Correction

I read a book quite some time back about children and how they learn languages...

Did you know that it will take many years for children to be able to pronounce all the letters in the alphabet and all the sounds we make with them? In fact, even when children are in primary one, there will still be a few phonetic sounds that they are incapable of saying!

Amazing isn't it? I always thought that children that age would already be ready to say ANYTHING!

The book says that because of this, we should not be too harsh and correct our children too much when they talk. If everytime they talk you tell them, "No, not this.. it is that.." it will discourage them from speaking altogether and in speech, like all other skills, practice makes perfect.

Eg, Ace is incapable of saying the word "Rock", he always says "Yock" instead because I suspect the Y sound is easier to say than the R sound. So, "Rabbit" is "Air-bit" to Ace. "Biscuit" is "Ah kit".. so on and so forth.

I usually do not correct him and let him be.

But that does not mean we should indulge in that. As parents, we need to set good examples. If we follow the way the pronounce the words and say "yock yock.." instead of "rock rock" properly to them, they will grow up pronouncing the word ROCK and YOCK.

So even if we understand what they are saying and know that if we use their shortcuts, they will understand us too, we are not supposed to do that.

We should speak good English at all times and just carry on the conversation as per normal.

Example:

Ace: Mummy, Yock Yock...
Me: Ace, you want mummy to Rock you?
Ace: Yes
Me: Ok, I will Rock you for a short while ok?
Ace: Ok...

Initially I was quite worried that not correcting them may be showing them a bad example instead. But I thought since the book is written by an expert.. I better listen to them ;) Besides, Jez Ah Ma and Yanni Jie both have ever shared about this with me before as well.

True enough, when Ace was not capable of saying more than 1 syllable, he used to call Zhen Popo "popo" and the difference between this "popo" and Waipo's "popo" is the intonation.

I never corrected him and accepted it. But I never stopped referring to her as Zhen Popo.

All of a sudden when he started to get the hang of 3 syllable words (going on to 4 syllable already), he just called her "Zhen Popo.." naturally!

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