Fluency for children in 6 months (?)

[Sara]

This is only my 2nd posting but this has been a topic that has bugged me for several years. What is fluency ? I have always thought it was to be able to speak the language like a native. However , since living here I have heard and read that people are fluent after 3 months? How can this be ? When my son was 2 and a half he had another little english friend living the other side of town to us and she proudly said that her son ( who was 3 then) was fluent in 'both' languages. I am not a confrontational person so I smiled and said nothing.

Over the years I have met similar English people who have said roughly the same thing to me about their children ( who incidentally the parents  can't speak french themselves). I met one chap who did n't know any of the verbs or tenses and would point at everything but his wife would tell everyone he was fluent.  I have to say this turns my stomache and normally I can't be bothered to continue the friendship. I can not stand bragging and definately when it is not true , I prefer down to earth self affacing people (not many of those around )

My son (you probably read my previous posting)  is just 7 and is only just learning to conjuguete his verbs . Surely if you don't know your tenses you cannot understand the language properly . So my son is not fluent yet . He understands most things and can communicate well , I believe he will not be 'fluent' until next year. As I mentioned on my previous posting he is not stupid and for tests which are twice a week he usually gets an 'A'- (acquis).

Over the week I - Yes I- spend literally hours translating stories (help with google)so that I can understand them and then to help him for the vocabulary (we have over 200 books from the 'foire a tout') Every Wednesday my son will have one hour in the morning reading with me , going over verbs and spelling and one hour in the afternoon with some maths thrown in . Saturday and Sundays the same- Is this the 'norm' , or am I unusual' ?

Today ( At the moment he is watching tv , being Saturday, he will soon get fed up with that and will play with his lego) for example I have put aside 4 books - one book is Moi Je Lis ( he will read 2 chapters) I then repeat it and translate any words into english so that he understands more. He mentioned yesterday that he wanted to look at some books on 'prehistoric days' so I have found 2 books to flick through with him and read - Youpi-  and I have the entire collection of Limagerie for children so we shall look through the one about cavemen etc.... tomorrow will be similar. If the weather is nice we will go out somewhere as well , ( normally a beautiful walk in breathtaking Normandie)

As you can see I spend a lot of time and energy on my son and I am rather confused on this subject, he now knows a lot of vocabulary but I know being his mum , he is not fluent yet......... What do you think ?- Please don't shoot me down in flames.[:)]

Sarah

[cooperlola]

There is a definition of fluency ( http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa072701b.htm) but to my mind it's about the ability to use a language without thinking.  That doesn't mean you know every word in the dictionary or get every point of grammar correctly - it means the language comes out without reference to another language and that you know what's going on when people are speaking it without needing a context to figure it out. For example, when reading, a fluent user of a language doesn't - to my mind - translate into their mother tongue at any stage but just reads and digests.  I'm not a teacher and don't know but thus I'm not sure that translating French books into English is a good approach  for a very young child - but only a professional educator could answer that - it's just a gut feeling.  It is interesting too that accent is stressed in the "fluency" definition I've quoted.

I think you're right in that many people confuse advanced speaking (as I'd define my own ability in French) with fluency and I guess one is inclined to credit one's own kids with a greater ability than they have - especially in public - thus I wouldn't get too hung up on other parents' analyses of their offspring!  But I don't have any myself so this could be wrong.  However, at his age I have no doubt that he will become fluent in time as he is still developing his mother tongue.  I learnt French by spending my holidays with a French family and I found that suddenly one day (almost like the lightbulb going on in my head) I was laughing at a joke somebody made at the dinner table.  Everybody looked at me open mouthed as we all realised that I understood what was going on without being told.  I had nobody to translate for me - it just happened - possibly it was a good thing (from a language point of view if nothing else) to have no English people around to translate - I just had to figure it out.

[Sara]

Many thanks for comments, I mainly translate words I know he would not know (common nouns,or tenses he has not learnt ) Other than that he understands the stories.

P.S  He has a very good accent.

Just read article I am just 'advanced' in the catagory. Which is fair enough as I don't work over here, I am not married to french person and do not 'intergrate' with french village people.

The french people I would love to 'intergrete 'with have secondary  homes here and come over only at weekends or holidays. They normally work in Paris or other cities and have travelled widely and when they are back here rather be with their family- fair enough. I have also met 3 lovely  french ladies (same age as me ) similar people all have good jobs but work full time and therefore are busy at weekends. Hence I normally hermit myself away and keep myself busy.

[Chancer]

This is a subject close to my heart, my bête noire is people saying "Oh its OK/easy for you because you are fluent" I normally tell them that I was not even fluent in English when I came to France, and like them had little or no French, the only difference between us is the motivation to learn, not surprisingly it doesnt make me popular.

I really liked Cooperlolas definition and like her all of a sudden I crossed over to thinking in French, from that point onwards there was never a regression, in fact it's the opposite I no longer speak easily in English as often I am without realising thinking of what I want to express in French and then trying to find the English for it, often of course there is no reasonable translation, at the beginning of this paragraph I thought "au but d'un moment" and almost typed it before having to think how to say it in English.

I am especially chuffed now as by this definition from the link I am now fluent in French [:D] Although I know I still have a lot of  learning ahead of me.

According to the "official" definition, fluency refers to an ability to converse fluidly and easily. Do you feel comfortable speaking the language? Can you communicate easily with native speakers? Can you read newspapers, listen to the radio, and watch tv? Are you able to understand the gist of the language as it is spoken and written, even if you don't know every single word? Can you understand native speakers from different regions? The more fluent you are, the more of these questions you can answer "yes" to.

Context - A fluent speaker may have some gaps in vocabulary, but is capable of figuring out these terms in context. Likewise s/he can reword sentences in order to describe an object, explain an idea, or get a point across, even if s/he doesn't know the actual terms.

Thinking in the language - Pretty much everyone agrees that this is an important sign of fluency. Thinking in the language means that you understand the words without actually translating them into your native language.

This morning I was coaching a French friend who has a job interview where part of it will be in English, we have never before talked in English but I have for a long suspected that his level of English comprehension is probably higher than mine in French, he went to university when he was 30 so took his studies more seriously than most but like many has always been too self conscious to put his learning to use.

Sarah you mentioned what you do with your son and asked if it is normal, perhaps not for many families but he will really benefit from the time and effort you are investing in him, he will certainly grow up being bi-lingual,  and totally at ease and fluent in both the languages.

When I visited my friends this morning his wife was doing the same with their children, she teaches both English and French and is very keen for the children to be very good at English hence our friendship, the daughter has an amazing accent as she was copying my speech and learning phrases before she could even read in French, her older brother tends to see the written word and pronounces it in the French way, the daughter often corrects her institutrice after asking me for confirmation.

[Ladoix]

Hi Sarah,

I too often wonder what true fluency is and Cooperlola and Chancer make some great points.  I would say children such as ours are fluent now as they really never struggle for a word in either language, my kids just speak without hesitation.

They do sometimes muddle the languages in the same sentence, so I correct them and we always speak English at home, although they often play together in French;  I feel Cooperlola is right about not translating the books for your son though, my feeling is also to keep the 2 languages separate as some things are better in French, some in English.  A classic example of this has to be in the story 'Les Aristochats', Thomas O'Malley, Chat de la Goutiere, just does not have the same ring as Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat![:P]

You also asked about the amount of work you do with your son out of school - I'm keen for my kids to do well and am learning a great deal through their studying but I feel an extra 6 hours a week of schoolwork, as well as the extensive school week here, plus homework is rather a lot.  With the karate (or is it judo) as well, there's not a lot of time left for just doing nothing, that's what I miss most about being a mum - I rarely have chance to sit and do nothing - I suppose I could be doing nothing now but it's nice to chat with  someone who has similar concerns about bringing up the children as immigrants.[;-)]

Hope that helps

[Sara]

Many thanks again for your comments Ladoix, the main reason I look at books with Jacques is to learn new words only.

I don't give him a direct translation , I ask him what is happening in the story, to see if he understands (I do the google translation mainly for me so that I can understand what is going on before we read the book, sometimes it does not translate properly but I can then get the general gist of the story) It really helps me and I am positive it will enrich his vocabulary. It is just a lot of hard work! I enjoy it though.

Sarah

[Kitty]

From my experience of bringing a number of children here, they learn French as follows:

It takes one school year for children to understand French

It takes one more school year to speak French

It takes one further school year to read and write French

By the end of the 3rd year, they are virtually on the same level of French children.  They will never be at an equal level as they will not know things that French children automatically know e.g. French nursery rhymes, French culture and history etc.

[Chancer]

To continue with the fluency discussion, I find it really hard to measure progress, on a day to day, month to month basis it is easy to feel that I am in fact regressing but sometimes nice things happen that make me realise that I have improved.

At the end of last year I once again did battle with the Hôtel des Impôts re taxe d'habitation I was aware that this time I understood everything and was able to express myself and negotaite much better than the year before.

The other night I chatted with a couple that I havnt seen for over a year, they commented on how much better my French was "tu ne parle plus comme une vache espagnole" and that they can now speak at normal speed which is easier for them.

But the most pleasant discovery and the one I am most proud of was 2 nights ago when having  run out of English books to read I started a French one that I had picked up, I have read a few before but it has always been a big effort and I only had the force to continue if it was a book that really fascinated me or a childrens book, I read for pleasure and to decontract so struggling with text, using a dictionary etc was just too much like hard work.

I reckon its been 18 months since my last French book and I found to my great joy that it no longer takes any effort from me, very rarely is there a word I dont know but I always understand the context, they dont throw me like before, I dont use a dictionary and if the word is repeated I eventually work it out and then confirm the next day with the dictionary.

I am definitely reading and taking it in in French, as an  exercise I tried translating as I read and it was really hard work.

The book is Latutude Zéro by Mike Horn, the South African who circumnavigated the world always within 40km of the equator, the only guy ever to have crossed the Forests of Bresil. He and his wife are pretty fluent French speakers (I have seen them on the TV) so I think the book was written by him in the French language as it hasnt yet contained the past historic tense, the last one I read had been translated into French by an ecrivain and was for the most part in the past historic, I think this does make it a little easier to read.

The one thing that does keep tripping me up is the conjunction ne que meaning only, the ne precedes the first verb but often the que doesnt appear until the next line by which time I have already read the negation of the verb.

I need to set myself another unacheivable target now! [:D]

[idun]

No one ever slows down for me speaking french and I speak it as quickly as I do english and I still sound like a vache espagnole!!!!

As a foreign family even though our kids were born in France, they still had holes in their language and knowledge of french things when they got to college.

I have heard much nonsense about fluency over the years, about both children and adults. It must depend on what people like to delude themselves with and many do just that. And ofcourse there are those lucky gifted people who learn quickly are fluent and sans accent quite often, it must be nice.

I was told about 15 years ago by an english woman who had been in France just about as long as I had that I spoke good french and she got by. Well, she did not even near get by. She couldn't understand very banal chit chat, never mind something complicated or profound. Still she ran off with a french man and I would hope that her french is far better than mine now, as they do say take a lover to learn the language !!!!!

[Gardengirl]

Chancer, well done - that does sound like a great leap forward! I loved the phrase 'vache espagnol' - never heard that before!

I feel I mostly get by rather than having fluency, although a lot of people seem to think I'm fluent. Anywhere other than this area, I tend to think - ah, so much easier! We drove down via Beaune last week, and it was very easy there chatting to people, as it was near Grenoble recently. Here I still find it harder going, whether with friends or in the market. I understand most of what is said, but struggle at times with, for instance, some of what the man on the cheese stall from Nimes sometimes says, or my friend from Marseille. Not that it matters so much, as we all get along fine.

As for accent, I was told in the past by someone who taught adults at the British Institute in Paris for many years that those from the north-east of England tend to have good French accents, with people from Berwick tending to be best. How true that is or was, I don't know - I've only ever known one person from Berwick, and I found his pronunciation to be very English.

[Anton Redman II]

I first read 'Vache Espagnol' in a pre war Leslie Charteris Saint short story. Even then we were warned that it was dated slang. On a very good day I can reply and think in French. Minor problem I do not have enough time to censor in French. 5 years ago pulled by the Gendarnes reply to could I speak French was ' Well enough for any questions you are likely to ask ' Spent the next ten minutes coping with more and more difficult questions about the car.

[Sara]

One of the first things that I learnt living here was that if you are pulled over by the gendarmes, never start speaking to them in french as you are more likely to get a fine or they will start asking awkward questions. If they think you can not speak any french they will probably wave you on your way.......

A bit naughty I know but oh well.....

Sarah

[idun]

I am from the NE of England but no where near Berwick and I sound 'english' when I speak french, even though I really do try AND I know people who have even thicker accents than I do.

The people of Berwick have a twist of a scottish accent in their accent so maybe that helps with those 'u' sounds that often gets people learning french, as the scots do use the 'u' sound too.

[Gardengirl]

I'm from the north-east, and I'm told my accent is good - even down here! Mind you, since living here I've learned to pronounce parts of words that are not sounded elsewhere! [:)]