I feel really lucky, as my kids seem to have beaten the odds as far as language development. Daniel, especially, seems fairly advanced with expressive language. Conventional wisdom would have it that he should be somewhat behind, what with being both a boy and a twin. But he has been better-than-age-level since he was probably about 16-18 months old. He speaks in long, rambling sentences, narrating everything he sees and does. He is pretty good about getting pronouns correct (him, her, etc.), and experiments with plurals and past-tense by adding “es-es-es” to the end of a noun and “ed-ded” to the end of some verbs. The overcompensation is both funny to listen to and fascinating to realize the grammatical rules he’s picking up.
One of my favorites is that both Daniel and Rebecca are starting to correctly use the first person. After months of “Daniel did it!”, we have now moved on to “I did(ed-ded) it, Mommy!” “I want the two blocks(es-es), Mommy!” Still some mix-ups, like today at lunch when he said “I spilled the juice on you tummy,” meaning he had spilled on himself. But still… I just love each of these shifts as they incorporate more and more of the subtleties of language.
And, as more of a note to myself, this morning I noticed that Daniel has actually started pronouncing his own name correctly. For ages, he and Rebecca have both said “Dan-nul,” skipping the “y” sound in the middle of the name. Just this morning, though, I heard him say “Dan-yul” several times in a row, as though he was practicing and trying to get it right.
So, do you have a favorite word or phrase that makes you realize the crazy things your kids are picking up? An interesting cognitive connection or grammatical turn? Yes, I’m calling on all the language geeks out there.
I adore this age–the language stuff is so cool! I’m also pretty impressed with Adele’s grasp of future/past/present tense. She’s still a little shaky on prounouns (usually confusing “her” for “she”) but otherwise is pretty correct most of the time! I think the thing that has really surprised me is Adele adding “remember?” to the end of a sentence. For instance, she’ll say, “I put that under the table, remember?” It just seems like such an advanced skill to grasp, and yet she seems to really get it!
My children are actually in the language-loss stage. Pre-teen seems to be the grunting phase.
*sigh* I miss those long rambling sentences.
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Ooh, ooh, language geek here! I was going to do a post on some of the girls’ language cutenesses, but it’s hard to find time.
Today, Jess said, “These are the delicious chicken nuggets I ever had!” She still skips “most” or “least”. She also said, “I shooed, I show, I showeded my Mary Poppins magazine at show at tell.” It really is fun when you can watch their minds work through language.
It’s funny. I was never much interested in first language acquisition in the 6 years I spent as a linguist.
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Well lady you are speakin’ to an early childhood speech-language pathologist, so language development is near and dear to my heart! I am having a great time listening to Madeline develop her speech and language skills, especially since I am at work all day listening to to kids twice her age who do not speak as well as she does. I keep telling her she should come to work with me and teach those kiddos how to do it! Her funniest thing that she is doing right now is called metathesis…appropriate in kids her age. Not so appropriate when they are older. She has a snack cup and she calls it “na puk.” (She also reduces the consonant cluster, but that’s also appropriate). I just love it, but also love how I see her thinking about what 2 and 3 words she can put together. Its great!
BTW, your kids are so advanced language wise! I love all their sentences. Especially thought it was cute when Daniel was talking about getting dizzy when they were running in circles. Adorable!
Daniel is truly advanced when it comes to language! Jack is just now starting to do three- to four-word sentences. It’s crazy how quickly they pick things up, though. My favorite was a conversation between Johnny and Jack the other day. Johnny asked, “Did you pee in the potty?” and Jack said, “Yes.” Johnny then said, “Yes, you did!” And Jack unexpectedly replied, “Yes, I did!” Similarly, when Johnny said, “Yes, you are!” (after asking “Are you a big boy?”), Jack said, “Yes, I am!” It’s insane! We certainly have never taught him those replies. Very cool to watch.
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