Here's a conversation I just had with V, right before bed.
Me: "Let's put these socks on, so your feet don't get cold while you are sleeping."
V: "No. Andra sockies. Not these." (Note: andra is Swedish for 'other.' Oddly enough, this is the only word she continuously merges in both English and Swedish, even though she is perfectly capable of saying other. I still haven't figured out why she does this.)
Me: "But these socks have little bunnies and hearts. They're really nice night-time sockies!"
V: "No. Andra sockies."
Me: "What other sockies do you want?"
V (thinking): "Pink socks."
Now this is interesting, because I am not totally convinced that she could pick pink socks out of line-up. And at this point I'm curious.
Me: "Let's go to your sock drawer. Show me the socks you want."
And that's what we did. Guess what happened then? V pulled out a pair of pink socks, proclaiming,
V: "Pink sockies."
Ta-da!
There are a lot of opinions going on at our house. And, hand-in-hand with this, there are a lot of attempts at using negation. It is really fascinating. I haven't had time to do a blog entry here for a long time, but I have been making notes and will try to catch up soon, just to keep this a complete record (mostly for myself, and maybe the one other person who might read it :-))
But this I just have to mention: V is a little parrot, and she speaks American English. Hooray! One of her favorite ways to exert an opinion is to shake her head and say, "Nope." This is so American; I just love it.
Another nice Americanism is the use of pet names. She calls me "sweetheart" on a regular basis. If she wants more milk, for example, she'll hand me her bottle and say, "More milk, sweetheart?"
Kills me.
I love it! Last summer, it was interesting to hear her say things to you that she obviously hears you say to her....I remember she was saying a lot of, "Help you?" (I think) when what she meant was, "Help me!" Her using "sweetheart" is similar, right? She has adopted that term of endearment verbatim from you...where, i realize, she gets 99.9% of her English...even though it sounds so funny, to us, coming from a little child to a parent.
ReplyDeleteAs for the socks - how does it work - do you think she memorized that that pair of socks is called "pink sockies", or does she recognize the color pink?
Yes, keep that American English going. Pink is a rather sophisticated color to get, isn't it? I mean all the books on color focus on the primary colors, so that is interesting too. I do not know how this fits in linguistically, but still she is a clever girl! As is the Mom!
ReplyDeleteSo you are up to at least 3 people who read your blog. :) That child just kills me with her adorableness!
ReplyDeletehey, i'm reading, sweetheart! i will meet lovely V someday...
ReplyDeletelaughing my ass off
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