Moi je dis... Or teaching other children

We are currently in Brazil for a mixture of business and pleasure. This is the first time our daughter is spending so much time in a Portuguese-speaking country. We are hoping this is going to boost her Portuguese a little as it is clearly her weakest language.

LJ is sitting in a bookstore in São Paulo reading a book. A little boy comes over, looks at her book and says to her:

Tartaruga*

pointing at the turtle in the book.

Ipads and language awareness

Yes, I have to admit it! I too have given in to letting my daughter, 2, use my iPad! I, too, was very skeptical and would have preferred not to. But it is a good learning tool.

I am one of those mums who thinks that children should only watch TV when they are old enough to control it and understand what they are watching. I never have the TV on during the day when I am home by myself with (or without) LJ. Don't get me wrong, I love technology (maybe not as much as my husband) but I love hi-tech gadgets. But I would rather encourage my daughter to read and play by herself than have her watch TV.

German is on its way!

It seems like all you need for a child to start talking in one language is to reinforce another one. This reminds me of a recent post by fellow bloggers at Babelkids. Research has clearly shown that reinforcing majority language skills also improves the minority language skills.