Pictures of the Day - August 2011

If you're interested in checking out last month's Pictures of the Day, have a look at this slideshow. You can click on any picture to go to a larger resolution on flickr, and if you want to see the description, just click on "info." Enjoy!

Angela and I: Spanish or English?

I originally posted this article to my Sitzman ABC blog, but I thought some Sitzblog readers might be interested, too. If you are, check it out:

Language Use in Bilingual Couples and Families

My wife Angela and I. Or should I say, "Mi esposa �ngela y yo"?
Or even, "Meine Frau Angela und ich"?

As you may know, I'm from the USA, so my native language is English. I'm married to a Costa Rican named Angela, and her native language is obviously Spanish. One question that people ask us a lot is "What language do you speak at home?" The answer is that we alternate between the two languages, but sometimes people are surprised at how infrequently we switch languages: once a year.

That's right, every August 25th (the way we chose that date is a more complicated story) we change languages. So about two weeks ago, we ended an English year and started a Spanish year. There are some advantages and some disadvantages to this approach.

I've heard of some couples or families that switch between languages every month, week, or even every day, but I think that would be a bit too confusing. The way we do it, once you start a new language year, it's very unlikely that you'll forget which language you're supposed to speak. As a result, one person can really work on building up his or her fluency. You can also avoid falling into a "Spanglish" trap wherein you speak a mixture of two languages, which can be confusing for you or some onlookers (or in this case "onlisteners," I guess).

There are also some disadvantages. In the case of Angela and I, we usually prefer to not speak our native language. In other words, I prefer our Spanish years, and Angela prefers our English years since we both want to practice a language that's foreign to us. With this approach, one of us has to go for most of a year with little practice in the target language. We do still speak English with my friends and family and Spanish with Angela's. Also, while living in Costa Rica many daily interactions out of home are in Spanish, but we both speak mostly English at work, so at least there's always some practice of both languages.

One big question mark for the future is what we'll do if we have kids. As I noted in my articles about naming customs (USA here and Costa Rica here), we don't even know what last names our kids would have, and we're also unsure how to best raise a bilingual child. I've heard that it's best if each parent always speaks his or her native language with the children so the children don't mix up the two languages. But if we had a kid and it were a Spanish year, for example, it would maybe be weird for me to speak English with the kid and Spanish with Angela, all in the same conversation. I guess we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.

What about you? Are you in a bilingual or multilingual family or relationship? Do you know anyone who is? How do you handle it, or how would you handle it if you were? Wow, we have a great opportunity here to practice conditional tenses! 

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

We're still not sure if our kids will prefer Spanish or English, but at least we can
rest assured that they'll grow up with camouflage skirts and Iron Maiden music. 

North Devon Hawk Walks

How about this for an experience? Falcolnry, but not just watching, actually getting to have the birds fly to and from your arm! It was amazing.

We didn't have the best weather in the world, after all the sunshine of the previous three days, but at least it didn't rain while we were there. We drove to the little village of Withypool (mentioned previously) and met Nigel Penfold, the Falcolner. He took us up into the hills above Withypool and from there we walked about 100 metres down into the valley. After that we took it in turns to do things with the birds.

Nigel took two birds with him, Cassius and Lady MacBeth. We spent ages with Cassius, the younger bird. They are both Harris hawks. He told us all about them - their features, how they fly and hunt, etc. It was very interesting. We wore a thick leather glove on our left hand and Nigel gave us bits of rabbit to hold and the bird would fly onto the glove, eat the meat, stay for a bit and then fly off into a tree about another 100 metres away from us.

We were with the birds for an hour so we all got a fair few times of doing this. My only criticisms of the whole experience were that it didn't really qualify as a walk, since we didn't really walk anywhere. And we didn't see much of Lady MacBeth because she wasn't hungry - we'd booked this a month in advance so you'd have thought he would have not fed her to ensure she was hungry, wouldn't you?

Still, it was a great way to end the school holidays. The girls really enjoyed it and I can't think of anywhere else where you can do this, certainly not in your average theme park or zoo. If you're interested, just Google 'North Devon Hawk Walks' and you'll find Nigel's website. It costs �10 per person.

Beached Sailboat

Beached Sailboat; Early Street, City Island

The Summer House At City Island Yacht Club

Much of the destruction from Tropical Storm Irene has been well documented this week, but some damage  has gone largely unreported. The pier at the City Island Yacht Club is one such example.

Extending out over the waters of this century-old club, the pier, or Summer House, was more than just a launch-dock for boat owners; it served as a focal point for socializing too. On hot summer evenings, the benches here were a popular spot to relax while enjoying the breezes off of Eastchester Bay. The racing team from Columbia University kept their sailboats here, as well.

Back in my City Island days, I spent many evenings on this dock, gazing out at the mooring field with the East River bridges and Manhattan skyline twinkling in the distance. Good times!    

 Fortunately, plans for rebuilding are already underway.

City Island Yacht Club

City Island Sailing: More Photos

Map

                                             

Marvellous Megaliths Walk

Our walk on Tuesday 6th September starts at 2pm from the parking for the megalithic alignments on the D781 just outside the village of Erdeven (east of Lorient). This is a very attractive and easy-going walk, taking in many exceptional neolithic remains on various sites. Suitable for everyone, without any particular diffculties. Hope we can enjoy some September sunshine along the way!

Canada of my Dreams

I never was in Canada. But I read so much about it's nature. And I wrote abut it many times, too. it's possible that I lived in a similar place in one of my previous lives -how can I explain this unusual love that I feel for the northern parts of this Earth? :-)

 Sometimes I read the question when is the best time to visit New England and Canada -it's because the not very numerous rooms for tourists (specially the best) are sold about a year before the season. But there are always free rooms in Spring and Autumn. The "aborigens" say, that spring and autumn are more interesting for those who loves nature. It's because there are not only incredible colors in this period but you can see many animals grazing in the open spaces.

Here are some images I found about Canada in the web.


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