But then don't get me started about Linguistics classes. I hated my first class mostly because of the teacher. It should have been my first clue when she spent the first two ENTIRE class periods taking roll. There were over 100 students in the class! Then the next week, she took three class periods to tell us her life story in painstaking detail, including the names of each graduate student she worked with on each project, and what each of them is doing with his or her life these days.
I made it 3/4 of the way through the semester and then finally dropped it, W/F.
So when I retook the class and actually did my classwork, I realized it wasn't just the teacher; I hated Linguistic classes. I loved reading what other people have found in their research, but I hated doing the research. And I hated even more learning the stupid names of phonemes, syntax, morphology, blah, blah, blah.
But getting back to my loves: it has been fascinating watching Penny learn to speak. It's cool to see what I learned in my textbook being played out in front of me. She's comfortably into her two-word phrase phase, and I'm sure she'll pop out some longer sentences one of these days.
In our apartment building, there are several kids about Penny's age. Each of them is bilingual in various combinations. One boy is Japanese with a Chinese nanny. One is Chinese with an American daddy. Actually, two of them are. One is Korean-American. One is Chinese-Canadian. All of them can understand two languages fluently-- well, as fluently as toddlers can understand. But each of them has chosen just one language to speak, usually the one their mom speaks. But Penny's Korean-American friend has just been living in the US, and even though his mom speaks to him 95% of the time in Korean, he speaks English to her 95% of the time. The other 5% is after he's just been playing with his Korean friends (some older kids in the building).
Most of the time, when our playgroup gets together, the moms speak to each other in mostly Chinese. But then each of us will yell at-- I mean, talk to-- our children in our own languages.
Penny says "thank you" like an American. She faces the person, smiles, and says loudly and confidently, "Thank you!"
Penny's little Canadian-Chinese friend is younger, and he puts his two hands together and shakes them while he kind of mumbles, "Xie xie."
Penny's Japanese friend is even younger, and when his mom tells him to "domo," he bends his knees and bobs a little bow. It is the cutest thing ever!
I love watching the kids play together and learn their languages. It will be fun to keep watching as we're here and Penny grows up a bit more.
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