Although I do OPOL English with my kids I am still trying to indirectly bolster the French they get with their dad. We aim for consistent OPOL-ing, but we do allow ourselves to sing in other languages. Another good way I try is through books. Songs and books seem to work well as an exception to the OPOL rule, without undermining our consistency the rest of the time. It’s a bit like playacting, so it seems alright to transgress, as it were, into the other language, without fear of abandoning the spirit of OPOL. My husband, though, allows less transgression since his is the language with less support, while I actively seek to redress the balance of languages by making some of the kids’ “English time” with me count as “French time” by reading and singing in French…and occasionally in Arabic.
In theory I’d prefer authentic resources in a target language. However, I’m short of some good suggestions for really lovely French books, and I don’t want to order a huge selection from Amazon, only to be disappointed. So in the meantime I have acquired a couple of translations. After my three-year old was given some Julia Donaldson CDs, including The Gruffalo, I got the French and Arabic versions of the book (more on the Arabic later).
The Gruffalo, translated by Jean-François Ménard
The whole collection has been quite a hit. The French translation is beautifully done and my little Beiruti already knows it by heart. It sticks close to the original without sounding forced. The repetition of “terrible” which rings so well in English has been replaced by a vast array of synonyms in French, a language which prefers to avoid any repetition at all (to the point that it has synonyms for country names eg Outre-Rhin for Germany, and transalpin for Italian).
The only minor issue I had with it isn’t really linguistic, it’s more of a parenting qualm. The mouse says three times to the Gruffalo: “Tu vois, je ne t’ai pas menti,” – ‘You see, I wasn’t lying.’ In the original, although it is clear that the mouse is indeed stretching the truth when he says that all the animals are scared of him, the word “lying” isn’t used. When you are trying to teach a three-year old always to tell the truth, it doesn’t feel quite right to show lying as entertainment and I would have preferred to avoid an explicit reference. Otherwise we’ve been delighted with it.
What have been your experiences with translations? Can anybody recommend some great original French books for 3-4 years old?