My daughter, K, 19 months today is seeing an explosion in her vocabulary, with her picking not only new words but also new phrases every day. She has a neat repertoire of sentences and phrases by now which she sometime uses to hilarious effects. While the words we have deliberately taught her, reinforcing it with images and repetition are encouraged and praised, it is the ones she has picked up from the family conversations are the ones that sometimes leave us stumped.
When she cries, we often try to placate her with a "Chup baby, Chup", nobody has told her that it means to hush but I am sure she deciphered the meaning when to the crying neighbor girl (almost her age) she said "Chup Tammu, Chup!".
She also took us by surprise by her usage and understanding of "Sacchi". During her pretend plays, she regularly serves us plate/mugful of Chai, Chowmein, Roti, Pizza, Cake etc. and we often tell her to get us a "sacchi ka Cake". I am sure even if I tried to, I couldn’t have explained the word to her in this context. But one day during such a play when she asked for "Paani" and I pushed her empty Kitchen-set mug towards her, she pushed it away, walked out of the room saying "Nahi, sacchi ka!".
"Please" is another word that is difficult to explain the meaning of, one can just reiterate its usage by using it yourself. We had not got to the stage of reinforcing it deliberately but used it often to get her to open her mouth to eat. She once pulling me to come with her to another room and saying "Mummy chalo" for around 5 times, added a "Please" making it a "Mummy, please" - I had to go.
The funniest one, the one whose import she doesn't understand yet but the irony of it coming a few years earlier than expected was not lost on us happened a couple of weeks back. She often plays with my bag and loves to dig out stuff from there. When she reaches my wallet, she loves to separate the money ("Paise") and cards and papers in it. I had started using another wallet and it still didn’t have either the notes or cards in it. She took my bag, pulled out the wallet and went "Mummy, purse", took a peek inside, found no notes, outstretched her hand and went "Mummy, Paise?", I told her there is none and she tries again "Mummy, card?".
When she cries, we often try to placate her with a "Chup baby, Chup", nobody has told her that it means to hush but I am sure she deciphered the meaning when to the crying neighbor girl (almost her age) she said "Chup Tammu, Chup!".
She also took us by surprise by her usage and understanding of "Sacchi". During her pretend plays, she regularly serves us plate/mugful of Chai, Chowmein, Roti, Pizza, Cake etc. and we often tell her to get us a "sacchi ka Cake". I am sure even if I tried to, I couldn’t have explained the word to her in this context. But one day during such a play when she asked for "Paani" and I pushed her empty Kitchen-set mug towards her, she pushed it away, walked out of the room saying "Nahi, sacchi ka!".
"Please" is another word that is difficult to explain the meaning of, one can just reiterate its usage by using it yourself. We had not got to the stage of reinforcing it deliberately but used it often to get her to open her mouth to eat. She once pulling me to come with her to another room and saying "Mummy chalo" for around 5 times, added a "Please" making it a "Mummy, please" - I had to go.
The funniest one, the one whose import she doesn't understand yet but the irony of it coming a few years earlier than expected was not lost on us happened a couple of weeks back. She often plays with my bag and loves to dig out stuff from there. When she reaches my wallet, she loves to separate the money ("Paise") and cards and papers in it. I had started using another wallet and it still didn’t have either the notes or cards in it. She took my bag, pulled out the wallet and went "Mummy, purse", took a peek inside, found no notes, outstretched her hand and went "Mummy, Paise?", I told her there is none and she tries again "Mummy, card?".
I still cannot believe she is THAT grown up! 'Mummy, card' was hilarious, and 'Mummy, please' so sweet :)
ReplyDeleteLol!! She has really sorted out the major issues in life! Agree with S,"mummy, card" is hilarious :)
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