Wednesday, October 26, 2011

22th month

New vocabularies
French: au revoir (goodbye), fait attention (pay attention), bain (bath), pain (bread), papillon (butterfly), tétine (pacifier), saute (jump), petit ours brun (Brown little bear, a French cartoon series), marché (market), donne (give), goûte (taste).

Notes: She usually says "Bye bye" when waving goodbye to someone but now she switched to French. I was a bit surprised when she told me to "pay attention" the other day. She finally managed to pronounce the word papounet (grandfather) correctly but still calling her grandma mamoutête instead of mamounette.

Mandarin: hu tie (butterfly), ma yi (ant), mu ji (hen), ji dan (egg), Lao shu (mouce), bian fu (bat), hu li (fox), niu you (butter), di shang (floor), ti (kick), qiu (ball), mi feng (bee), kan shu (reading), mian bao(bread).

Notes: She has difficulty pronouncing anything ends with "zi", like "ya zi"(duck), "tu zi" (rabbit), shi zi (lion), hou zi (monkey). Many animals in Mandarin end with "zi" so there are a bunch of animals she could not pronounce.

Counting: When I go up and down stairs with her I try to count the steps in Mandarin. She starts saying it but mixing French and mandarin. She would say ".., deux (two in French), san (three in Mandarin).

Overview: Overall I'm happy with her language achievement. However, the fact that she is with her sitter the whole day limits her intake in Mandarin. I suspect that she starts getting the concept that we use different language at home, as sometimes with me she would ask for a biscuit in saying "gâteau" (biscuit in French) then quickly switch to "bing gan" (biscuit in mandarin). I hope to help her grab the concept but don't know how to do it.

Physical development

Climbing, jumping and kicking are her favorite movements these days. She loves to stand on her car or toy to look at stuffs on the counter-top or simply messing around. She got frustrated if her car or toy did not stand still and caused her to fall down. In the Petit Ours Brun series, the little bear was jumping so she would do this every time she watches the cartoon, and she would ask us to jump with her. She adores kicking and throwing ball.

Social and emotional development
She is a bossy girl. She starts issuing orders around. She would pull my finger and have it point to images on books. She commanded me to sit on her car or her chair or on the floor. She also pull my hand to follow her to the room and say "Du shu" (reading) and "assis" (sit down). When we do not obey her, she would bang her forehead on the floor and scream "tête-tête" (head head).

Photo shows Aelig having a good time with hubby. She is no longer the little baby who sticked to me all the time. In the past, when I got home, she would start crying and being cranky. While I cook, she would cry beside and refused to play with daddy. The phase has passed, now she would only push away her daddy when she is extremely tired. This is really a good change as we can now play together. Our game these days:
Me (in mandarin): Aelig, what sound does daddy produce when he farts?
Aelig: puuuuuuuuuuuuuttt
Hubby (in French): Aelig, what sound does maman make when she farts?
Aelig: puuuuuuuuuttte

Ok, this was the first boy ever who held Aelig's hand. We brought her to a gathering and she was running around with a bunch of kids, mostly by herself without really joining the group. At one point I asked this boy if he could play with Aelig. He said ok and I didn't expect him to hold Aelig's hand. They ran together for a while until he came to me saying that Aelig didn't want to play with her. Later when I talked to his mother, I discovered that he told his mother that Aelig was holding his hand extremely tied that he felt painful so he wanted to let go of her. Haha, so she actually scared off a boy.

Her pass time activities
Reading is one of her favorite activities. She loves pointing to images especially anything involves cat or dog. When I tell her lets go "kan shu" (read) she would happily go pick up books and sit down on the floor.

Since when she starts liking TV? She didn't show interest when she was younger. We have loosen up a bit for letting her watching her little bear series (Photo showing her watching her cartoon while eating a biscuit). From time to time she would watch her Mandarin song DVD in my computer. But now when hubby watches news or shows she would also watch with him.

2 comments:

  1. Funny. Stick to speaking to her in Mandarin. Don't worry about her mixing the language at all so long she speaks something.

    My daughter speaks a little slower since I speak 2 languages at her in one go and my husband another. And she doesn't read like Aelig. She likes to play with puzzles instead.

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  2. Hi Lissa,

    May I know starting from what age your daughter grabbed the concept that you guys are speaking three different languages to her? Did you do anything to help her understand?

    I would like to get more feedback on this topic if you don't mind. You can write me directly to:
    beeean@gmail.com

    Thanks!

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