When we left the United States in June neither Max nor Elisabeth were speaking Slovak. Elisabeth was able to spit out a few ideas, but hardly ever a full sentence without getting help from Jana or me. Max couldn’t say any more than a single word at a time. In fact, when we got to Slovakia I was a little worried because Max was speaking English with his cousins and friends as if everyone in the world knew English.
Once we left Max to play with his classmates from school and after a while we went to see how he was doing. But he wasn’t there and we couldn’t find him anywhere. We tried to ask his classmates where he was and they replied, “We don’t know.” We tried to see if he said where he was going but they replied, “Maybe, but we don’t understand him because all he does is talk in English.”
Max also had trouble rolling his r’s. We worked on this with him in the States and he got so far as to once in a while spit out something like a rolled r, but never consistently, and never in an actual word. Here in Slovakia he was even starting to take some flack from his cousins. That must have motivated him because on a road trip to the east of Slovakia Max kept repeating over and over the word “do – BRE,” “do – BRE,” trying to get that r down. And I must say, once we got back to Banská Bystrica there was a huge improvement. If you listen to the clip you’ll see he’s pretty good at rolling his r’s.
By way of explanation, “strč prst skrz krk” is a Slovak tongue twister that means “stick (your) finger through (your) throat.” It might look like there are no vowels in that sentence, but in Slovak the letters r and l can also serve as vowels.
Amy says
Max takes after his dad…I remember going around Prague on the tram and you practicing your ř over and over again.(=
Todd Patterson says
I was thinking of that, actually, when Max was practicing in the car and it was getting on my nerves. I thought, “If Amy could put up with me, I can endure a little more of my own son.”
Chris says
Next year at this time, this language transition will be a vague memory. Then you’ll be worrying about them forgetting Engish. 🙂 It was a bit more complicated than I anticipated when we set off for Slovakia, raising bi-lingual kids. It’s a balancing act and there are always trade-offs. But well worth it! It took Jason and Cory a while to get back into the swing when we were in Slovakia this summer, but in the end it came back pretty well for them. Two weeks is pretty short and Lydia never quite got it (she was only 10 when we left)…I guess we’ll have to try for a longer trip next time. 🙂
Todd Patterson says
In some ways it certainly hasn’t worked out as smoothly as I had anticipated. It seems it’s much easier to forget a language than I thought. Hope you guys are doing well, wish we could have seen you when you were here.
Mom says
They sound great to me! Please say hello and give hugs all around. We are missing you, but excited for all the new things that are happening for you.
Todd Patterson says
Hugs given. And Max says, “Tell her I love her very much!”
David Duff says
Hi, Max! I’m glad your language learning is going well! I can’t even remember the Slovak word for ‘ice cream’ anymore. Forgetting a language is really easy, as mentioned above. Maybe that’s it! I actually knew how to speak Slovak (and Chinese, and Urdu, and Tagalog) at one time, but have so thoroughly forgotten them, that I don’t even remember knowing how to speak them in the first place.
We’re praying for you and Libby (Elisabeth’s preferred appelation now, I think). Hannah and Sarah say “Hi”.
Toni says
I’m very impressed. I’m sure that my tongue does not do that. Love you, Love you!!!!!