petite anglaise

October 4, 2006

Belleville education

Filed under: misc, Tadpole sings — petiteanglaiseparis @ 7:37 pm

Tadpole has been going to school in Belleville for less than a month, and she is already speaking the language of the ‘hood, apparently.

I would like to point out that the distinctly meaty sniff you will hear was courtesy of my daughter.

35 Comments

  1. Hello,

    Am I deaf or what?? Sorry Petite Anglaise, I didn’t understand what your lovely daughter just said.
    Is it French or English? I understood the end though…and it IS English. Sorry :/
    Take Care!

    Comment by Vanessa — October 4, 2006 @ 8:23 pm

  2. That was the point, actually! My daughter’s school is about one third Chinese, and Tadpole has decided that she knows how to speak the language…

    Apologies, that was probably rather too cryptic for anyone who is not familiar with my neighbourhood…

    Comment by petite — October 4, 2006 @ 8:27 pm

  3. Little children speaking French is like elixir for the soul. Too bad you can’t bottle it and sell it on the internet.

    Comment by chantel — October 4, 2006 @ 8:53 pm

  4. How adorable! (the both of you) And why shouldn’t she speak the language? She’s clearly got the gift of gab.

    Just want to say that I love your blog. I’m a 23 year old American who’s been bitten by the Francophile bug. Your writing makes my workday just fly by!

    merci!

    ~Alexis

    Comment by Alexis — October 4, 2006 @ 8:54 pm

  5. So glad I wasn’t meant to understand it all…the chatter is sweet though! and hearing YOUR voice was nice.

    Chinese, eh?

    Comment by Maxly — October 4, 2006 @ 8:54 pm

  6. My voice is all over the press page in the radio stuff, if you really find you like the sound of it…

    It’s not as podtastic as my dear friend Anna’s though. Now there’s a girl who needs her own radio show.

    Comment by petite — October 4, 2006 @ 8:59 pm

  7. Now I can’t wait for Tadpole to be able to contribute to your blog. It can happen sooner than expected, remember that little 3 years old boy who purchased a car on ebay lol

    :)

    Comment by Rog — October 4, 2006 @ 9:26 pm

  8. La petite anglaise is your “nom de souris”? Err, even after 5 years of supposed French classes at school – although it was a whie ago now – the best my struggling brain can supposedly translate is the mouse’s name? Surely not!

    H.

    Comment by H — October 4, 2006 @ 10:58 pm

  9. Very cute. Glad you cleared up the language as it didn’t sound like french to me either.

    Tadpole seems quite curious and bright not to mention fun.

    Comment by Diane — October 5, 2006 @ 12:15 am

  10. Ah bon, c’était du chinois! Fiou.

    Comment by Choubine — October 5, 2006 @ 12:18 am

  11. There’s another spot to learn Chinese in Belleville: the laundry place! There are always Chinese speaking kids there, and some of them are probably in Tadpole’s class by the way.
    Lovely voice. She may even make it to the Star Ac’ in a few years ;)

    Comment by pardonmyfrench — October 5, 2006 @ 12:49 am

  12. Encourage her to learn Chinese – it’s very marketable and it’ll be so much easier for her to learn now than later!

    A French professor of mine married someone from Taiwan and their kid spoke 4 languages. French and Mandarin because of his parents, English because they lived in the USA, and teddy bear – because if mommies and daddies each have their own language, and other people speak another language, then surely teddy bears have their own language too . . .

    Comment by AlmostAmerican — October 5, 2006 @ 12:54 am

  13. I was beginning to think she was spending too much time in the 13th. ;-)

    Comment by Braunstonian — October 5, 2006 @ 10:08 am

  14. Oh I can do better snorts than that. Your wits aren’t about woman. You must outdo them, keep them on their toes.

    Comment by fjl — October 5, 2006 @ 10:21 am

  15. Knee How
    Ditto AlmostAmerican
    Tsai Dzen

    Comment by j — October 5, 2006 @ 10:42 am

  16. She sounded absolutely adorable, very convincing as Chinese. Are you going to have to learn Chinese so when she’s talking to your friends you can understand what they’ve been up to?!

    Comment by Rich — October 5, 2006 @ 11:38 am

  17. This could spawn interest across the pond

    Comment by Murphy — October 5, 2006 @ 11:45 am

  18. Sorry:- Lost with Jim in the Sturt Stoney desert Australia….cannot comment.

    Comment by simon — October 5, 2006 @ 12:30 pm

  19. Im still working on my secret recipe of Brownies in a rather pathetic, maybe misguided, though some may think “sweet”, attempt to woo you.
    No meaty sniffing tadpole will deter me, Do I have to bring my own watercooler?

    Comment by David — October 5, 2006 @ 12:59 pm

  20. I have come to the blogosphere very late in life, having thought for a long time that vanity publishing would present little of interest. And by and large this seems to be the case: a vast number of people, the equivalent of pub bores, sounding off about themselves.

    However, you mademoiselle are different. I keep returning to see what you have to say because there is a distinctive charm in your vignettes of life in Paris. Your pieces are not so much about you but about the quartier, la petite école, ou l’on mange bien etc. Added to which people by and large are fascinated by the French – ils sont tellement serieux! We feel (possibly wrongly) that they are so much more civilised than the rest of us, and you tend gently and kindly to disabuse us of that idea.

    I have been led to wonder what Hemingway, when he lived in Paris in the nineteen twenties, might have done with a blog? You might be interested in checking out a piece published on that excellent site Arts & Letters Daily (www.aldaily.com). The trail appears a little way down the middle ‘New Books’ column: “No point in going to the Flore: it’s not the same place where Sartre hung out. The Paris of Hemingway is gone too…”

    Comment by John Doff — October 5, 2006 @ 1:10 pm

  21. Woo me? Bring it on. It’s been a while. I’ve been too busy writing to do much living.

    Comment by petite — October 5, 2006 @ 1:33 pm

  22. “Woo me? Bring it on. It’s been a while.”

    Oh dear, Petite! Never say ‘bring it on.” Someone is liable to mistake you for a Republican……;-)

    Comment by Dave of the Lake — October 5, 2006 @ 3:45 pm

  23. damn that was priceless (and cute).

    Imagine if the SETI people heard that beaming in from outerspace …

    Oh and what was it that Tadpole wanted to put on?

    Keep it up mon cherie!

    Regards
    Disco

    Comment by Disco — October 5, 2006 @ 5:37 pm

  24. Awww, what did she want to put on her ear?

    Comment by Whisper — October 5, 2006 @ 6:56 pm

  25. ah, that was the headset I was using for its microphone…

    Comment by petite — October 5, 2006 @ 7:06 pm

  26. I read all the comments and listened to Tadpole’s extremely cute ramblings three times, but I still don’t get what she “doesn’t do anymore”…
    Just got back from Little Miss Sunshine and completely agree with all your praise and enjoyment. I was laughing out loud (occasionally alone) for two hours. Thanks for the tip!

    Comment by Paris Lights — October 5, 2006 @ 10:26 pm

  27. Am I hopeless? Why can’t I find where to click to listen like everyone else? It shouldn’t be that hard, right? It’s only a 2-sentence post…where can the link be hiding?

    Thanks!

    Comment by Margie — October 6, 2006 @ 12:32 am

  28. Hello Margie
    You need the Macromedia Flash player in order to see the link to Tadpole’s voice. If you don’t have this plugin installed in your browser, all you see is a white triangle between the two paragraphs of text.
    Pierre L

    Comment by Pierre L — October 6, 2006 @ 9:28 am

  29. Sorry, meant to say “white rectangle”.

    Comment by Pierre L — October 6, 2006 @ 9:30 am

  30. Wow! The connexion between “Belleville” and your daughter’s “chaï-woï-kwoï” led me to believe that in no time she’ll start learning how to prepare wen zhou noodle soups.
    Belleville is really the best! She’ll soon speak 1/3rd Chinese, 1/3rd Arabic and 1/3rd slang French with the old “fortif” Parisien accent ;-)
    Have fun!

    Comment by Sylrob — October 6, 2006 @ 2:00 pm

  31. are you sure she is speaking French? Tadpole sounds distinctly Chinese to me!

    Comment by simon t — October 6, 2006 @ 7:08 pm

  32. How cute! Never stops amazing me how celever tiny children can be with languages. Shes wonderful!

    Comment by Maxi — October 6, 2006 @ 9:41 pm

  33. and clever, too

    Comment by Maxi — October 6, 2006 @ 9:41 pm

  34. I think it translates as:
    If I going to talk rubbish
    I going to talk rubbish in Chinese

    Comment by Penny in Amsterdam — October 7, 2006 @ 4:24 pm

  35. My newest advice to parents of young children is to record them while they are laughing. There is something special about a very small child’s laugh, it’s whole hearted. Just a little later, maybe six or seven, it changes. I wish I had thought of this soon enough to capture my toddler daughter’s gales of laughter and giggles. I remember the day I heard the development of her “adult laugh” in her teens.

    Thanks for the chinese lesson! Nee How Ma!

    Comment by Danna — October 7, 2006 @ 11:12 pm


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