Thursday, July 28, 2005
Phil's Vocabulary
Dina and I never spoke baby talk to Phil. We considered taking the Pimsleur course, but decided against it. Our long-term goal was to get the boy to speak English. Why handicap him by making that his second language?
By age two, he had quite an impressive vocabulary.
He's continued to embrace big words. After he grows up to be a "camp counselor" he's going to be a "NASA scientist." He uses the word "interested" a lot, as in "I'm going to be a beaver ... Jackson got me 'interested' in the Oregon [State] Beavers." (Jackson's parents are proud alums)
The other day we discussed the differences in pronunciation between "banished" and "vanished" (he said someone had been "banished", but sadly he doesn't know his bilabial plosives from his labiodental fricatives (do you?) and we had to go over it). Aang, the Avatar, had disappeared for 100 years. As far as we know he left voluntarily.
He's learning this week about insects at Pre-K. I asked about the parts of an insect: he remembered they have heads and abdomens, but needed help remembering "thorax" (which he pronounces "fore-axe", so we have some work to do distinguishing labiodental fricatives from the straight dental variety*).
Sometimes he accuses us of "aggravating" him.
Verbal SAT record books here we come.
*At least he's keeping things voiced or unvoiced properly.
By age two, he had quite an impressive vocabulary.
He's continued to embrace big words. After he grows up to be a "camp counselor" he's going to be a "NASA scientist." He uses the word "interested" a lot, as in "I'm going to be a beaver ... Jackson got me 'interested' in the Oregon [State] Beavers." (Jackson's parents are proud alums)
The other day we discussed the differences in pronunciation between "banished" and "vanished" (he said someone had been "banished", but sadly he doesn't know his bilabial plosives from his labiodental fricatives (do you?) and we had to go over it). Aang, the Avatar, had disappeared for 100 years. As far as we know he left voluntarily.
He's learning this week about insects at Pre-K. I asked about the parts of an insect: he remembered they have heads and abdomens, but needed help remembering "thorax" (which he pronounces "fore-axe", so we have some work to do distinguishing labiodental fricatives from the straight dental variety*).
Sometimes he accuses us of "aggravating" him.
Verbal SAT record books here we come.
*At least he's keeping things voiced or unvoiced properly.
Mikesell
