Guus Bosman

Nora's Bulgarian has improved greatly. She is a lot more fluent and melodic when she talks and according to Sasha her sentences resemble those of Dyado and Baba. This is a wonderful benefit from her vacation abroad. I haven't heard her say them yet but I know she learned various Bulgarian poems and rhymes also.

Her Dutch had a temporary setback. Especially the first two days she had a hard time making herself understood to me and she would often just be quiet. It was interesting to see how much 8 weeks of virtual no Dutch matter, and it's a good reminder how important constant reinforcement is.

In the car from the airport I asked her, as a joke: "wil je een boterham met boerenkool?" -- she loves "boterham" but obviously not with "boerenkool" so she replied with two words, after searching: "eh... alleen!"

The same day at home she made several grammatical mistakes: "papa, wil je mij in doen?" (instead of "papa, wil je mij er in doen?" -- she wanted to jump in her bed). In bath she talked about: "de wit eendje" and "in de water".

Slowly but surely her fluency is coming back. Yesterday were about to go down the stairs and she said "knuf!" so she hasn't forgotten that. And this morning she woke up yelling "papa ben je wakker?!".

Like Jaap said this morning, traveling internationally and the corresponding jetlag and tiredness surely were a big factor and I'm glad she's becoming more vocal again. We haven't tried her English yet -- but that will happen in full in two weeks when she'll start her school.