I have a present for you

Use it well.

This is an old Czech song that's had a major revival on the Polish internet in the last few years. Take a look at Jožin z bažin, a Czech song presented with Polish subtitles! Does that not break your language brain?

(It's like the time I told someone calling me from America

Me: "I'm just watching a Polish movie."
Them: *strangled sound*
Me: "What? No, it's not in Polish. It's dubbed into Czech."
Them: *strangled sound indicating that's not much more normal* )

Jožin z bažin is actually pretty funny, so here's a version with English subtitles if you're interested. Give it at least until the guy starts dancing (just under 30 seconds in).

I totally have to show this video to Baby K when she gets home from school.

The Power of Word Choice

Recently K doesn't seem to "want" anything: she "needs" it.

"I need sit on you knee." [i.e. lap]

"Mami, I need Timmy." [TV show]

"I really, really need chocolate."

I guess all those exchanges consisting of, "I want chocolate" and "No, you don't need chocolate now" have made an impact. It's not a question of desire, mother! I need it! To live!

---

Also, brief, cryptic discussions in Slovak apparently don't go over K's head any more...at least, not when it comes to Christmas presents. Apo went back in the store to buy something we'd been looking at for K, while K and I walked on. As soon as he left, she turned to me and asked, "Apo buy me my Tinkerbell now?"

If we want a secret language, I may actually have to learn Hungarian. Though K will probably learn it faster...

Parenting Now

This post is part of the September Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month by Maria at Fab Mums.

In talking and reading about bilingual (or potentially bilingual) families, I have often been struck by the conflict between an overly long-term and overly short-term view.

What I mean by that is those parents who give up on speaking an additional language to their kids for reasons in the short term like inconvenience, refusal to respond in the language, child not understanding the language as well so parent quits entirely, speaking majority language so the child will get on in school, and all sorts of other relatively short-term concerns. For example, in the short term it would have been easier for the Slovak to just speak English to her, or for me to speak Czech to her while we're in UK (so she would speak it when we move back), but I think in the long run those solutions wouldn't hold up.

I don't think that any of these are problems so insurmountable that the family should give up its language (because truly, stick with it and the child WILL almost certainly be fine in the end), but unlike a lot of the popular advice floating around, I DO think they are valid concerns and shouldn't be dismissed off-hand.

Then at the other end of the spectrum is the over-emphasis on long-term development. Every conversation I have about moving to a country where my daughter doesn't speak the language well includes the repeated reassurance, "She's so young, she'll be fine!" I have taken to saying it first, actually: "I know that at her age she'll be fine eventually, but [insert mild concern here]..." It is true! At her age we will ultimately be more concerned with keeping Czech from taking over completely as her dominant language. But.

What has struck me in the last year, faced with long-term reassurances like "She will be fine in the end," is that while she WILL be fine in the end and maybe even in the middle, I can't focus solely on the end result and ignore the present. I am her mother now. It is my job to be concerned about her welfare both present and future. I can't blithely go on, assuming she'll be "fine in the end", and ignore the real girl struggling today.

She will be fine in the end, but today she is sad because the children on the playground ignored her. She will be fine in the end, but today she is confused because the stranger on the bus didn't smile at her greeting.

She will be fine in the end, but today she kicks the ground and says with self-disgust, "I can't talk!" because she can't get the words out right in the other language.

I really believe that the long-term benefits will make the struggle getting there worth it, but I can't just casually dismiss the process without acknowledging it CAN be a struggle. I can look ahead to sending my trilingual third-grader off to Czech school with a smile, but in my haste to get there I can't overlook the tiny preschooler who is my today - and an over-hasty rush to say "fine in the end!" feels to me like overlooking and trivializing the tiny preschooler's real and current feelings. She won't even remember this, but I'm not just responsible for the parts of her life she remembers, am I? I have to watch and guide her and shield her from unproductive pain even if it is just transient.

She will be fine in the end, but I am not her mother just "in the end" - I am her mother now and every day until we reach that end in which we will be fine.

one step closer to Prague

We are in the countdown, slowly disengaging from England so we can focus our energy on Czech Republic. It would have been so nice to just stay there instead of coming back here for such a short time. It's difficult to be in transition for so long. Plus, explain to a 2.75 year old child that "we are going to live here, but not right now, but soon, because first we will be here for a little bit, then go back to our old house and school and then the ujos will come and pack up our books and toys and clothes and take them here to Prague, and we will live in this house and go to the new school."

K refers to our Prague flat as the "small house" as opposed to the "big house" that is our house in England. She also knows that the place is called "Pwag", though as we walked to the market one day (15 minutes away) she said Prague was back behind us and what is THIS part called. I should teach her "Vršovice" and "Strašnice" I guess.

The first full day in Prague she gestured expansively to indicate the whole flat or city and said, "This my home."

She didn't want to leave the other day, which was surprising given all her toys and things are in England. Made me hopeful that she will take the move well, at least.

She is learning about very big girl things in Prague, like holding on in the metro and not running in front of trams. She is in charge of pushing the buttons in the lift, 0 for down and 7 for up. The first week I was still lifting her up to reach the 7, but the second week she could reach it herself. She is very concerned about having a stamped ticket for public transportation. When I was using the one-time tickets, I let her hold on to them with the instruction not to lose this because it's very important! And being very important, of course, is right up her alley. Now that I've got my long-term card I have to come up with "tickets" for K anyway. She doesn't care that you ride free up to 6 years old.

Also while in Prague she started talking a lot about her "passport" and being very concerned that if she didn't have it, they wouldn't let her on the plane. She even made a worried pretend phone call on the subject. Apo found her a novelty souvenir passport and pasted her baby picture (the same one in her real passport) in so she has a passport to play with. She was very relieved when she got it and immediately "scanned" it into the computer. Can you tell this child travels a lot?

K still spoke English to people but she seemed more receptive than before to the idea that to communicate you need to speak the way people understand. On the way to the playground I reminded her that kids here say "ahoj", not "hi", and mentioned a few other Czech-English word pairs she knows. She nodded seriously and then took off running, "ahoj deti! ahoj!"

One difference about living all on the same level (no upstairs) is that we use the whole space more of the time. K seemed to enjoy having a full length mirror in the bathroom. Occasionally I would pass by and she was growling like a monster or making faces at herself into the mirror. I guess you're never too young for that kind of thing. Also, we had to have several heart to heart chats about how just because you CAN open the refrigerator to get yourself some cheese doesn't mean you're ALLOWED to do so. (Our fridge in UK is above the freezer and she can't reach it.) That child could eat a whole box of Veselá kráva in one sitting, if I let her. That can't possibly be good for you.

Now it's back to our routine for a little bit and then off to one-hundred-spired Prague yet again.

Back, briefly

We're back from our last visit to Prague before moving in, like, three weeks. Ask me if I've packed anything. Don't expect much of an answer.

---

While I was away, I had an article published at Multilingual Mania! It's called The Language That Speaks to My Heart and talks about how language affects (my) identity. Take a look if you haven't read it already, and I hope you like it!

---

We had a great week full of friends and somewhat cruddy weather that didn't manage to keep us from having fun. K was best friends over the weekend with a boy her age who only speaks Polish. It didn't stop them getting into mischief, giving each other hugs and to tell you the truth, it kind of looked like they were spooning once. I learned a little bit (more) Polish. Also Croatian and Hungarian. You don't get too much more multilingual than this past weekend!

I even made it to K's preschool informational meeting and introductory first day for new kids. My reservations about the school eased in some ways and intensified in others, leaving me firmly ambivalent. Pro: K's teachers seem nice. Con: I find it VERY, VERY DIFFICULT to overlook the mistakes they make in English. "Participating on" something or wanting "to enlight" someone my child might not notice, but "jinny pig" for "guinea pig" is a little more blatant. The lead teacher's Czech is better than her English, but she's not a native speaker. I'd say she speaks Czech approximately as well as I do, i.e. occasional mistakes and an occasionally noticeable (in her case Russian) accent. Not a deal-breaker, but they DO claim to have "native speakers" in each classroom, and I wouldn't consider myself or the teacher to be native speakers of Czech. However, the more important thing to me is that she is sweet and I think K will like her.

Also, they want to feed her seaweed. We'll see how it goes.

A Place Not Frozen in Time

We traveled to Prague today. Despite the familiar feeling of homecoming, we could tell we'd been gone for a while.

We set off for town with three clear goals: 1) get tram passes, 2) buy a new wireless router and 3) find a snack, preferably a párek v rohlíku - a Czech-style hot dog, available from many roadside stands around the city. Or so we thought.

Our first stop was our local subway station to get the tram passes. There we found that to get the monthly pass (like $2 more than the 5 day pass!) you need the special tram pass holder booklet thing (name, pic, spot to hold pass card), which of course we have, if we had seen them at any time in the past two years. So we decided to just get new ones, making it 1) get pictures taken for tram passes.

Next we used one-time tickets to get downtown, since we don't know any picture taking booths in our area. The booth we come to takes 80 kc, coins only. We don't have that much change. We resolve to find a walk-in place or booth that takes bills. Also, wireless router and snack.

We walk to nearby O2 store to get router, but find a helpful sign saying it is closed since 2008 and giving directions to the new shop down the street. Oops. We walk to new store and it is closed for reconstruction with addresses for nearby stores. We head for the nearest one, in a new shopping mall we figure has the least likelihood of being closed down.

Along the way we want to stop for a párek, but our trusty hot dog stand is not there either. Snackless we continue into the mall, where we wander until we find an O2 stand that, uh oh, only sells cell phones. They point to the big store on the next floor, where we are grateful to pay entirely too much for the router.

We decided to one-way it over to Národní třída, where they have another good hot dog place and a few photo places. We get our párky but frankly, the rohlíky were overheated (too crusty) and K dropped hers (i.e. mine) on the ground halfway through. While we waited Apo got a sim card for me from a cell phone shop as long as we were nearby (needed a different shop than the router...).

Missions 2) and 3) accomplished (however irritatingly), we devoted ourselves to 1)a). Picture taking. First photo place we know, CLOSED! Second one we remember, CLOSED! Third and fourth ones are open but ask 150 or 160 kc for a picture, which we agree is highway robbery and move on.

Allow me to pause for a moment and rewind a bit. You see, all this time, ever since we first got downtown to the automatic picture taking booth, I have been saying, "Let's just use this one. Let's get some change and use the machine. Do we really need to traipse all over town when we could get some change and use the machine?" Apo, meanwhile, insisted that we need a walk-in place or booth that takes bills.

Allow me to unpause and return to the bit where we've been to four no-go photo places, which were fortunately all in a row on the way from Národní up Václavák. Looking into our change holder after getting us a drink, the Slovak of my dreams spoke up:

"You know, we have more change here than I thought."
"Do not tell me that we've had enough change this whole time and you're just now admitting it."
"I, um, think we might have enough change."
"I have to say, I don't see this ending well for you."
"Hey, look! Another 50 kc! You know, you're such a great wife. You are so special and such a wonderful mother."
"Do you especially appreciate my kind and forgiving heart?"
"...I do."

So with the change we had had all along, we returned to the automat picture booth and got our pictures taken. We then returned to our neighborhood ticket office and got our tram pass booklets made to put our new tram passes in. While standing at the window we overheard in the line behind us, "Where is [other friend]? She must have stepped around the corner to look at the picture taking booth."

At which point our eyes locked, the hair stood up on the backs of our necks and we whispered to each other, "Surely not!!"

We tried our best to shake that off and headed for the tram to go one stop, since we were tired. We sat on tram # 19, which Apo would probably like me to interject has ALWAYS gone straight at the intersection towards our stop, but today, as you have probably guessed from the direction of this sentence, it inexplicably turned at the intersection and went to another stop. We got off and walked home, laughing at the final twist in our unpredictable day. I do have to give this one to the Slovak: the 19 ALWAYS goes our way. Clearly it's had a change of track.

And you know what's funny, after an afternoon like that, I'm still glad to be home. I leaned over to smell the fresh bread while picking up dinner in the corner store (which was still open and sold everything we expected it to) and felt a thrill run through my whole body.

I'm home.

Voice recognition technology doesn't speak Scottish

I'm usually late to the party with regard to online videos and similar, so you may have seen this already. But it made me laugh pretty hard.

Voice recognition technology doesn't speak Scottish