I am absolutely amazed as my two sponges absorb bits and pieces of their new language and string the various results into interesting, often nonsensical, phrases.
Perhaps it stands out all the more because I don’t see my girls for the first 2/3 of the day. I leave in the morning and come home in the afternoon and – poof – they’ve got new sentences. The other day I walk in the house and Kelly burns around the corner to give me a big hug. I put her down and she does this big shrug and says, clear as any natural American, “I don’t know!” When did that happen?
They like to run their tongues with gibberish that they think is English. They listen to Ren and I conversing and then immitate the tone.
“Ya gago de issu, yea e and A a I dunno Amen”
The most repetitive thing we say with them is the Lord’s prayer so a good number of these gibberish sentences begin with “our Father”.
The cool thing is some of these gibberish sentences solidify over the week. More and more real word appear with pretty decent verb tenses. They recognize the words we use with them often (this evening Kelly said “tienes mucho lice!”).
It’s fascinating.
2 replies on “solidifying gibberish”
That’s so interesting. I go through life knowing that the human brain is amazing, but it’s pretty easy to forget, especially because I actually feel like I keep forgetting things and may be losing knowledge. But when you see amazing things like language acquisition, then it really reminds you how awesome it really is.
It is interesting to me how the excitement of teaching English to your Spanish speaking children parallels to the excitement we get as we are teaching our 16 month old English as his first and only language. We get so excited at the progress and achievements with each new word he utters and when he uses them correctly. What a blessing it is that you have spanish speaking children so that you have the opportunity as a new parent to teach them and see this type of achievement and progress in them. It is amazing to witness!