One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday's post was about V's acquisition of adverbs and adverbials. I am not sure how typical this is, but it nonetheless slays me every time when V breaks out with an, "Actually, mamma, that's pappa's." Or, "The bunnies are actually sleeping." She is really, really fond of the word actually. And, furthermore, she uses it grammatically every time!
I have noticed plenty of use of adverbial forms lately. Things like, "First we go here. Then we go here." Lots of other examples, too, but none I can think of at the moment.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
ellemenopee
Here's a bit of news about English. As of today, she can officially pronounce the /s/ sound in ice cream. For the longest time, icecream was pronounced something like 'i-keem.' Now it's 'ice keem.' Especially considering how fond she is of the stuff, this is a big deal.
In other news: she counts at will (and often!) to 10 in English. And she sings up to the letter P in the alphabet song. This little girl can carry a tune, too! This is sort of embarrassing, but it never occurred to me until I was in my 30s that the alphabet song and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" share the same melody. Yeah, seriously, I am that thick headed. My daughter, on the other hand, has figured this out at the age of 2.
Now here is something that cracks me up. I teach about dialects in my classes, so naturally it's quite amazing for me to hear my daughter using dialectal features in her English that I don't have. Lately, she has been doing this kind of twangy, New York-kind of vowel in words like hand and banana. She draws the /a/ sound out so that it sounds like 'hiiiend.' I am pretty sure she doesn't get this from me! So where does she get it? No idea. Another one she has come out with lately is a distinctly British pronunciation of no. She says 'neeeou.' She has picked this up from a friend of ours who is from London. I'm telling you, these kids are like sponges. It's going to be so interesting to see what kind of English she will eventually end up speaking -- General American (as linguists call it), like I do, or some kind of British/English mix (many of the people here in Finland speak British English), some kind of Finglish, or something else entirely?
One thing is sure, she'll end up speaking Helsinki Swedish, because that's going to be her speech community (speech community: another linguisty term). My husband's native variety is from the southern part of Sweden (Skåne), but he only speaks that variety, really, when he talks to his family who still lives there. Still, his Swedish has not mutated into Helsinki Swedish--and it never will at his age. V's Swedish now sounds like her dad's, but once she starts school, it's sure to morph into Helsinki Swedish.
Lord help us.
I'm not exactly sure what to report about her Finnish, other than that she seems to be able to hold her own. I don't think she has any communication problems. Her babysitter made a point of telling me a few days ago that V said 'no' (ei) in Finnish for the first time. A milestone, indeed! My daughter can now officially say 'no' in three languages -- four after our recent trip to Germany.
I've been asking a lot of Finnish speakers if V seems to have any kind of American accent when she speaks Finnish. The answer seems to be -- thank goodness -- no. She just sounds Finnish. I hope she'll be able to keep her Finnish skills going once she starts going to Swedish-speaking nursery school next fall. Because Finnish is the main language here, however, she'll probably be OK.
In other news: she counts at will (and often!) to 10 in English. And she sings up to the letter P in the alphabet song. This little girl can carry a tune, too! This is sort of embarrassing, but it never occurred to me until I was in my 30s that the alphabet song and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" share the same melody. Yeah, seriously, I am that thick headed. My daughter, on the other hand, has figured this out at the age of 2.
Now here is something that cracks me up. I teach about dialects in my classes, so naturally it's quite amazing for me to hear my daughter using dialectal features in her English that I don't have. Lately, she has been doing this kind of twangy, New York-kind of vowel in words like hand and banana. She draws the /a/ sound out so that it sounds like 'hiiiend.' I am pretty sure she doesn't get this from me! So where does she get it? No idea. Another one she has come out with lately is a distinctly British pronunciation of no. She says 'neeeou.' She has picked this up from a friend of ours who is from London. I'm telling you, these kids are like sponges. It's going to be so interesting to see what kind of English she will eventually end up speaking -- General American (as linguists call it), like I do, or some kind of British/English mix (many of the people here in Finland speak British English), some kind of Finglish, or something else entirely?
One thing is sure, she'll end up speaking Helsinki Swedish, because that's going to be her speech community (speech community: another linguisty term). My husband's native variety is from the southern part of Sweden (Skåne), but he only speaks that variety, really, when he talks to his family who still lives there. Still, his Swedish has not mutated into Helsinki Swedish--and it never will at his age. V's Swedish now sounds like her dad's, but once she starts school, it's sure to morph into Helsinki Swedish.
Lord help us.
I'm not exactly sure what to report about her Finnish, other than that she seems to be able to hold her own. I don't think she has any communication problems. Her babysitter made a point of telling me a few days ago that V said 'no' (ei) in Finnish for the first time. A milestone, indeed! My daughter can now officially say 'no' in three languages -- four after our recent trip to Germany.
I've been asking a lot of Finnish speakers if V seems to have any kind of American accent when she speaks Finnish. The answer seems to be -- thank goodness -- no. She just sounds Finnish. I hope she'll be able to keep her Finnish skills going once she starts going to Swedish-speaking nursery school next fall. Because Finnish is the main language here, however, she'll probably be OK.
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