Being in a bilingual family has many great pleasures, but there are also extra opportunities for misunderstanding. Tonight, when reading a sequel to ‘Meet the Munch Bunch’ one of the kids asked me, ‘what does it mean (qu’est-ce que ça veut dire), la viande  munch bunch?

I thought they had understood the title of the first episode, part of a group of stories for young children, originally written by a young girl; characters include Professor Peabody (knowledgeable pea-pod) Sally Strawberry (gifted artist, likes the colour red) and Spud (potato with delusions of grandeur). The first book, which introduces the characters, I had read the previous night. The kids had just listened and nodded, it wasn’t till 24 hours later that I discovered they hadn’t understood the title, and maybe not much else either. Probably their little brains were wondering all along why the whole book was about talking vegetables, but the title was about ‘meat’!