Natural Familly World » languages

Recommend: Mama Lisa’s World Children Music Site

Monica — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:33:49 +0000

This is a site I discovered a couple of years ago, and still visit on a regular basis.

Mama Lisa’s World is a site that compiles hundreds of children’s lyrics and rhymes from around the world. Many times you can also find scores, translations, music, and videos. Isn’t it fun?

It’s a Great Foreign Language and Cultural Learning Resource!

I have a passion for foreign languages and my son loves to sing, so we usually enjoy whatever new items we find at Mama Lisa’s site. The site is available in English, French and Spanish, but the lyrics and rhymes come from around the world, in many, many languages.

As a side note, our Pelangi Pelangi video has been recently featured in the song’s page. Note that we don’t speak *any* Indonesian .

Check it here: Pelangi, Pelangi, by Carlos and I

photo credit: Trenton Schulz

Standard Mother Language?

Monica — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:57:28 +0000

Another post to celebrate the International Mother Language!

I’m Ecuadorian and my Mother Language is Spanish. I’d say is Ecuadorian Spanish because I love using our slangs and a bit of “wrong” grammar, product of a merge with the native Quichua. Now please don’t think in Ecuador we talk very different from standard Spanish…but wait!… with so many countries and cultures speaking Spanish what is standard Spanish like? We do speak different everywhere but we do understand each other most of the time. I mean, I have weekly parenting podcast in Spanish where I interview people from different countries and get feedback from everywhere. It seems that most people gets the meaning of the conversations, although I make an effort to avoid speaking my way so I’m not confusing anyone with our strange grammar.

This reminds me when I was backpacking in an island of the Titicaca Lake, Bolivia and met another adventurer from Argentina. We were able to understand each other perfectly but people from the island thought he was talking in English. This was so fun because people asked him higher prices and both sides asked me for an interpretation.

It must be a matter of getting used to the new accent, as when I first spoke in English (by telephone) with a guy from South Africa that wanted to buy from my online store. I thought he was from Greece, really! Then when we met in person after a while talking I was able to understand everything in English, not Greek

Do you have any experience when you didn’t understand native speakers of your mother language? Do you have a clear idea of what “standard (your mother language here)” sounds like?

Say Hello In different Languages

Monica — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:20:50 +0000

Today February 21st (Saturday) is the International Mother Language Day proclaimed by UNESCO’s General Conference in November 1999 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

I have to admit that I’ve not been aware of this observation day until recently that I was having a look at my calendar, but this sounds like fun to me since I love all things related to languages, countries and cultures.

Since I have a passion for languages this blog is for families around the world, I plan to have some language chit chat in the future, but meanwhile, why don’t we try saying hello in different languages? Feel free to add other languages you’ve learnt and typing in the original characters. Would appreciate any explanation on the real meaning or usage.

I’ll start:

Spanish: (mother language): Hola

Also:

Quichua (We call Quichua in Ecuador and Quechua in Peru and Bolivia): “Allillachu cangui”

I want to learn more! Would you please…? My son inherited my passion for languages and he’s always asking me how to say “that” in “this language”, so you’ll also help this homeschooling mama to fulfill the curricula