Monday, November 18, 2013

Of Speech Patterns

Little by little, I've noticed that Hana has started to talk more like adults. Despite her limited vocab, she does try and speak in full, proper sentences. At the very least, she manages to arrange her words properly whenever she talks.

For example, she used to say "Mama takut". Now she says "Hana takut mama!" (When we play catch, just in case people's imaginations start going wild) :P

She used to go "Apa bunyi tu?" When she hears the knocking and drilling that are oh-so-common where we live. Now she says "Bunyi apa tu?"

Yesterday, she crawled under the dinner table and grinned at me. I asked her "What are you doing, Hana?" and she answered "Sit down". So I corrected her with "I'm sitting down", which she duly repeated.

So today, I decided to ask her a few questions in complete sentences, just to see if she can answer them accordingly. My first was when she asked for cereal for breakfast and specifically requested that I put banana pieces in it.

Me: Do you like bananas?
Hana: I like bananas.

This was quite a pleasant surprise to me because I wasn't aware that she knew how to use pronouns. I knew that she can glean meanings out of the things I say, but I didn't know she could refer to herself in the first person in the proper context, if you know what I mean.

I asked her the second question when she was slurping the milk out of the bowl after her cereal was all gone.

Me: Is it good?
Hana: It's so good!

So she's gone beyond repeating what we say to being able to put each sentence pattern into context.