August 14, 2020
Bonjour! Hang on, if learning French isn’t your thing, that’s OK. I don’t want to scare anyone away with my continued posts on language learning, because it is NOT necessary for creating fun adventures and memories with your kids. However, it is a big part of who I am, and language certainly contributes to the travel experiences I have with my grandchildren that I share with other parents and grandparents.
Let’s face it, you probably have another year before you will be able to make international travel again part of your planning. So why not take an hour or so a week and teach some foreign language basics to your children or commit to learn a new target language with them. It cant’ hurt, and it may make your eventual foreign travel more rewarding. I am starting to plan a trip to Italy for next year, and I speak no Italian. So I am going to be following some of my own tips for planning this future trip!
First of all, you don’t have to be working on French to follow my tips and ideas. I am sure that most of what I find in French is available in other languages. I have found a couple similar sites for Italian. Also, I can assure you that you can make some solid progress by committing an hour or two a week, as long as you are consistent. Most weeks, I have an evening with my grandkids, and they have made a lot of progress just doing the simple things I suggest in these posts.
I shared some ideas in my earlier post – C’est une banane! on July 31, 2020 – about how to introduce vocabulary basics to your very young children through songs and visual games. I included links in that post to several YouTube sites that will help you and your little ones learn some fun French nursery tunes.
In this post, I am going to share some ideas for those children who are a little older. When the children are starting to learn to read, they are able to engage with the second language through additional learning methods. The matching game and the single-word board books I shared in the July 31 post are still useful at the older age.
Now you can start having them read the words as they turn over the match game cards or read the words that are on the pages of the board books. When your children are able to read the words themselves, be sure to emphasize that they learn the correct modifier with each word, such as “le” la” or “l’” (le lait, la banane, l’eau).
Ready for a few more ideas? Numbers and colors are pretty basic vocabulary in any language you are targeting, as well as really useful on your adventures. Games offer great learning moments. You can teach numbers and colors by making a few language adaptations to games you may already have at home. The Hasbro game SORRY! is a great place to start. You can insert a few French vocabulary words into the game playing and practice speaking several basic words – we’ll call this language that is mostly English with some French here-and-there “franglais.”
Some BASIC VOCABULARY to play SORRY! in franglais.
You could start with the minimum – just numbers and colors. Playing piece colors are: bleu, rouge, vert and jaune (blue, red, green and yellow). Click here for pronunciation help (these are the first four colors pronounced for you on the video).
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjpcRKrUMJo
You need the numbers 1 through 12 to play the game: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix, onze, douze.
Click here for pronunciation help with these numbers.
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL5BMl4jwoY
If you know some French, you may easily add these vocabulary words into the play.
· The playing pieces are pions.
· You start the game with the pions at le départ.
· Place the cards face down, face cachée.
· To draw a card is piger une carte.
· Play options are avancer (move forward), reculer (move backward) and séparer (split the count for number 7).
· You can also renvoyer another player au depart (send back to start).
· The goal is to be the first (le premier) to get all your pions to l’arrivee.
· To win is gagner.
Milton Bradley’s Chutes and Ladders is another popular children’s board game that can provide a good time for children while learning numbers in the target language. In French this can be played as Toboggans et Échelles. The numbers do go up to 100, which can be tricky for non-French speakers. If you don’t already know French, be warned. Numbers get a little crazy once you get to 70.
I am including two links for learning numbers in French. They both show the written word, as well as the number. The first is a cute children’s singing version in four segments. The second is simple spoken pronunciations.
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnrTrbJ6mYs
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEx2fPn-_UE
We also play picture dominoes. The children don’t read while playing, but they can learn different sets of words, depending on your domino set. I have a set of animal dominoes that we play in French. If you aren’t strong in the language, you may have to look up about 10 words to play the game (see my note below for a translation app that I use). My game has ladybugs, cats, chickens, ducks, bunnies and butterflies. Little Emma is always happy when she wins a game!
Just like many children I know, my grandchildren love to help out in the kitchen. And the kitchen is a natural place for some solid language learning. The things my four like to make typically have few and common ingredients. Flour, eggs, milk, sugar, salt. And we use basic measuring tools, including a cup, a teaspoon and a tablespoon.
These are easy words for you to look up before your kitchen adventure if you don’t already know the words (see my note below for a translation app I use). In French, it’s la farine, les oeufs, du lait, du sucre, du sel. And une tasse, une petite cuillère and une grande cuillère.
Along with making some tasty baked goods, your children will be learning some good, practical French. These little kitchen adventures make for great memories as you mix up the ingredients and the languages.
I have mentioned looking up words a couple times in this post. I like to use Reverso – https://context.reverso.net/translation – and I especially like the Reverso Translate and Learn app on my phone. I find this particularly helpful because it shows sentences in your primary and target language that place the word you are searching in different contexts. Seeing the word in context really helps me be sure I am using the most appropriate translation.
I hope this helps you take some steps toward your goal of learning some basics in a target language, whether for a future dream trip, to connect with your family heritage or to start a personal journey for you and the special kids in your life. A little franglais in your play can build some good groundwork for more serious learning.
Lots of great, fun ideas! Thank you….or should I say, Merci!