What happens when you raise a child in three languages...?
What happens when an Australian father and a Swedish mother have a toddler in Paris?
An Australian man and a Swedish woman take their toddler to school in Paris. It sounds like the set up for a (bad) joke, doesn’t it? But it’s our story.
And I realized that it’s kinda unique.
So we made a podcast episode about it, where Lina and I answered your questions about raising a trilingual child.
I want to stress, this is purely a matter of circumstance. If I lived in Australia with an Australian wife and an Australian son, I know I wouldn’t be teaching him two extra languages before the age of three. No way.
These languages are not an extra-curricular set of activities, it’s just life, but it’s pretty interesting. Imagine: Lina only speaks to our son in Swedish, I only speak English, and all around him (and especially at daycare) - it’s just French. It makes for some entertaining scenes.
Otis (our son) doesn’t seem at all confused by it, but does occasionally (and unexpectedly) drop French words into conversation at home. He will say things like interdit when he doesn’t like something (it means “not allowed” or “forbidden”). If something is too dangerous for his taste, he’ll caution doucement (“slowly”). And the other day, he told me to attends (wait!).
Otherwise, he seems pretty set on only answering Lina in Swedish, and me in English, and, according to the teaching staff, he speaks French at daycare.
On the pod we answered questions sent in from Patreon members. Which language does he prefer to speak? (English, mostly). Does he understand that they’re all different languages? (More and more, yes). What language does he speak as a reflex? (Depends on where he is). Does he ever mix it all up? (Yes! Ja! Oui!)
You can listen to the episode below and read a bit more about it here.
Oh yes, and in case you were wondering, the photo above is from rue Ferou near the Saint Sulpice church. The text on the wall is the iconic poem Bateau Ivre by Arthur Rimbaud. Here’s a Google Maps link to the street, in case you want to find it.
What else is cooking?
Listeners may have noticed that there’s a new sponsor for the podcast this month. Introducing CooknWithClass, the Paris cooking school where I did my recent sauce making lessons. Béarnaise, Mayonnaise, Hollandaise and more. As I said on the podcast, it was truly excellent. I think you would all enjoy it. Please book using this link - it will be the same price for you, but they’ll know I sent you!
Look, there’s me making mayonnaise below for the first time in my life.
New Paris videos
This week I shared a 20 minute video walk along the Ile Saint-Louis, my favourite walk in Paris. The video is new. You can see it below! The audio, meanwhile, is from an older podcast episode about the island. The aim here is to bring some life to older podcast episodes, while also bringing some exciting action to my YouTube channel.
Want more similar videos? Oh that’s good, because we’ve done three more as part of this experiment.
Watch them, like them, share them, comment on them… and subscribe to the channel. YouTube is a fun place, I plan to do more there… Subscribe to the channel in one click now, it’s free!
The other three videos will come out this week. Clues: Rue M__________, rue C___, and rue des A_______. Any guesses? Comments below, first correct answer gets a shoutout on the show.
In other news
As many of you will have seen on social media, I just came back to Paris from a whirlwind trip through San Francisco, Sydney, and Tasmania. The next episode of the podcast (on Monday) will be a popular one from the archives, giving me a chance to catch up on the dreaded jet lag and on everything I’ve missed in the past two weeks.
Look, there’s me and Eddie in Sydney. He’s the behind-the-scenes editor of the show, and incidentally, my brother!
Talk soon, thanks for reading
Oliver
PS: If you’re looking for extras from The Earful Tower, become a member on Substack here, or Patreon here.
Rue Montorgueil, rue Cler and rue des Abbesses is my guess!
Rue Montorgueil, rue Constance, rue des Abbesses