Rosetta Stone, We're Not

It's interesting bringing home an older, internationally adopted child. Unlike bringing home an infant, who has not yet begun to talk, older children have already made that leap. Even in bringing home a baby, you will notice that their jabbering may sound different than what you may expect. There are sounds in other languages that we don't have in the English language.

Little Man came home with the most adorable accent. His birth language is Hadiyya, the care center where he stayed used Amharic, and then he came to the U.S. and had to learn English. Wow. I love watching the old videos of him when he was first speaking English. The accent is adorable! He picked up the language really quickly, but he still had the inflection that you would hear in his birth language. I have a voice mail saved from when he was three because it just sounds soooo cute.

We have been working really hard to help Baby B learn English so she can tell us what she needs more easily. She can understand most of what we are saying, but she is still working on being able to speak English herself.

The results have been...interesting.

Apparently, Baby B thinks that her name is 'Mama'. Either that or 'No.'  (Little Man thought he'd be silly one day and start telling sister that his name was Mama, so she thought her name must be mam too...then I tried to correct the confusion by saying no, whenever Baby B would say her name was Mama. Sigh.)

When you are finished eating, according to Baby B, you say 'Cacca.' Now, I'm not sure if you know what cacca really means (it involves using the bathroom and going number two) but I definitely don't want her running around saying 'Cacca!' whenever she finishes with something. This happened as a result of Mama trying to potty train and saying "Cacca, all done?" Whoops.

Baby B can say the word 'kitty' really well. This word can be used when referring to cats, dogs, rabbits, cows, elephants...

We've got 'Amen' covered. Baby B is even praying before she uses the potty these days. (I'm letting Little Man clear up the confusion on that one.)

I have discovered that we say "Okay" around here. A lot. My little princess walks around saying "Okay? Okay. Okay?" all day long. She's totally nailed that word in the English language. That and the words: yes, all done, more, and eat.

I'm thinking I'm not going to sign up to teach English anytime soon. Rosetta Stone people, you're safe.

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