We went to America for the holidays. We spent over 3 weeks there with my parents. I was really hoping that this would get Noelle started speaking English.
The first two days on the airplane and on the road were tough for her. On the second day she was tired and rejecting English. She said to her mother, "I'm tired of Daddy's". She didn't know what to say but we knew what she meant. She was tired of everyone speaking English all of a sudden all of the time. It was difficult for her to understand and foreign. But she knew it was the same "language" that her daddy uses.
Pretty soon she became the center of attention. Everyone was trying to talk to her and everyone was trying to play with her. She started to warm up. She started trying, trying so hard, to communicate.
In the end she learned a lot of English and got started talking in English. Now she is back in Japanese mode and trying to speak Japanese to me more and more but I am resisting. We have been back now for a month. Right after we got back both Noelle and my wife were speaking a lot of English. I was so happy. They are reverting back to Japanese now. I must do something to keep up their English. We just have to speak more English at home.
2/21/2008
11/01/2006
Noelle's Language development
Noelle's language skills are developing rapidly. She is making more and more complete sentences. And I am so happy about it. But at the same time it makes me a little sad. Why? Because she just isn't learning English. Her thinking is in Japanese. When she does speak English it is normally English words in Japanese sentences or in Japanese grammar patterns. Last night she said "hotです". Mixing the Japanese verb "desu" with the English adjective "hot" to make the sentence, "It's hot."
8/23/2006
A Change in Noelle 20 months
The other night a friend came over for dinner. Ryo made a wonderful dinner of porkchops and gravy, salad and crunchy fried potatoes. We also had cake with vanilla ice cream. Oh that was just delicous! But I am not writing to tell you about our dinner or the fact that my friend came over but something else. Something about social blunders. Taboos.
Noelle is 20 months old now. We were all eating dinner and talking and Noelle was having fun and enjoying the change of pace (having a guest for dinner) when it happened. Noelle was getting excited and she accidentally lost the piece of porkchop that she had in her mouth. It came flying out and landed on the saucer of porkchops. She was surprised but my friend was even more surprised. He seemed a little bit disgusted. Perhaps that is too strong of a word but he did not think it was cool to have her half chewed food back out on the table. He has shown through his actions before that he really likes his food clean. Through raising Noelle we have lowered our standards a little as to what is clean enough food to eat since she often dumped her plate into our laps or on the floor. Anyways, his reaction to her losing her food onto the table was strong. What happened next is the interesting part. Noelle, upon seeing his reaction, got a cloud on her face. She wrinkled her eyebrows together and looked down. Her mouth was half opened and her lip began to quiver. We could see that she was trying to hold back tears. She was trying not to cry. She didn't know what to do or how to react to his reaction. She realized that she did something that was not acceptable. All three of us had to work to assure her that it was alright. Or friend did his best to get her smiling and giggling again. What we saw was that she realized, for the first time, that some things are not acceptable in "society". I amlost certain she wouldn't have reacted that way if the person reacting strongly to her behaviour was one of her close family. But I could be wrong. Another possibility is that she is starting to learn to control her emotions. Her trying not to cry, instead of just bawling out like normal, shows her trying to control, trying to deal with her emotions. Her having those feelings shows her developing socially. Of course, I really have no idea what I'm talking about but it was obvious to Ryo and I that she was showing a new area of development that we had not seen before.
Noelle is 20 months old now. We were all eating dinner and talking and Noelle was having fun and enjoying the change of pace (having a guest for dinner) when it happened. Noelle was getting excited and she accidentally lost the piece of porkchop that she had in her mouth. It came flying out and landed on the saucer of porkchops. She was surprised but my friend was even more surprised. He seemed a little bit disgusted. Perhaps that is too strong of a word but he did not think it was cool to have her half chewed food back out on the table. He has shown through his actions before that he really likes his food clean. Through raising Noelle we have lowered our standards a little as to what is clean enough food to eat since she often dumped her plate into our laps or on the floor. Anyways, his reaction to her losing her food onto the table was strong. What happened next is the interesting part. Noelle, upon seeing his reaction, got a cloud on her face. She wrinkled her eyebrows together and looked down. Her mouth was half opened and her lip began to quiver. We could see that she was trying to hold back tears. She was trying not to cry. She didn't know what to do or how to react to his reaction. She realized that she did something that was not acceptable. All three of us had to work to assure her that it was alright. Or friend did his best to get her smiling and giggling again. What we saw was that she realized, for the first time, that some things are not acceptable in "society". I amlost certain she wouldn't have reacted that way if the person reacting strongly to her behaviour was one of her close family. But I could be wrong. Another possibility is that she is starting to learn to control her emotions. Her trying not to cry, instead of just bawling out like normal, shows her trying to control, trying to deal with her emotions. Her having those feelings shows her developing socially. Of course, I really have no idea what I'm talking about but it was obvious to Ryo and I that she was showing a new area of development that we had not seen before.
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