Friday, March 7, 2008

Good Girl

I've asked her nursery nurses to tell me about the words she uses with them. We agree that they possibly won't recognise any German or Spanish words as 'words', but they're happy to provide lists of English words - some of which Tara may never use at home; at least this way I hear about them.
Today's list reads: Hello, Max, 'Muma' ('Mama', G), Emily, Baby, good girl, man (she says 'Mann', G), and no.
Both 'hello' and 'good girl' are a surprise. She normally says 'hiya' to greet people. Claudia taught her to say 'hallo-hallo?' while they were looking at a picture of a phone, but for now she seems to associate that with this one context exclusively and doesn't use it as a 'live' greeting.

I call Jose and tell him, Hey, she seems to have said 'good girl'!
Tara looks up to me, nods and says 'goo-gi(r)l'.
We're impressed.

She also interrupted another conversation we had. Jose told me what they'd told him about her use of 'Mann'. The caretaker had walked into the room, and Tara had gotten very excited about it (she was introduced to him last week), and pointed and shouted 'Mann! Mann! Mann!'. At that Tara looks up to me with big eyes, and tells me, "Kis" (His name is Chris). "Mann. Nena (girl, S). Hiya!"

Later at home she treats me to another new word, 'Bil(d)'. She points at the picture we found in the spidery shed yesterday. I give it her, she takes my hand, pulls me towards the sofa, and orders, 'Si' down!'.

No comments: