There have been a lot of changes in the past month or so. Sentences are coming out like crazy! Most of the sentences are quite basic, with just copular verbs (she often deletes the copula, but that's hardly surprising): "Cava sleeping." "Pappa drinking." That kind of thing. This morning I heard her use her first successful prepositional phrase in English, which excited me (remember, I am dorky linguist; things like this excite me): "Juice is on the table."
Her use of one language over another has always seemed to depend on to whom she was talking. Lately, though, there seems to be more mixing of codes, which I can only speculate has to do with what she learns in what context, or what she is thinking about. This morning, for example, I was dressing her to get her ready for her babysitter, and she started saying, "Mekko," which means 'dress' in Finnish. She knows the word dress in English, but I guess because she was thinking about her babysitter, the word came out in Finnish.
She has been using quite a few words in Finnish, actually, which makes me think that she probably has a rather large vocabulary in Finnish already. Again, it seems to depend on the context, if a situation makes her think of her babysitter, then she'll say the word in Finnish. For example, she says apina 'monkey' when she is hanging or goofing around, and if she stands on something that is maybe a bit precarious, she says, "Seiso!" ('Stand!')
She has also been throwing a fair amount of Swedish into the mixture lately. For example, she seems to know andra 'other' in Swedish more than in English--even though I do think I have heard her say other in English, too. I guess this is just a case of competing forms.
She is quite adept now at mimicking entire sentences or phrases, and it's quite funny that if she doesn't know all the words -- a string with a lot of short words, for example -- she'll babble part of the sentence. So, for example, if I say, "Do you want some more blueberries, or is that enough?" she might repeat, "Na na want more blueberries, do do dat enough?" And the final word is always emphasized. Oh, and the intonation is always right on target. It cracks me up when she does that!
Another thing she has been saying a lot in English lately is "My goodness!" I know she can only get this from one obvious source, and I am quite embarrassed that I would say this enough for her to catch it ...
One thing V does, and I am uncertain if this is common or not, is to pay close attention to people's names. In a large group of people she is very careful about noting who is there, what their names are, and she always notices if someone has left the room. She points to a person and repeats their first name over and over. She also remembers names. Yesterday, for example, she surprised me when we were looking at a magazine, and she pointed to some ads and said the names of several people we met when we were on vacation a few weeks ago. I didn't think she would have such a repository of names after so much time.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
No, really, how are you?
Yesterday V had spent the day out with her pappa, which meant it was a Swedish-speaking day. When she came home and I said hello to her, she asked me, "Hur mår du?" (I think I spelled that right), which means "How are you?" in Swedish. This is probably the first sentence I have heard her say in Swedish -- although chances are, of course, that in her mind it's not a sentence, per se.
English word combinations and sentences are now coming out rather frequently. Yesterday we heard a lot of "Where is it?" and that type of thing.
I want to note that V still doesn't have the /s/ sound or the dental or palatal fricatives at the beginnings of most words. And she loves to make pancakes with me, but she calls them "pancanks."
English word combinations and sentences are now coming out rather frequently. Yesterday we heard a lot of "Where is it?" and that type of thing.
I want to note that V still doesn't have the /s/ sound or the dental or palatal fricatives at the beginnings of most words. And she loves to make pancakes with me, but she calls them "pancanks."
Monday, May 31, 2010
A new favorite
Here's my new favorite thing that V says, and also one of her new favorite foods: "Pinda butta"!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
19-month verbs, plurals, and other stuff
Lately I have been noticing a lot of verbs in English. These include push, close it, open, sleeping, going, drop it, want that, throw it, kiss, cuddle, eat it, help (you), kick ... maybe that's about it. Oh, she has also repeated "Love you" a few times, which of course breaks my heart!
I included the pronouns with the verbs, because V doesn't distinguish word boundaries at this point--which makes sense. So, for example, like I have noted before, she calls out "Help you!" when what she really means is "Help me!" or even just "Help!"
I realized that I have been carrying on a lot about her lack of deictic expressions, but I have been over generalizing. She has been using demonstrative pronouns such as that and this for nearly as long as I can remember -- pretty much as long as she has had her first words. It's the personal pronouns that come later: I, you, she, etc.
There are a lot of two-word utterances these days, especially noun phrases. She uses her own name a lot to indicate that she wants something or to tell us that something is hers; for example, "V's fingers." "V's milk." There have also been some quasi sentences, such as "Cava eating."
She continues to be very interested in colors, as well as in numbers. She keeps trying to talk about colors, and she is getting pretty good at identifying them! She knows the names of the colors, at least, and she seems to be able to recognize blue and green.
About a week ago, she counted to three for the first time. I make it a habit to ask her how many toes and fingers she has, mostly as something to distract her when I am putting on her pajamas or whatnot. The other day when I asked her how many toes she had, she said, "One, two, three ...!" Her father heard it, and he is the numbers person in our family, so he was quite excited about that.
Someone the other day commented that V knows a lot of proper names for people. I hadn't thought of that before, but I suppose it's true. She talks about people she knows, she recognizes people in photos, and she really likes to call and "talk" to her friends on her play phone that her godparents gave her. Every time I hang up my phone she calls out, "Bye bye Tina Tina!" -- which is actually a bit embarrassing (I don't think I talk to Tina that much!). Lately, she has been obsessed with these tiny Pippi Longstocking, Tommi, and Annika dolls that she wants to carry around with her all the time. She talks about them constantly, even showing them to people we see outside on the street.
Some of these words are quite clear; others not so much. The other night, for example, when we had Finnish speaking friends over, they heard her saying Finnish words when I, at the same time, was certain she was speaking English! So, her pronunciation is less that clear much of the time. Some words, such as "Annika" or "window" come out clear as a bell. Certain sounds, though, seem to give her trouble. For example, she routinely leaves off the sounds [n], [s], and the palatal fricative (the sh sound in English) at the beginning of words. The word cereal, for example, comes out sounding like "hereal." There are exceptions, however; for example, she can say the word socks and cheeks without difficulty.
In her current pronunciation, the words shoes, juice (and, I suppose, Jews, if she knew that word) all sound the same. Sometimes I don't know if she wants juice or if she is showing me her shoes.
She also pronounces the words pear, Pierre, and bear identically.
Another interesting point is that she seems to add articles (a/an, the)already to her English words. So in other words, she says, "A cow." "A bottle." "A ball." I find this really compelling. The idiomatic use of articles in English is one of the hardest things for nonnative speakers to acquire. Finns, for example, tend to have a really hard time with articles in English because Finnish has no articles. My students (and others) complain that this is the one part of English grammar that they find the most difficult--and I can see why! There are few hard and fast rules to describe when or when not to use articles; usually native speakers just know when it "sounds right," which is not especially useful advice for people who are trying to learn English. Articles are one of many linguistic features that are innate to a native speaker of a language, and this is why I find it fascinating that V seems to already be acquiring the patterns in English.
Unfortunately, it is hard for me to comment on her other languages in much detail, because, of course, she doesn't speak any languages other than English to me. However, I do notice a few things when I hear her speaking to her dad or her babysitter. So, on the subject of innate ability in a native language, I can comment on her pronunciation of Finnish and her use of certain forms in Swedish.
Finnish makes use of so-called "double" letters (ie, geminate consonants and long vowels) that we don't use the same way in English. In a word like kukka 'flower', for example, both of the "k" sounds in the middle are pronounced; the "k" sound in the middle is held longer in the mouth than the "k" sound that comes at the beginning of the word. V can already produce these geminate sounds perfectly. In contrast, I, a nonnative speaker of Finnish, still struggle not only to correctly pronounce geminates and long vowels in Finnish, but to even hear them. And I have been speaking Finnish a lot longer than she has! Being brought up from infancy with a language makes all the difference.
In Swedish, nouns are divided into what they call either "neuter" or "non-neuter." The class of the noun tells you what kind of article to use with it, either en or ett, and also how to make it plural. Again, this is one of those properties of Swedish that somebody like me could struggle for the rest of my life to try and keep straight. I don't think V can use these forms productively yet (that is, at this point she pretty much repeats what her dad says), but there have been some instances of her correctly saying, for example, "Hundar" for 'dogs' or "Ballen" for 'the ball.' Needless to say, her dad loves it when this happens.
I included the pronouns with the verbs, because V doesn't distinguish word boundaries at this point--which makes sense. So, for example, like I have noted before, she calls out "Help you!" when what she really means is "Help me!" or even just "Help!"
I realized that I have been carrying on a lot about her lack of deictic expressions, but I have been over generalizing. She has been using demonstrative pronouns such as that and this for nearly as long as I can remember -- pretty much as long as she has had her first words. It's the personal pronouns that come later: I, you, she, etc.
There are a lot of two-word utterances these days, especially noun phrases. She uses her own name a lot to indicate that she wants something or to tell us that something is hers; for example, "V's fingers." "V's milk." There have also been some quasi sentences, such as "Cava eating."
She continues to be very interested in colors, as well as in numbers. She keeps trying to talk about colors, and she is getting pretty good at identifying them! She knows the names of the colors, at least, and she seems to be able to recognize blue and green.
About a week ago, she counted to three for the first time. I make it a habit to ask her how many toes and fingers she has, mostly as something to distract her when I am putting on her pajamas or whatnot. The other day when I asked her how many toes she had, she said, "One, two, three ...!" Her father heard it, and he is the numbers person in our family, so he was quite excited about that.
Someone the other day commented that V knows a lot of proper names for people. I hadn't thought of that before, but I suppose it's true. She talks about people she knows, she recognizes people in photos, and she really likes to call and "talk" to her friends on her play phone that her godparents gave her. Every time I hang up my phone she calls out, "Bye bye Tina Tina!" -- which is actually a bit embarrassing (I don't think I talk to Tina that much!). Lately, she has been obsessed with these tiny Pippi Longstocking, Tommi, and Annika dolls that she wants to carry around with her all the time. She talks about them constantly, even showing them to people we see outside on the street.
Some of these words are quite clear; others not so much. The other night, for example, when we had Finnish speaking friends over, they heard her saying Finnish words when I, at the same time, was certain she was speaking English! So, her pronunciation is less that clear much of the time. Some words, such as "Annika" or "window" come out clear as a bell. Certain sounds, though, seem to give her trouble. For example, she routinely leaves off the sounds [n], [s], and the palatal fricative (the sh sound in English) at the beginning of words. The word cereal, for example, comes out sounding like "hereal." There are exceptions, however; for example, she can say the word socks and cheeks without difficulty.
In her current pronunciation, the words shoes, juice (and, I suppose, Jews, if she knew that word) all sound the same. Sometimes I don't know if she wants juice or if she is showing me her shoes.
She also pronounces the words pear, Pierre, and bear identically.
Another interesting point is that she seems to add articles (a/an, the)already to her English words. So in other words, she says, "A cow." "A bottle." "A ball." I find this really compelling. The idiomatic use of articles in English is one of the hardest things for nonnative speakers to acquire. Finns, for example, tend to have a really hard time with articles in English because Finnish has no articles. My students (and others) complain that this is the one part of English grammar that they find the most difficult--and I can see why! There are few hard and fast rules to describe when or when not to use articles; usually native speakers just know when it "sounds right," which is not especially useful advice for people who are trying to learn English. Articles are one of many linguistic features that are innate to a native speaker of a language, and this is why I find it fascinating that V seems to already be acquiring the patterns in English.
Unfortunately, it is hard for me to comment on her other languages in much detail, because, of course, she doesn't speak any languages other than English to me. However, I do notice a few things when I hear her speaking to her dad or her babysitter. So, on the subject of innate ability in a native language, I can comment on her pronunciation of Finnish and her use of certain forms in Swedish.
Finnish makes use of so-called "double" letters (ie, geminate consonants and long vowels) that we don't use the same way in English. In a word like kukka 'flower', for example, both of the "k" sounds in the middle are pronounced; the "k" sound in the middle is held longer in the mouth than the "k" sound that comes at the beginning of the word. V can already produce these geminate sounds perfectly. In contrast, I, a nonnative speaker of Finnish, still struggle not only to correctly pronounce geminates and long vowels in Finnish, but to even hear them. And I have been speaking Finnish a lot longer than she has! Being brought up from infancy with a language makes all the difference.
In Swedish, nouns are divided into what they call either "neuter" or "non-neuter." The class of the noun tells you what kind of article to use with it, either en or ett, and also how to make it plural. Again, this is one of those properties of Swedish that somebody like me could struggle for the rest of my life to try and keep straight. I don't think V can use these forms productively yet (that is, at this point she pretty much repeats what her dad says), but there have been some instances of her correctly saying, for example, "Hundar" for 'dogs' or "Ballen" for 'the ball.' Needless to say, her dad loves it when this happens.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Break out the verbs
Moving on to V's verbs. She's only got a few so far, but it's a start! These are: going, cleaning, help and and come. These are the only verbal inflections she has so far, as noted. So when she is ready to get out of bed in the morning, she says, "Going," which means something like "Now I am ready to get up." When she wants to come in the bathroom and the door is closed, she bangs on it and she says, "Come, come!" (Privacy? Is there any parent of a toddler who remembers what privacy means?)
I've mentioned that deictics are among the last lexical features children acquire. So when V says, "Help you," she really means "Help me." It's just that she doesn't yet know how to say "me." Children learn by mimicking, of course, so she is just repeating what she hears, which is usually, "Do you want me to help you?"
V had her 18-month appointment last week, and the nurse noted that V really talks a lot. Throughout the appointment, V chatted away in both Finnish (to the nurse) and in English (to me). V starts talking the second she wakes up in the morning, usually with a demand, either "Cuddle!" or "Milk!" And it doesn't stop for the rest of the day.
A couple of days ago, though, she had a surprise for us when she woke up. We were in Paris about a month ago, and V fell in love with our friend Pierre. She must have been dreaming about him, because when she woke up in the morning, it wasn't the usual "Cuddle!" or "Milk!" but a very clear, "Bonjour!" This was followed by "Merci!" Peter and I started laughing, and of course this only encouraged her. There was then a chorus of "Merci. Merci. Au revoir!" How incredible that she would still have those words stored in her head after a visit one month ago to Paris. Now when we ask her, "What does Uncle Pierre say?" she answers, "Merci!"
I've mentioned that deictics are among the last lexical features children acquire. So when V says, "Help you," she really means "Help me." It's just that she doesn't yet know how to say "me." Children learn by mimicking, of course, so she is just repeating what she hears, which is usually, "Do you want me to help you?"
V had her 18-month appointment last week, and the nurse noted that V really talks a lot. Throughout the appointment, V chatted away in both Finnish (to the nurse) and in English (to me). V starts talking the second she wakes up in the morning, usually with a demand, either "Cuddle!" or "Milk!" And it doesn't stop for the rest of the day.
A couple of days ago, though, she had a surprise for us when she woke up. We were in Paris about a month ago, and V fell in love with our friend Pierre. She must have been dreaming about him, because when she woke up in the morning, it wasn't the usual "Cuddle!" or "Milk!" but a very clear, "Bonjour!" This was followed by "Merci!" Peter and I started laughing, and of course this only encouraged her. There was then a chorus of "Merci. Merci. Au revoir!" How incredible that she would still have those words stored in her head after a visit one month ago to Paris. Now when we ask her, "What does Uncle Pierre say?" she answers, "Merci!"
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Baby's first NPs
We have experienced more "bursts" during the past couple of weeks. V is changing fast in many ways. The most significant development is that she started being truly mobile, preferring to be upright and walking rather than on the floor. I am not sure if it is a coincidence or if these things are developmentally related, but her advanced mobility coincides with noteworthy changes in her use of language.
Just for the record, I'll give an overview of V's language(s) at 18 months.
Today I noticed her first use of noun phrases -- the next step up, of course, from nouns. It was basic enough, but a clear milestone in her development of syntax. She said several instances of a genitive plus a noun: Vera's nose. Mamma's nose. Mamma's eyes. Vera's eyes. Previously, her verbalization of these observations would have been just Mamma's. Vera's. Nose. You get the idea.
She uses an awful lot of adjectives at the moment. The most frequent is no doubt broken. She used to say "uh-oh" whenever she encountered some problem, like trying to get her shoes on, for example. Now she says, "Broken," when she is trying to do something and it isn't going well. Other frequent adjectives are hot and little. The context for little is quite predictable, and merits mention for its clues about her cognition. V doesn't seem to grasp at this point what big and little mean, although I think it is sinking in, and she is starting to use the words. For example, V loves shoes of all shapes and sizes, and she frequently tries to put her sister's Barbie shoes on her own feet. She then gets frustrated because, obviously (to you and me, anyway), Barbie shoes don't fit her. I tried to explain this to her numerous times, saying, "These shoes are too little for you." Since most of her vocabulary is mimicking at this point, she now repeats, "Little, little" when she tries to put the Barbie shoes on.
Her mimicking is so astute that I am often surprised when she says certain words, words that I wouldn't have thought she had yet acquired. Recent examples are the words towel, drum, and pee.
Also on the topic of adjectives, V is fascinated by the idea of color names (although at this point she seems to use them as nouns, not as adjectives). She likes to point to objects that are of one color and say whatever color first comes to mind. Sometimes she gets it right, so I confirm her observation. This clearly pleases her. It's a bit more humorous, though, when she points at something--a flower, say--and announces, "Yellow" (which she pronounces "lellow"). I correct her: "No, that's red," but she has a different opinion. "Yellow," she says. So I repeat "Red," and it goes on for a few turns, until finally she concedes, "Red." Whew. The only color names she knows right now are in English, and these are blue, red, yellow, and green. I think she might still be a long way off from uttering an adjectival phrase, for example "Red flower."
V refers to people in pictures--and also in person--according to the names of people she already knows. Any women (or sometimes men--very pretty men!) in ads who have dark or reddish hair are "Mamma." She recently pointed to a picture of Julia Roberts and said "Mamma," so you can imagine how much I appreciate that. Lately, any man she sees in an ad who has dark hair is "Pierre," the name of a friend of ours. Yesterday I think she gave a man in a shop a bit of a shock. He was shaved bald and was wearing glasses, just like V's father. V pointed at the man and said, "Pappa." He looked alarmed when she said that, so I played it up and said to him, "Surprise!" Well, he seemed to have a sense of humour about it.
There are lots of examples of multiple codes. V's multilingualism continues to develop. The other day, just to see what would happen, I asked her in Finnish, "Where is your ear?" This is a question she readily answers from the Finnish speakers she knows. When I said it in Finnish, however, she gave me a very strange look, as if she were trying to process what I was saying. She thought for a moment(usually her response to such questions is automatic), then flashed me a smile, as if we were sharing a joke, and she touched her ears, showing me that she understood.
I know I am not supposed to speak Finnish to her, but I just wanted to see what would happen!
Just for the record, I'll give an overview of V's language(s) at 18 months.
Today I noticed her first use of noun phrases -- the next step up, of course, from nouns. It was basic enough, but a clear milestone in her development of syntax. She said several instances of a genitive plus a noun: Vera's nose. Mamma's nose. Mamma's eyes. Vera's eyes. Previously, her verbalization of these observations would have been just Mamma's. Vera's. Nose. You get the idea.
She uses an awful lot of adjectives at the moment. The most frequent is no doubt broken. She used to say "uh-oh" whenever she encountered some problem, like trying to get her shoes on, for example. Now she says, "Broken," when she is trying to do something and it isn't going well. Other frequent adjectives are hot and little. The context for little is quite predictable, and merits mention for its clues about her cognition. V doesn't seem to grasp at this point what big and little mean, although I think it is sinking in, and she is starting to use the words. For example, V loves shoes of all shapes and sizes, and she frequently tries to put her sister's Barbie shoes on her own feet. She then gets frustrated because, obviously (to you and me, anyway), Barbie shoes don't fit her. I tried to explain this to her numerous times, saying, "These shoes are too little for you." Since most of her vocabulary is mimicking at this point, she now repeats, "Little, little" when she tries to put the Barbie shoes on.
Her mimicking is so astute that I am often surprised when she says certain words, words that I wouldn't have thought she had yet acquired. Recent examples are the words towel, drum, and pee.
Also on the topic of adjectives, V is fascinated by the idea of color names (although at this point she seems to use them as nouns, not as adjectives). She likes to point to objects that are of one color and say whatever color first comes to mind. Sometimes she gets it right, so I confirm her observation. This clearly pleases her. It's a bit more humorous, though, when she points at something--a flower, say--and announces, "Yellow" (which she pronounces "lellow"). I correct her: "No, that's red," but she has a different opinion. "Yellow," she says. So I repeat "Red," and it goes on for a few turns, until finally she concedes, "Red." Whew. The only color names she knows right now are in English, and these are blue, red, yellow, and green. I think she might still be a long way off from uttering an adjectival phrase, for example "Red flower."
V refers to people in pictures--and also in person--according to the names of people she already knows. Any women (or sometimes men--very pretty men!) in ads who have dark or reddish hair are "Mamma." She recently pointed to a picture of Julia Roberts and said "Mamma," so you can imagine how much I appreciate that. Lately, any man she sees in an ad who has dark hair is "Pierre," the name of a friend of ours. Yesterday I think she gave a man in a shop a bit of a shock. He was shaved bald and was wearing glasses, just like V's father. V pointed at the man and said, "Pappa." He looked alarmed when she said that, so I played it up and said to him, "Surprise!" Well, he seemed to have a sense of humour about it.
There are lots of examples of multiple codes. V's multilingualism continues to develop. The other day, just to see what would happen, I asked her in Finnish, "Where is your ear?" This is a question she readily answers from the Finnish speakers she knows. When I said it in Finnish, however, she gave me a very strange look, as if she were trying to process what I was saying. She thought for a moment(usually her response to such questions is automatic), then flashed me a smile, as if we were sharing a joke, and she touched her ears, showing me that she understood.
I know I am not supposed to speak Finnish to her, but I just wanted to see what would happen!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Language lesson #1
V just gave me what I am sure is only the first of many language lessons. The thing is, she already pretty much speaks better Swedish and Finnish than me, and the chasm in our abilities will only continue to grow. I am sure my language skills in both of these languages will serve as a source of embarrassment for her in the future. That's the case with plenty of foreign moms I know here.
But here is what happened. I just handed her bear, and she said, "Thank you." Then she followed up with "Kiitos," then "Tack." OK, so here is a pretty clear demonstration that she knows very well that all three of these terms mean the same thing. So was she trying to help her poor, linguistically deprived mother? Like I said, this lesson is likely the first of many.
But here is what happened. I just handed her bear, and she said, "Thank you." Then she followed up with "Kiitos," then "Tack." OK, so here is a pretty clear demonstration that she knows very well that all three of these terms mean the same thing. So was she trying to help her poor, linguistically deprived mother? Like I said, this lesson is likely the first of many.
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