"Language Arts"

It's pretty amazing how kids can absorb a new language. Our boys have been exposed to the dutch language in school for 18 months while we've been in Belgium. They hear it every day for 7+ hours and they talk to their friends mostly in dutch. (Some of the older boys' friends like to practice their English, too.) It's to the point now that at times, when they are telling us something (in English), they get stuck on a word that their brain has come up with the dutch version for and they can't think of the English word for what they want to say. It goes something like this:

Cameron: "In school yesterday we were doing something in our W.O. lesson. We read information and made observations and then we ... had ... to .... to... we had to... "

Mom: "You can't find the word in English, can you?" 

Cam: "No." 

Mom: "What is the word in dutch?" 

Cam: "Uitrekenen" 

Mom: "You had to figure it out?" 

Cam: "Yeah, we had to figure it out!"

This has happened a few times lately and I'm sure it'll happen more in the next year and a half, especially when they're talking about things they do in school. It's pretty cool that they are so comfortable with the second language. For Andrew and Cameron, they've also added French in school, 2nd and 4th year levels. It's a pretty cool thing how multiple languages are just part of life here and everyone is able to converse in 2-3 languages minimum. Of course, when the next country over can be less than 1 hour away and uses a different language, it's important to be able to communicate!