Tuesday 3 April 2012

Look who's talking!

Finally, at 18 months, Snowflake has decided it is time to speak. During the last week, she suddenly started saying words, totally out of the blue. So the speech and language therapist won't be called after all.

I love recording those first words, the things that are special or significant to her. I also love to see how many are English and how many German (her big sister had more childcare experience from an earlier age and consequently her first words were almost exclusively English).

So here's the world according to Snowflake:

Ja (yes)
No (I just love the way she says one in English and one in German!)
Auto (car)
Up
Baum (tree)
Bye
Hi
Hallo
Hiya
Mami
Daddy
her own name
mehr (more)
ah-oh
doo (shoe/Schuh)
duck
moo
yuck
nom (food)
Jak! (Jacket )
baba (sheep)
bow wow (dog)
buggy
Ei (egg)
those are the ones I remember off the top of my head, there may be more. 

Plus she loves completing rhymes in nursery rhymes and books, in both languages.
I had been a bit worried that once she started nursery, her big sister would start speaking English to her, but this is not happening, at least not at home. This to me is a massive difference - she grows up having two significant people speaking German to her, and she'll be in childcare slightly less at least until she is 2. I hope this will mean that she'll start out speaking two languages, and that bilingualism will come a bit more easily to her. With Cubling, it was a massive effort to get her to speak German it seems that even at 18 months there is some indication that it will be easier for Snowflake.

I still have my slight worries about her language development in general, she's not a talker for sure but her phonetics are very limited and she consistently doesn't have any s- sounds, i.e. no s z sh. Her speech seems limited even at the level of the basics, but I have been told that by 2 years of age things usually improve. And so I try to be patient - it makes every new word extra special.

I kind of hope that this week, she'll add "Opa" to her vocabulary. That would just be wonderful.

3 comments:

The mum of all trades said...

I'm sure she'll be fine. I've been amazed at the different rates that language has developed with my ones. Her list is highly entertaining!

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, it's just so much fun when the language arrives! She's got a great list of words so far. Have fun with it!!

Anonymous said...

Oooooh, it's so much fun when language production arrives! She certainly has a great list of words so far. Have fun with it!!

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