As you probably know, Lo Gung and I are doing our best to raise our kids bilingual. Their MaMa (paternal grandmother) speaks mostly Chinese, so it's important to me that our kids be able to talk to her. (Because if they can't talk to her? I can't leave them with her while I take fabulous vacations. Just keeping it real, y'all. Now to figure out who's going to pay for the fabulous vacations...)
BBJ has this funny habit of letting her verbal abilities slip (sometimes big time) before she makes a leap forward. It's happened several times already in her short three years: just before she learned to speak in phrases, when she started throwing Chinese in here and there and again before she learned to speak in sentences. When Chinese gets thrown into the mix, things can just get plain weird.
The other day, I was explaining to her that a friend was going to be coming over with a bag full of perfumes and lotions to smell. (She's a Mary Kay rep and wanted my opinion on the new winter line up. Ok, sure!) BBJ looked puzzled, then asked, "Hum cao?"
"What was that, BBJ?"
"Hum cao, mommy?" (doubt starting to bloom in her eyes)
"Honey, I don't understand."
(speaking very slowly and deliberately) "Hummm Caaaaoooo." (staring at me intently)
I laughed as I suddenly realized it wasn't Chinese.
She was asking, "How come?"
Heh....there was something in WD's family like this, too..."for come how" perhaps? Too funny :)
ReplyDeleteThat is SO cute!! :)
ReplyDeleteI love it that kids are so brave in trying out new words. I remember Josh calling the vacuum cleaner a "BAK-ah-DIN-ah" when he was around 2. Heh.
Love it! And hum cao you didn't understand her???
ReplyDeleteKids are so amazing that they can learn two languages at the same time! Bless her heart. I don't even do one very well.
ReplyDeleteCute. I can't even tell you how many people, in all seriousness, asked if Jarrah was speaking Mandarin when we met her. I'm like, "Did your 13-month-old speak a lot?" And then when she started doing toddler babble, people would say, "Oh, you probably can't understand it because it's Chinese." Sheesh. :)
ReplyDeleteCute! Little Boy's been doing the same thing lately--except without the Chinese, of course. ;)
ReplyDelete