language issue

[casper1969]

Hi,

We are french canadian and we're going to our first cruise June 12th. Do you think my son (2 1/2) will have fun at carnival camp if he speak just french. I'm a bit worried.

Thanks

Casper

[kitty9]

There very well could be communication problems if he has no English whatsoever. Might be a good idea to learn a few important English words in order to communicate certain things. While there are multi lingual crew on board, there's no assurance that any of the camp counselors will speak French.

[AngelOfDistress]

Originally Posted by casper1969

Hi,

We are french canadian and we're going to our first cruise June 12th. Do you think my son (2 1/2) will have fun at carnival camp if he speak just french. I'm a bit worried.

Thanks

Casper

Salut!

I'm french canadien too and my son had a great time at camp carnival (he's almost two so he could go every day from 12pm to 2pm). He made friends with an english boy 2 1/2, they would dance and play together. The counselors told me they had no problems communicating with my son using simple words and hand gestures. Kids that age tend to have fun no matter the language

[casper1969]

Thanks for the advice.

Merci de me rassurer. Tu es surement la même Angel qui est sur le Monde des croisières. Je suis la même Casper .

a+

[AngelOfDistress]

Originally Posted by casper1969

Thanks for the advice.

Merci de me rassurer. Tu es surement la même Angel qui est sur le Monde des croisières. Je suis la même Casper .

a+

Ah ben oui c'est bien moi, le monde est petit!

For those who don't speak french, we just realized we're members of the same french cruise board and we're going on the same cruise : Carnival Miracle from New York, I'm going may 3 and Casper, June 12. Small world

[Eclipsepearl]

Bummer I'm not onboard too!

I'm from California and my dh is French. Nous sommes en Alsace. I was just going to add that your son is young enough that it wont matter. We went to Spain when mine were that young and they totally blended in. Our preschool starts at that age and we have a ton of refugee children and they also never have problems with communication. It's kind of weird to have our kids babbling away together in accentless French and I can only nod and smile to the mothers (who speak neither French or English).

No need to do any language lessons ahead of time. Perhaps clue the caretakers into "soif" "toilette" (like they can't figure it out) and "faim". Better to have them teach the child how it's said there. Kids don't learn foreign languages well from their own parents. I would actually tell the daycare people to ignor my children's English so that they would learn that this is a French speaking place and that they have to learn where they're supposed to speak what.

Sharon, mom to two trilingual and one bilingual child!