to requests or questions in French or English. So, I'll continue to teach her French. And in a year or so, I'll look back on this blog entry and wonder why I even thought it necessary to say anything at all about it.

Pierre is a hit!

Wow! I've already been gratified to hear the words, "French is fun," from my children, but yesterday French became the best part of the day. They LOVED it, and they couldn't wait for more. Pierre went back to his "home" in the closet because he ran out of things to say in French, but my kids begged for more, so I pulled out a game, and Pierre helped teach the game, and became a player.

It was so funny to hear them say, "It's Pierre's turn now," but even funnier to hear my son say, "He needs to learn some English!" Of course, they wanted to play with him and make him talk themselves, but I'm going to reserve him for French class so he maintains his popularity.

I've got some other ideas for puppetry they can do themselves. More to come...

Speaking more french

Since I didn't speak French with my children since birth, probably the most difficult thing about introducing a second language has been making it seem natural--and then of course, there's remembering to speak it! This weekend, I bought a puppet. My kids are 5 (turning six), 4, and 19 months. The two youngest are completely taken with puppets, and interact with them as though I'm not even there.

I'm going to introduce Pierre to the kids tomorrow. He speaks only French, of course, so they must speak only French to him. I'd been considering it, because I figured it would be a great tool. I found this video, and it was all the encouragement I needed.

Staying a step ahead

I've been giving serious effort to teaching my children French for about a year now, although it's only been since about September that I've been giving serious attention to learning French myself. But I've been on a hunt for good resources for teaching French to young children ever since my son was born, almost six years ago.

I knew the kinds of materials I was looking for--things that immersed children in the language and were interactive, since those were the types I used when I was teaching English as a second language. The only problem was, those kinds of materials didn't work for me, since my own language skills weren't strong enough. So I dug around instead for materials that were accompanied by tapes or CDs, offered a degree of interactivity and helped me learn along with my children.

Among other things, this blog will offer some advice on the types of materials I've found effective for myself and my children, as a parent with limited or developing language skills. I'll also offer some suggestions for games with controlled language anyone can do, with limited French, and a regular feature with themed vocabulary and phrases for speaking French with babies or young children.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with...un mot

I am a homeschooling mother of three. I've been a lurker on the blogs of others who are raising their children bilingual or multilingual, and I've been jealous. I'm not bilingual myself. Although I live in a country that professes bilingualism, I've found resources for teaching my preschool children French to be very hard to come by.

I lacked confidence in speaking French myself, and for many months left it up to videos and books on tape or CD.

I continued to lurk, and I began to wonder. Maybe the easiest way to offer my kids French was to learn it myself, and pass it on.

When my son approached kindergarten age, I began to waver on the homeschooling issue, even though I'd been committed to it since before he was born. Was a bilingual education better than what I could offer him? My commitment to homeschooling won, but I still felt I was shortchanging him. I wanted him to have French.

And so, I began my own journey to learn the French language. I'm using Michel Thomas and Pimsleur, and anything I can get my hands on to teach myself French, staying one step ahead (une étape en avant) of my kids.

It's working. Step by step, we're learning--all of us. The other night we had about 50% of our dinner conversation in French. At one point, my daughter turned to me and said something that proved to me it was all worthwhile:

"You're speaking a lot of French tonight."

"C'est vrai."

"You're doing very well."

"Merci beaucoup."

"De rein...You're learning, and we're learning too."

I couldn't have been prouder. Is there a better example to give my kids than that life is about always learning?

Je ne pense pas ainsi.