bilingual

Kevin continues to amaze me. He actually grasps the concept of 2 languages now and can translate when asked. He's not perfect, but then, at age 2 and 4 months, he can't be expected be, can he?

I consistently speak Dutch to him and he's always understood me when I talk to him, but a couple of months ago, as his vocabulary was really expanding and he started making 6-7 word sentences, I noticed that he was resorting to English to speak back. I debated a bit, but then started asking him 'in het Nederlands?', and when stumped, I repeated the words in Dutch. I also started a game of 'wie spreekt er Nederlands?', and taught him that I, he , his 'tante Joke', 'nonkel Yves' and 'vava' all speak Nederlands, but that his teachers and school and daddy all speak 'Engels'. I thought that making him conscious of the two languages, and who speaks what, might make it less confusing...and it worked. He got it.

Now, he still on occasion will respond in English to me, but much less so. And, when he does, and I ask him 'in het Nederlands?', he usually can give me the Dutch word right away. Today for instance we were reading a book on animals and he pointed to an animal saying 'is monkey', but when I asked 'in het Nederlands', he immediately said 'aap'.....

I hope he keeps it up. I definitely wil. I means a lot to me. It is so intertwined with my identity as a European, it's where my roots are, it's who I am. I couldn't imagine having a son who wouldn't be able to switch continents and talk to his relatives in his/their own mother tongue. I couldn't image having a son who wouldn't be able to move back and feel part of the culture.