Alex at 22 months, part I: Language.

[rivka]

Language development is crazy. In August, I was impressed that Alex was starting to use two-word phrases occasionally. Just six months later, she speaks in long sentences which are increasingly grammatically correct. We can have real conversations now. A sample dialogue from the other morning:

Me: calling upstairs to Michael. Honey, why don't you get in the shower?
Alex: Honey doing? I give her a look. Papa doing? Michael doing?
Me: He's playing on the computer.
Alex: Shower in a little bit.
Me: Yes, he's going to shower in a little bit.
Alex: Play on the computer first, then shower. Papa playing Blues Clues on the computer.
Me: Papa's playing Blues Clues?
Alex: No. Blues Clues on Mama's computer. Papa playing on *his* computer.

And another sample dialogue:
Me: Papa went to get our dinner.
Alex: Alex have noodle soup!
Me: Noodle soup, huh? How about... a rhinoceros?
Alex: Rhinoceros not eat noodle soup.
Me: No? Aww, poor rhinoceros.
Alex: Rhinoceros just have a little broth.

Her vocabulary is just ridiculous. She knows the names of several dinosaurs ("Ankylosaurus go in the tunnel!"), our major Baltimore destinations ("Alex go Science Center - T. Rex's house!"), several different types of train car ("Here's the hopper car!"), a great many pieces of construction equipment ("Alex, which truck carries this big rock?" "Giant front-end loader does!"), and too many animals to count. (Meerkat, aardvark, fennec, wildcat, slug...)

She has big chunks of books and nursery rhymes memorized, and quotes them at the drop of a hat. We'll be on our way upstairs, and she'll chatter, "Upstairs, upstairs... 'upstairs, downstairs, in lady's chamber.' " Or she'll see a picture of a sunset and start reciting from one of her books: "The sun has set, not long ago. Now everybody goes below..." The sight of a diamond-shaped ornament on a building brings, "A diamond! ...'Like a diamond in the sky.'" Sometimes she pages through her books "reading" them aloud, but more commonly she just recites without a book present. I once saw her building with blocks while quoting meditatively, "All creatures sleep." (The first line of a book we'd recently read.)

It seems likely that she'll grow up to be a character in a Pamela Dean novel.

She's started carefully constructing full sentences. Sometimes she'll start out in the old telegraphic style, and then go back to correct herself: "Pigeon eating! ...Pigeon *is* eating. Pigeon is hungry. Pigeon is eating snow." She likes using is and contrasting it with not. "This is not a rocking chair - this is a couch."

She's starting to grasp pronoun use, although she often reverses them: "Mama hold you." Sometimes she follows the rules to hilarious effect, as when a store clerk told us "Have a good day." "Thanks, you too," I replied. And Alex chimed in with, "Thanks, me too."

Other new elements which have appeared:

• Just. Her Chinese food is "not too spicy - juuust right!" "Mama is a girl, just like Alex." In the morning, she might call for Papa first, and then greet me with "Just Mama!" when I emerge instead.


• First/then and first/next. "Read Three Bears first, Annie next." "Lunchtime first, then diaper change."


• looks like. She pointed to a picture of a red potato in a book and called it a pomegranate. I corrected her, and she replied, "Look like a pomegranate." Or she might use that construction to express confusion: for example, I recently said "Look, there's a seagull!" Alex watched it fly, and said, "Look like a bird."


• She's starting to use more abstract words - for example, something. ("Mama is hungry. Mama is eating something.") And different. ("Alex like a different one.") And words for emotional states, like happy, sad, surprised, angry, cranky, excited.


• She's testing out how "love" is used. Not "I love you," unfortunately. But she might announce, "Love playing trains!" or tell me, "Mama wearing a robe. Mama love robes." Ditto with favorites. Out of nowhere, last night, she announced, "Alex's favorite color is yellow. Uncle Bill's favorite color is black."


• She's quantifying things more. "Alex, would you like some more milk?" "No, Alex still have a little bit." Negotiating for a taste of something: "Alex just have a tiny little bite." Michael: "Alex, you're getting to be quite the little cook." Alex: "No, Alex is a BIG cook."

She really seems to love being able to say so many things. She gets such a look of pride on her face when she manages to construct a complicated sentence. When she works out how a new grammatical construction is used, she practices it again and again.

Edited to add: Alex, this morning, with our stuffed otter 'Spectful. "Alex is flinging the otter! Alex is a very good flinger."

Comments

[pameladean]

*sniff*

I promise that if she turns up I'll be very careful of her.

P.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling she wouldn't mind if you were reckless and wild with her. She's gonna be a corker, I predict, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I am impressed with "giant front-end loader." My nephew, then perhaps a little older than Alex, called it a "scoopin' and diggin' truck," which phrasing is still heard around our family, and the nephew is nearly 15.

K.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking she'll be a force to be reckoned with. :D

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

"Giant front-end loader" is actually the description given in a board book about various trucks that she is currently fascinated with. "Digger" is a more commonly-used generic term for those sorts of machines in her vocabulary. She's really excited by seeing them, too, and will eagerly point them out whenever we see one.

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

I love these stories of Alex that you tell. Thanks for sharing them. *wistful look*

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I always wind up reading most of these Alex language posts out loud to Wim. Thanks. :) She's amazing.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Oh, how *fun*!

-J

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Alex: Rhinoceros just have a little broth.

For some reason, this conversation makes me insanely happy.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

As Michael says, it's all due to her truck book (http://www.amazon.com/First-Truck-Board-Book-Books/dp/0789499045/sr=8-2/qid=1171978525/ref=sr_1_2/002-7140095-4993650?ie=UTF8&s=books), which is chock full of beautiful, clearly-labeled photos of every imaginable kind of truck. I've heard her chanting to herself, "A grader, a scraper, a paver, a roller..."

That book is part of a fantastic series. You can't really go wrong with any of the titles, if you're shopping for a toddler.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Hopefully by the time she's old enough to have mastered the right kinds of quotes, she will be better able to take care of herself. But thank you - I am grateful for your concern.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Ohhh! Start her on Spanish as soon as you possibly can!

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Edited to add:
Edited to add: Alex, this morning, with our stuffed otter 'Spectful. "Alex is flinging the otter! Alex is a very good flinger."

This makes me giggle hysterically.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

The other day, our daughter shared a vignette of her derivative fiction which referred to not only the TV shows Highlander and Stargate SG-1 but Plato's Republic.

I told her she was as bad as Pamela Dean and T.S. Eliot. She thanked me.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

So was she right, Uncle Bill? Something about the uniforms?

[kate_nepveu]

These are always fascinating and enjoyable; thanks for posting them.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I think we all have to start worrying about being characters in Alex's novel. :-)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It really is so much fun! When my little sister was learning to talk I wasn't really clued in and paying attention, and so this is my first opportunity to really watch language acquisition unfold.

Two things really surprise me about it.

First off, it's such a complicated process, with so many rules to internalize and so many tiny details to pay attention to, that it's kind of hard to believe that everyone just does it. That "talking" isn't an advanced skill for bright people, but a foundational thing that almost every human does.

The other thing that surprises me is that it seems like something Alex consciously works on. Complex sentences take a lot of concentration for her right now, and she's so happy when she manages to get one out. And then she'll practice it. If she gets it right, she'll say it a couple of times. If she makes a mistake that she knows how to fix (such as leaving out an "is"), she'll repeat it with the missing word. She'll practice applying it to other objects.

For example: She has a book called Growing Foods, in which each page shows an animal eating something healthy. The only actual text is the name of the food. But when Alex was starting to figure out the usage of "love," she wanted me to read the book twice through while she practiced saying it for every page. "Badger eating a orange. Badger love oranges. Squirrel have a apple. Squirrel love apples. Pig is eating cereal. Pig love cereal." It was exactly like someone doing lines of drill in a grammar workbook. She worked it out, including the mass noun/count noun distinction, until she was completely fluent at it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Me too! And there's stuff like that every single day.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I bought a little cassette recorder so I could get sound samples from Sarah as she grew up. Naturally, I mostly forgot to use it, but I have a couple of tapes that I remembered to set. I really wanted to get one of the sweet babble she used when talking herself to sleep before she had words to plug in, but never managed to do it.

Hi to Alex! From all of us.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's really insightful. I bet her "grammar drills" are more successful than most of the ones you find in language classrooms, though. :-)

-J

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I'm already resigned to being a character in her novel. :)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

She's right that I'm wearing something black every time she sees me. So it's natural for her to interpret that as my favorite color, though I don't think of it as my favorite. Just my most utilitarian.