The Language Police

The Language Police have arrived.

In our home we are getting fined every time we speak in the wrong language.  Yesterday we all had to speak only English, and today we all have to speak only Chinese.  Yesterday was very relaxing for me, but today it is pretty tough going.

Why are we stressing ourselves out in this way?

The girls' third cousin, from China, is staying with us for the next several days over the school holidays.  This year she moved to Christchurch and is attending secondary school there.  Of course she is fluent in Chinese, but her English is still at the level of simple conversation.  Whenever she stays with us, she and the rest of the Chinese folk chat away in Chinese, and she doesn't get a chance to practice her English.

So, we needed to get the police involved to enforce the right language.

But for the sake of fairness, the police decided to challenge me, too, and require that I work a bit harder on my Chinese.

The inspiration for all this was the Chalet School books (I think Mulan has read about 59 of the 62 books in the series).  The girls in the books speak multiple languages, and the school has set days for each language.  There are fines (real money) for infringements.

We are not at the level of real money, but yesterday Mulan and Miya spent a few hours making paper money for all of us.  Each day we are given $30 in our own purse, and each time we use the wrong language we need to pay a little into the fines box.  If we run out of money before the end of the day, then Mulan and Miya won't cook our eggs at breakfast/lunch.

This is all very well and good in theory, but, after being eager to set up the system, Miya has been the one who has had the most problems.  This is not because Miya is struggling with either English or Chinese -- she is fluent in both -- but it's because she is so used to speaking to me in English and Mama in Chinese that she feels very stressed at using the other language with each of us.  As we all know, seven-year-olds are very chatty, and she likes to chat comfortably with us.

So, we have agreed that Miya can have times off from having to follow the rules, and also that Mama and I can chat to her in our respective languages, if she wants.

We'll see over the next several days how all this forced language practice works out for us all.