"Amme, my friend is calling. Can I go to she's house?"
Why on Earth is English such a complicated language?!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Simply complicated
"Amme, my friend is calling. Can I go to she's house?"
Why on Earth is English such a complicated language?!
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Oh, but the advantages of becoming multilingual at such a young age last a lifetime! It's really the only way to become comfortable learning languages and, in the world he will inherit, being able to speak several languages will be an advantage on many levels.
ReplyDeleteI hope so, Mike, but I worry about his mother tongue... He used to speak clear and perfect Malayalam till he was three, now it is a mix of everything. I am so reminded of friends I used to laugh at, for their weird, mixed-up accent!!
ReplyDeleteMy brother married a woman from Spain and they'd summer there and spend the rest of the year in the US (he was a teacher at the time). At three, the kids would come back from Spain speaking a hilarious brand of English that contained a few Spanish words, some Spanish structure and some accidentally-translated idioms (like "open the light"). They had the advantage of total immersion to sort things out -- they heard little Spanish here and little English there, so, in a few days, they'd be back on the beam. I can only imagine how confusing it must be to a three-year-old to go back and forth within his daily life. Here, it was once more common for little guys to hit school speaking only their home tongue, but I don't know how that works in a multi-lingual society -- not just India but places like China and South Africa as well.
ReplyDeleteI suppose in my son's case, a little nudge now and then would go a long way in clearing the muddle...
ReplyDeletehilarious...coudnt stop laughing. Jean- nice one u have there. U might like a post called "thank her why's" on my blog where I do mention few things abt my 6 year old.
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