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Title: Trilingualism at two and a half.
Hello this is Sara and this is a trilingualism update on my daughter, Emilia.
If you do not know us, she is learning Italian, Albanian and French.
You might be able to hear Emilia in the background. She is very talkative! At two and a half she is very very talkative!
I did another update where I talked about her advancement up to two years old.
I left you that she could say phrases of 3-4 words in Albanian. The phrases of 3-4 words were pretty rare in French and in Italian.
Between French and Italian I could not say which one was the dominant language, but, it was clear that Albanian was her first language.
At two and a half, she clearly knows the linguistic differences.
The way I know this it is because she can distinguish between how mamma says it, how daddy says it and how, in day-care, something is said.
We do this kind of exercise where I take a word and I say how mama says it…
…or, we start with how mamma says it and ask her how daddy says it and how in day-care say it.
She pretty much (for some words) can find the three equivalences. For some words, she knows only two: Italian and Albanian.
She can switch language depending on to whom she is speaking with. That is very clear in the family dynamics.
If she is talking to me, she speaks to me in Albanian and If she is talking to her dad, she speaks to him in Italian.
The only "but" in this picture is that I am not noticing her doing the same in playgrounds, where French is the main language.
One thing, that is very peculiar to her situation, is that she has a French accent…and you can hear that in Albanian and Italian too.
Not everything she says has a French accent, but, the "R" sound is like a "Hrr" sound.
Now I am going to tell you how she is doing in each language. We have tried to expose her in equal amounts to every language.
Even in this almost equal exposure to the different languages, Albanian is clearly her first (dominant) language.
We have noticed that her expressivity has gone way up in Albanian. She can hold a conversation now.
Another thing is her understanding of Albanian. Sometimes, I am talking to her, just so that she can get used too, but she understands me.
I was very surprised a couple of times on how much she could understand!
For example, one day I was telling to her: "Oh Emilia! My back is hurting because, yesterday, you wanted me to hold you a lot of times…."
"…and now it is hurting a lot!" I see her making something strange going towards my back.
And I was like "What are you doing?" And she says "I am going to kiss your back mamma".
Now Italian has become clearly her second language. She is doing very well. She can say phrases of 3-4 in Italian now.
She cannot quite hold a conversation yet. But, what she does is like.. she is talking in Italian and, …
..when she has something to say that she cannot, she says it in Albanian.
Since my husband has become very good at understanding also these phrases that she says in Albanian, it is still ok.
That helps her to learn even more Italian because she says something in Albanian to him and he says it back in Italian…
..which reinforces even more how the same phrase is in Italian.
In French we went up and down.
There was a point, maybe at two years and three months, were she had a huge improvement in French.
She was speaking a lot of French. So much that I was learning French from her (some words of course). Then she suddenly stopped.
She speaks very little French now. She still speaks French when she is alone, during play and in songs, but..
It is like, she went up-up-up and then down. We found out that this (most probably) is because she had a friend in day-care. She was 6 months older.
…that gave Emilia the boost to speak a lot of French. Her friend was moved to another group for bigger children and that is why she sat back.
Now she is speaking even less than she was speaking before having this boost from her friend.
In day-care she is speaking very little. She sings in French, she speaks (most probably in Italian or in Albanian) to herself, but,
..when it comes to interacting with people, she is either shy or something, because she speaks very little. She says yes no and little more.
So, this is overall my update, probably a long one, but I find them very useful for me to remember, but also, ..
…every input that comes from other people, it is very helpful!
If you are new to this channel and you want to see more on our family and our journey, please feel free to subscribe.
Otherwise, thanks a lot for watching and see you in the next video!