Momma Mia!

We are starting to think that when accents were being passed out, K. accidentally got in line with the Italians instead of the Vietnamese or Americans. Recently, he has started to add an 'a' on the end of nearly everything...and to top it off, the infections he puts on words sound very Italian as well. So as well as him calling me 'Mama mia', we hear, 'No napa, Mama, no napa!' or 'Playa me, playa me'. But our favorite. by far, has been, 'Make-a me toast-a, B.-a, make-a me toast-a!" It's been going on for about a week, but we're already seeing it start to fade as he becomes more and more adept at English. We'll all be a bit sad at losing our little Italian. But on the other hand, it is a delight to watch his language skills blossom. He now uses pronouns, regularly creates 4 word sentences, and is beginning to tell us about his feelings ('Dat scary, mama!'). It's been amazing to watch him go from no language or even babbling to where he is now just a year and a half later. God has truly answered my prayer which I prayed constantly while we waited for him: that his extended (and utterly unnecessary, IMO) stay in the orphanage do him no lasting damage.

Comments

Valorie Leonard said…
Funny! Nate says banananana and motor-nanana for motorcycle. We are starting him in speach therapy. It may be a little early, but the pediatrician thought it would be prudent. She did a little research after the referal to the ST and found out that it is very common for little ones learning English from Vietnamese to drop the last part of a word or improvise :)
12/18/2009 7:34 AM
thecurryseven said…
Oh, the endings of words! TM still has great difficulty with this. We spend a lot of time working on pronouncing word endings. It is getting better, but it takes practice to even hear them. Rhyming is still rather baffling to TM. He's great at finding alliteration (the same beginning of words) and often confuses it with rhyme. But he's making progress. About 50% of the time he can pick out the rhyme now, whereas this time last year, he couldn't get it at all. It amazes me how much basis for language is laid down in the first three years of life.
12/18/2009 12:43 PM
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