Two-year inventory

There's a lot going on in that head of hers, language-wise and otherwise. A lot of people have been asking if she ever mixes her languages, which she does, and I'll explain that in a bit. Another frequent question is what language she speaks to herself, when she is playing alone. I'll get to that, too.

I've been doing a fair bit of travelling in the past month or so, which means lots of time spent in airports, trains and whatnot, without much to do. To pass the time, I started compiling a list of the words that V knows so far in English. Even though she knows plenty of words in Swedish and Finnish, as well, it's harder for me to put a count on those, because those are languages she doesn't speak with me.

Little V turns two in about two weeks. Here is an overview of the words and categories she has so far. There are a lot of words, so I won't list them all, I'll just give the categories and counts here.

People's/pet's first names (including a few fictional characters, such as Mickey Mouse): I estimate she knows distinct names for about 35-40 people/characters/pets at this point.

Food items: She can distinguish between something like 30 food items, including juice, fish, coffee, cheese, chocolate, and ice cream (she is REALLY good at identifying the last two items in the list, which means the mom has to be extra sneaky)

Household/dining items: She is familiar with probably 20 or so terms of things that are either in the house or that we use in the house, such as fork, spoon, brush, toothpaste, sofa, floor, lamps, candles, etc.

Animals: She knows the names of something like 15 different animals.

Clothing items: She pretty much knows them all--socks, stockings, boots, shoes, jackets, shirt, diaper, underpants, etc.

Body parts: she can identify tongue, mouth, teeth, nose, eyes, head, arms, feet, legs, belly, fingers, bum, hair. She recognizes chin, cheek, forehead, but she doesn't use these words yet.

Things that are outside: When we go outside, V is very excited to point at everything she sees and call it by name, especially boats, cars, trucks, tractors, airplanes, bicycles, and, as she says, motorbicycles. It's hard to estimate how many distinct terms she uses when we are outside, as there are loads of them, relating to the flora and fauna, animals, buildings, playgrounds, etc. Just for the sake of completeness, I'll put my estimate at around 30 distinct terms.

OK, so that's a summary of all her nouns. Nouns, by far, make up the majority of her vocabulary (hardly surprising).

Here comes the adjectives she uses on a regular basis.
Color terms: She uses color terms, such as orange, pink, blue, yellow, but not with 100 percent accuracy yet. Maybe 70 percent accuracy.
Other adjectives, in no particular order: nice, big, little, naughty, cute, hot, cold, warm, funny, tired

She doesn't have so very many verbs yet. Here are those I can think of: to run, to kick, to hit, to be, to want, to have, to cuddle, to kiss, to hug, to fly, to clean, to (be) hurt, to sleep, to eat, to play, to swing

The slowest words to come to her are the so-called "function" words: prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc. She doesn't really use any conjunctions yet, not even and. Well, sometimes she uses and, for example when she says, "Want milk AND bread," but that's usually after I have asked her a question, so she is just repeating what I say (I think). When she is speaking without prompting, her way of expressing that something is an addition to, she uses words such as also, other, too. She uses too in English very frequently.

She has some adverbs, such as out, in, under.
Her prepositions are pretty much limited to to, in.

I think that's about it!

It would be interesting to compare her word knowledge in English to her other two languages, but, like I said, since she doesn't speak theses languages to me, I really can't estimate. Let's just say that I have been quite amazed a few times recently when I have heard her speaking to her babysitter, other children, or even her father--she really does speak three languages now!

People have been asking if she ever "mixes" her languages. Previously, I have always answered "no." Up until recently, it always seemed that she separated her languages depending on who she was talking to. This is still mostly true, but lately I have noticed that her languages go more into separate domains, depending on what she is doing and what she is talking about. For example, she knows more words relating to playground play in Finnish than she does in English, because she plays with her babysitter and friends at the playground, speaking Finnish. Sometimes, she even uses Finnish play-related words with me, because she doesn't know the equivalent in English.

Another question I have been asked lately is what language she speaks when she is alone, playing by herself. English is still by far her dominant language (at least for now), but more and I more I hear her speaking Swedish or Finnish to herself. It seems to have to do with the activity, or what she is thinking about at the moment. This morning, for example, I heard her switch into Finnish when she was playing with her Legos. I know that she often plays Legos with her babysitter, so clearly she was thinking about being with her babysitter at the time.