family life

When the Fool was around 4 or 5 years old, his Grandmother felt it was time to make a start on his and his elder brother’s education in foreign languages. This was done at the dinner table, on which there happened to be a pair of small ceramic frogs (one pink and one pale blue, God knows why). Naturally, there were also forks. And frogs and forks, Grandmother decided, were as good a place as any to start an education.

That was without counting with my muddled brain (even then). At some point, exasperated at our continuing failure to correctly name each of the two, she picked one of the ceramic frogs from the table and gently knock-knock-knocked me on the head with it, all the while repeating “frog, frog, frog!”

The frogs – like some later-day version of Pentecostal tongues of fire – did their job, and neither my brother nor I have ever since confused our frogs with our forks, confusable though they are.

And that – endless repetition, knocking them over the head (gently!) and divine inspiration – is how you teach children new languages. And pretty much anything else.

frog, frog frog!