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Hello! It is Sara and I am here today with Emilia trying to do a trilingualism update for Emilia!
In this video I want to look at it from a language development perspective. So, how she did from 0 to 2 years old.
We are a trilingual family in a classic sense.
This means that, the mother and the father speak two different languages and they live in a country with a third language.
In a way we have no choose, other than going in a trilingual path
I speak to her in Albanian, her father speaks to her in Italian and in day-care she is exposed to French.
Our chooses for now have been: Every parent speaks to her in their language and, we are not as strict as some other people might be...
Sometimes, some words are easier in another language for her, so, we let her mix..
…We reply in the right way but we let her say as it is more easy for her.
In a way, it has been an easy journey, but now I am seeing that is going to get complicated...
…and I will try to explain as I talk through this video.
What is expected of her for now is that: Albanian, my language, to be her first language..and this is how it is going...
..for Italian to be her second language, and this is more or less how it is going..
and, the local language, which is French, to be her third language.
This means that, in Albanian she should be more able to speak followed by Italian and then by French.
This is more or less how it is going. Even though, between Italian and French, I cannot tell which one is prevalent.
Title: Language Development-From 0-2 Years Old
Prior to her being one year old, she was a lot talkative. She was babbling very early on. She could not stop babbling!
So she started saying mamma, babba, dadda. At nine months she could say mamma and dadda (with their meaning).
At 12 Months is when we started counting words. She could say about 10 words and, 8 of them were in Albanian and 2 were in Italian: Yes and No.
And Yes and No, was something that I taught to her in Italian
She was understanding commands in the three languages. Also in understanding, she was more able in Albanian..
..but, she had quite a lot of understanding also in Italian and in French.
By 15 months we started condign more than 30 words, excluding the animal sounds.
I would say, In 30 woods, 26 were in Albanian, 4 in Italian and we could not count anything in French. She did not speak French.
And this is also what was happening in day-care! She was not speaking at all, but at home, she was speaking in Albanian.
By 17 months, she had like a countless vocabulary…I lost count of her words but if I had to split in what percentage she knew every language…
…she was 80% Albanian and maybe 18% Italian. The increase happened when we went to Italy at 16 months.
Her Italian vocabulary increased a little bit. Thai is why I would say 18% in Italian and maybe 2% in French.
Suddenly, she started saying 1 or two worlds in French..but nothing more.
At this age she started making phrases of 3 but only in Albanian.
I am looking at my notes by the way!
By 19 months, she had a language explosion! She could say a lot of words.
She started this phase of repeating what the others say. This gave her the opportunity to learn more words in Italian and in French.
She could say phrases of 3 and rarely of 4 words in Albanian. She could not say as munch in French or in Italian.
By 21 months, something nice happened! We went to Italy and there she understood that..
..my language and her father's language are two different things and that, to me she speaks in Albanian and to her father she speaks in Italian
And this is when she started to say something to me in Albanian and she will turn to her father and, the same thing, she would say it in Italian.
That is why we understood she got there!
From there on she kept doing that. She has gotten better and better in Albanian and better and better in Italian.
It is by 21 months when she started also getting better in French. This is when she started also talking in day-care.
By 24 months old, she still is better in Albanian but she is getting better and better in the other two languages.
What I am observing is that: First of all she started having a French accent.
An example would be: Good morning! She would say: Good Morghning! Something like that!
She is going towards a direction that she is going to start using at home more and more the lingua franca, which is Italian.
She is favoring French during play. Songs, she sings more songs in French than in Albanian or in Italian.
She is also favoring French for commands because in day-care they may be more repeated.
Title: What is Next?
For us, in the near future we will have a lot of chooses to make as: How to stimulate and help her?
How not to let her behind with respect to the local language? How to help her understand more Italian and how to write albanian…
..because that would be another completely different task.
She is speaking in French right now. You can hear that!
Also, the school will be very important!
Here, there are very good local schools but I have not found an international school that can be a good option for us.
I plan to do another video on what we have done to help her learn up to now.
Please let me know if you like this kind of videos, please let me know if you have any comments and thanks a lot for watching and for listening!
See you in the next video!
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