Wednesday, October 24, 2012

10/24/12 Babar

"Mom, I have a SPECIAL book for you to read!" Katrina announced delightedly tonight after her bath.

I'm sorta "done" with reading to the kids before bedtime. Truth is, I was never crazy about this particular aspect of childhood, even though I always knew how important it was, and how great the bonding is, it teaches them to read....yeah yeah yeah, great stuff. Once I got started reading, I was OK, but I can't say I always looked forward to it, it always seemed like one last thing before getting them to bed.

But tonight when Katrina showed her "special" book, I pounced on it. It was a hand-me-down from a friend, a Babar book called "Babar et L'etoile du Cirque," in French. Katrina made sure to point out to me that the word "Niveau" meant reading "level" (the emblem made that clear), and then asked me excitedly to read it to her.

I've done this before, stumbling through each French sentence and then translating it into English with some, er, "creative interpretation" (meaning, I don't know all the translations!) but it's been a while since I've done this.

My French is ancient, it really never got off the ground -- but the base is there and I could become fluent if I were immersed, and with a credible accent. I've suspected for a while that Katrina has a particular interest and facility for languages, and seeing her with this book reminded me of that. Her language-superpower stage of life is in its sunset, it's a shame I haven't found a way to leverage that.

Maybe via a classic fictional elephant, we could learn it together!

10/24/12

2 comments:

cstatman said...

fyi Babar is why i will not eat mushrooms. read to her every chance you get

nb said...

In which language? :) (et j'aime bien les champignons!)