language reshuffle

A little while back, I was listening to Leona and Judge chat - in English, and I realized we needed to relook at the language strategy in our home. Back in March of 2014 I had said I would start speaking Mandarin with the girls. I totally didn't. But in the fall of the same year (about November), I decided to go 100% Norwegian on them, because Leona wasn't speaking Norwegian and I thought maybe it was affecting her willingness to talk [Norwegian] with other kids.

[We made glutinous rice balls...and ducks...yesterday. top: rolling the dough; bottom left: waiting for the ducks to float up in the boiling water; bottom right: two ducks made by E ready to be eaten - the top one purposefully with two heads]

Fast forward a year, of me only speaking Norwegian to them, and I found that Leona's English accent was very, very, very similar to Judge's. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised, considering the only English she had been hearing was his for almost a quarter of her life (!).

So, I've decided that seeing as she's rocking her Norwegian already and it is a language she gets tons of exposure to now (she is in kindergarten, my mom speaks Norwegian with her, as do the neighbors who she visits on her own with Eliana sometimes), that she doesn't need it from me as well.

Thus, after struggling a bit getting used to speaking Norwegian to her, I'm now transitioning back to English again.

[it snowed about 30-40 cm the past two-three days. today was the first time we went outside properly - the past week everyone's been different degrees of sick, and so the girls have just been playing in the snow on the balcony]

I also mentioned to Judge that I think, just think, that Leona may have inherited his and his dad's ear for language...or non-ear I should say, and he said that maybe it is because he has spoken English with her. It's true, it may just be that. And seeing as her Mandarin is good but also not suuuuper good, he came to the conclusion that he should just speak Mandarin with the kids, no English (though also sometimes some Norwegian, as it's good for him to practice).

When I first started speaking English with Leona again, she only answered in Norwegian - though interestingly when Judge speaks English with her she answers in English. It was only this last week where she started speaking English back to me sometimes, which is pretty exciting for me for some reason. Perhaps because it took soooo long for her to start using Norwegian with me last year, that I thought we had lost that door of opportunity for her to speak English with me again - that she was stuck on speaking Norwegian now.

I can tell both girls often don't quite understand what I'm saying, so it will take a bit of learning and adjustment to get them 'up to par' with the English again, but it feels good to be back in the saddle.

[Eliana loving walking where no man has walked before - snow up to over her knees]

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