Primary languages
At home the languages spoken are English and Portuguese, each parent trying to use their mother tongue exclusively, even with each other. It has been hard to make this change (before the language at home was Spanish) but it's now fairly consistent.
Other languages
There are times when Eloy also hears Mum and Dad speaking in Spanish, usually with friends or people in the street. He is also exposed to some Catalan, but has no direct contact with it. Even with other language speakers, Mum and Dad continue to use only their mother-tongue with Eloy and will continue to do so as he grows older: one-parent, one-language.
Learning Portuguese
He spends many hours each day with Dad in Portuguese (weekdays from 17:00 until bedtime at 23:00 and weekends), and communicates with his paternal grandparents via skype about once a week. He is also exposed to it when his Dad is with Brazilian friends.
Dad talks constantly to Eloy, describing out loud the things they are doing, asking him questions and singing him songs. They read books together every evening, which is a special time for both.
Learning English
Eloy makes contact with English on weekdays from when he wakes up until 17:00 (with Mum and his English nanny, Maddison), and full time on weekends with Mum. He also goes to a playgroup with his mum and often visits her work where the common language is English. Grandma appears on skype every couple of days and talks and sings to him. Just like Dad, Mum reads him stories, sings him lots of songs and makes a point of describing what's happening as they go about their daily routine.
Language production
Eloy's first sounds were dipthongs, the most common being /eu:/. Between the age of 6 & 7 months Eloy went from squeals and vowel sounds to consonant sounds and syllables /b/ and /ba/, /m/ and /ma/. He also began producing longer stretches of "speech" and the intonation began to resemble that heard in natural conversation. It's impossible to say at this stage if the sounds he makes sound more English or Portuguese.
I loved hearing you talking Eloy. Your Aunty Lizzy will love the words your Mummy wrote about it too.
ReplyDeleteI like the one parent one language idea! It must be complicated for you both to keep constant changing chips, from cataln, sapnish english portuguese! I imagine Paulo waking up in spanish with you, portuguese with eloy, spanish in the street and catalan at work! uffff! I'm already tired!!!
ReplyDeleteBut I am sure Eloy will be a true polyglot!
I have been on this blog a million times since you put this up but somehow I only just saw it! Fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI assume you are still collecting information about his speech production - it would be great to keep hearing more :)
I'm also interested in other forms of communication besides spoken. How he communicates things without words, and how he responds too (to his name, for example, and how he responds to different people in his life, depending on his relationship with them).
Oh how I wish I just lived down the road to see and hear all this for myself. x