Laniña's pronunciation has been getting clearer over the last weeks and months. Sometimes, though, that just makes her mistakes easier to spot. She quite frequently gets consonants or whole syllables mixed round - two examples came up yesterday:
in English, naming plastic fruit for her granny -
[apple] "apple"
[banana] "banana"
[pear] "a fruit" (!)
[lemon] "melon"
Granny thought that she thought the lemon really was a melon, but I think she just got the sounds mixed up.
Granny also gave her a new dressing gown, which I have been calling (hope it's right) in Spanish una bata. But Laniña says "tapa".
Also, she still leaves off the initial consonant to some words "wimming" for swimming, for example. Well, we´re not running for speech therapy yet, but just keep an eye on it maybe.
Friday, 2 November 2007
NO!
Ok, this has little to do with Spanish or bilingualism, but I guess that other parents of toddlers between 2-3 years old might find it interesting to note that my daughter's favourite phrase at the moment is to shout, preferably at the most inopportune moment, "NO! STOP IT! DON'T TOUCH IT!"
When she's being calmer and cuter she likes to introduce us as: "This is the Mummy one and this Daddy one."
Ho hum... the joys of parenthood.
When she's being calmer and cuter she likes to introduce us as: "This is the Mummy one and this Daddy one."
Ho hum... the joys of parenthood.
Monday, 29 October 2007
Translating
Here's an interesting conversation we had the other day; it was shortly after the appearance of Laniña's new obsession with pumpkins in the run up to Hallowe'en:
Mummy: Tell Daddy what we did today.
Laniña: Pumkin! Liddl punkin!
Papá: Ooo ... una calabaza, ¡qué bien!
Mummy: And what did we put in the little pumpkin?
Laniña: On telly!
Mummy: Yes, the pumpkin´s sitting on the TV. And what´s in the pumpkin?
Laniña: Ummm... punkin telly!
Papá: ¿Y qué hay dentro de la calabaza? ¿Una vela?
Laniña: Yes Mummy! Punkin candle! Light!
So, she knew the word candle well enough (because I didn´t tell it to her), it was the question she was having trouble understanding, and once I helped her figure out what it meant (by saying it in Spanish and giving the answer), she was able to answer in English. This is not what I was trying to do at all - I was just entering into the conversation. I didn´t really think she understood vela, nor was I sure she´d remember the word candle! She's an impressive wee kid.
Increasingly she is participating in conversations by translating things for the other parent:
Papá: ¡Mira - las vacas!
Laniña: Yes! Look Mummy - cows!
But she´s also happy simply to mix the two languages if she can´t remember the word in the language she´s speaking. And in some cases she simply doesn´t seem to have learnt (or is simply choosing not to use) a word in one of her languages. For example, she has never once used the word "children" and instead always uses the Spanish niños, even when speaking English. "I want go park. Want play niños." Cool, huh?
Mummy: Tell Daddy what we did today.
Laniña: Pumkin! Liddl punkin!
Papá: Ooo ... una calabaza, ¡qué bien!
Mummy: And what did we put in the little pumpkin?
Laniña: On telly!
Mummy: Yes, the pumpkin´s sitting on the TV. And what´s in the pumpkin?
Laniña: Ummm... punkin telly!
Papá: ¿Y qué hay dentro de la calabaza? ¿Una vela?
Laniña: Yes Mummy! Punkin candle! Light!
So, she knew the word candle well enough (because I didn´t tell it to her), it was the question she was having trouble understanding, and once I helped her figure out what it meant (by saying it in Spanish and giving the answer), she was able to answer in English. This is not what I was trying to do at all - I was just entering into the conversation. I didn´t really think she understood vela, nor was I sure she´d remember the word candle! She's an impressive wee kid.
Increasingly she is participating in conversations by translating things for the other parent:
Papá: ¡Mira - las vacas!
Laniña: Yes! Look Mummy - cows!
But she´s also happy simply to mix the two languages if she can´t remember the word in the language she´s speaking. And in some cases she simply doesn´t seem to have learnt (or is simply choosing not to use) a word in one of her languages. For example, she has never once used the word "children" and instead always uses the Spanish niños, even when speaking English. "I want go park. Want play niños." Cool, huh?
Saturday, 8 September 2007
Teletubbies
The best thing about using Spanish with my daughter is that we bought a lot of Spanish DVDs for her to watch and I therefore feel a lot less guilty than I otherwise would about letting her watch a lot of TV!!
It has been interesting to see how quickly she learnt to master control of the DVD player, and soon found that she was able to change the language by pressing a particular button. At first she would watch a programme in any of the available languages (but clearly pleased and interested in the different sounds: when she was bored with something, she would happily simply change the language and watch it again). But increasingly she started to avoid the French and Arabic versions of her then favourite film, Bambi 2, and just choose between English or Spanish. That was when she was about 2, and shortly afterwards the Audio button on the machine began to lose its appeal.
I did notice last week, however, that she still seems to have a definite affinity for Catalán. And she still at times chooses to watch Teletubbies or Las Mellizas in that language rather than Castellano.*
*note for non-hispanists: What we foreigners refer to as Spanish is Castellano, the language of Castile (central Spain). Catalán is a regional language which is increasingly spoken in Barcelona, throughout Catalunya and in Andorra.
It has been interesting to see how quickly she learnt to master control of the DVD player, and soon found that she was able to change the language by pressing a particular button. At first she would watch a programme in any of the available languages (but clearly pleased and interested in the different sounds: when she was bored with something, she would happily simply change the language and watch it again). But increasingly she started to avoid the French and Arabic versions of her then favourite film, Bambi 2, and just choose between English or Spanish. That was when she was about 2, and shortly afterwards the Audio button on the machine began to lose its appeal.
I did notice last week, however, that she still seems to have a definite affinity for Catalán. And she still at times chooses to watch Teletubbies or Las Mellizas in that language rather than Castellano.*
*note for non-hispanists: What we foreigners refer to as Spanish is Castellano, the language of Castile (central Spain). Catalán is a regional language which is increasingly spoken in Barcelona, throughout Catalunya and in Andorra.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
f'you
Well, it's been a while and a lot has happened... what I had originally intended to be a chronological account of Laniña's linguistic development will now I think become random observations as they occour to me - that should be easier, so I might blog more often!
This is from months ago, though, when she was 2 and a bit:
We noticed that Laniña had suddenly started to ask for treats (y'know - chocolate and such) by calling them "F'you!" Indeed, this was one of her first proper sentences - "I wan' f'you!"
F'you, of course, is "for you" and presumably someone at nursery (or who knows, maybe it was us) had given her something nice saying "That´s for you" or similar. So far so good; it's so cute that we still haven't thought to discourage it!
The interesting bit is that suddenly, when she wasn´t getting the appropriate response from my partner (already had enough choc for one day) Laniña turned straight to me and demanded "Papá, PA TI"
Pa tí is, of course, short for para tí, which means... guess what! That´s right - for you!
I find such spontaneous translation a very exciting development - she´s not just parroting what she hears, but has real control over it herself. Even if no-one outside our household will actually understand it!!!
This is from months ago, though, when she was 2 and a bit:
We noticed that Laniña had suddenly started to ask for treats (y'know - chocolate and such) by calling them "F'you!" Indeed, this was one of her first proper sentences - "I wan' f'you!"
F'you, of course, is "for you" and presumably someone at nursery (or who knows, maybe it was us) had given her something nice saying "That´s for you" or similar. So far so good; it's so cute that we still haven't thought to discourage it!
The interesting bit is that suddenly, when she wasn´t getting the appropriate response from my partner (already had enough choc for one day) Laniña turned straight to me and demanded "Papá, PA TI"
Pa tí is, of course, short for para tí, which means... guess what! That´s right - for you!
I find such spontaneous translation a very exciting development - she´s not just parroting what she hears, but has real control over it herself. Even if no-one outside our household will actually understand it!!!
Monday, 21 May 2007
Spanish words I have learnt with my daughter.
In no particular order...
pañal
caca
mariposa
mariquita
gatear
gaviota
colchoncito
trona
cuenco
columpios
tobogán
patinete
cuna
mantita
deslizar
biberón
hebilla
can you guess what they are? The answers aren´t in the right order:
swings, scooter, nappy, cot, poo, blanky, bowl, changing-mat, seagull, slide, to slide, butterfly, ladybird, buckle, to crawl, baby bottle
pañal
caca
mariposa
mariquita
gatear
gaviota
colchoncito
trona
cuenco
columpios
tobogán
patinete
cuna
mantita
deslizar
biberón
hebilla
can you guess what they are? The answers aren´t in the right order:
swings, scooter, nappy, cot, poo, blanky, bowl, changing-mat, seagull, slide, to slide, butterfly, ladybird, buckle, to crawl, baby bottle
Spanish or German?
Well, once I had decided to go for it, the other big decision was: Spanish or German?? German is my other other language, if you know what I mean. In it's favour were that we know another family who are raising their daughter bilingually with German, but I had been doing Spanish a lot longer, and my confidence with Spanish was much better. I was particularly conderned that I would mess up on the genders of simple words and basically just not know enough vocabulary.
Anyway, I need hardly have worried so much. I'm still glad we went with Spanish (better beaches) but really, there are soooo many words that just don't seem to get covered in your usual university degree: y'know - nappy, teddy, poo, crawl, Big Bird... that it has been a real learning experience and would have been just as good in either language. Kids don't really speak that much for months, so that gives plenty of time to check stuff in the dictionary!
Anyway, I need hardly have worried so much. I'm still glad we went with Spanish (better beaches) but really, there are soooo many words that just don't seem to get covered in your usual university degree: y'know - nappy, teddy, poo, crawl, Big Bird... that it has been a real learning experience and would have been just as good in either language. Kids don't really speak that much for months, so that gives plenty of time to check stuff in the dictionary!
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