1.10.2008

Speaking English

I've been really excited the past few weeks as Jari has suddenly started speaking to me in English. It might have something to do with my parents having been here where he was forced to speak my native tongue if he wanted to have any conversations with them, but in reality, he almost always still speaks Dutch to me, Papa, and Kaeden. But these past few weeks have been music to my ears as my son has been speaking English completely impulsively, on his own, about 25 percent of the time when we are alone together. As soon as anyone else is around he relies on his Dutch skills, but with mama, he's really been doing great! I always have to do a double-take hearing his requests in English as it's not something I am used to, but it makes me feel so excited and happy. His Dutch accent is really strong and we've been working on his TH pronunciation (stick out your tongue and then you can say thing, thanks, those), but still, he's speakign English to me!!! It amazes me, how easily language comes to my boys. I struggle even though I am pretty happy with where I am with my Dutch speaking skills. Some days I have a good Dutch day, soem days a bad one, but never a Beek dialect day!!! I wish people here would just speak NORMAL (whatever normal is, he?)!!! But they don't and I continue to try and learn it to fit in a bit better, but I know it'll never happen completely. But enough about me, did I mention that my baby is speaking ENGLISH!!!?? Yippee! I'm SO proud of him!

2 comments:

C. said...

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kids learn SO fast! You'd be amazed at how quickly he'll pick it up!!! Congrats. little man!! You made your mommy smile!!

Di Mackey said...

Limburg ... sounds lovely. I'm a New Zealander living in Antwerpen with my Belgian guy. An ex-Limburgian took me through Huy, Dinant and around, I loved it ... so much less populated, so pretty.