Thursday, July 31, 2008

Edda Update

Edda is 22 months old and she is still hardly speak. All she is good at is mama (妈妈) and baba (爸爸). Since she is bilingual, I do expect her to be a little late. But she should start saying more words after she turns two. She loves to mimic her sister, almost in every move. Her sister laugh, she laugh, her sister dance, she dance, her sister climb stairs, she also climb stairs, basically everything her sister does, she wanted to do it too. So, we have been asking her sister to teach her words. So far the only incentive to make her speak in word is a bribe of sweet dessert/candy/ potato chips (basically any junk food that kids like). We will ask “你要不要吃?” Say “要”. And then she will say “要”. We will of course take the opportunity to ask her to say more words, like “我爱你”, “ABC”, “1-10” these sort of things. With the bribe in sight, she is willing to say anything. If not, she prefers not to say any word. Most of the time she will use sound and action to let me know what she wants. A little strange right?

9 comments:

  1. just wondering...at home, which chinese dialect do you guys use?

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  2. My kids are exposed to Mandarin and English. My dialect is Hokkein but I hardly speak this to them, only to my mom. So, they couldn't understand any dialect at all. :(

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  3. My son started talking very late, after he hit 2.5yrs. The paed advised me to "force" him to speak, as in not responding to his sounds and actions, but only when he said wad he wanted correctly. Whether it worked or not... I'm not too sure, 'coz one fine day he just decided to blurt out in complete sentences! LOL

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  4. Tyler and Erin are just like Evy and Edda. One thing that seems to work for Tyler, and now Erin at this age, is that when they want something without saying the word, even if we know what it is, we would say something like, "sweetie, tell me what you want, we don't understand if you don't say it". Erin is just starting to say more words. It's so cute when they finally do talk, and before you know it, you wish them to shut up and not talk at all!

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  5. Thanks baking fiend for your advice, I will try to ignore her request and see what happen. But I think she will probably end out screaming!

    That's good Hoon, at least Erin is started to say more words. Now I do wish them to shut up sometimes as Evy couldn't stop chatting or singing inside the car or in the restaurant (instead of eating her meal)! Edda now will scream when I ignore her and oh man she can scream/whine/cry!

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  6. Hi,

    I love your site and thank you for sharing your recipes. Actually, I want to leave a comment ages ago but couldn't do it (not sure why) because when I opened the window, I could only see half of the sentences! Anyway, finally I am able to do it today.

    My daughter is 27 months old and she was basically 'speechless' when she was 18 months old. Not even saying mama (only papa)! >:(

    We were speaking Mandarin (only) with her but she didn't respond well with the language. :-( Our pediatrician suggested we go for speech therapist sessions. It took us 3 months for her application to get approved. By that time, she already started to pick up more words, know her ABCs and 1 to 10 after we decided to switch to English with her. But she is still not using words very much.

    Now that she is almost 27 months, she can speak but not very well. She doesn't respond very well to 'where', 'who' and 'what' questions. At least your Edda loves to eat. Mine is such a picky eater that drives me nuts whenever it's eating time!

    P.S. Want to let you know that I breastfed my kid until 2 years old! Thank goodness that it's finally OVER!

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  7. Hi Anon,
    Thanks for leaving me a comment. Edda is starting to pick up more words. At least now she is more willing to repeat what we said or burst out trying to mimic what her sister said. She can say 好,要 so it's very cute. Like I will say something and she will say 好. Good for you for breastfed you kids until 2! I just starting to wean Edda like two nights ago. So far she did very well, she has been wean for two days and I will continue until she is no longer asking for it.

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  8. My little girl is exposed to 3 languages, French, English and Mandarin. My hubby speaks to her in French while I speak to her mainly in English but read to her both in English and Mandarin and she listens to Chinese children songs. She has a mix vocabulary of French and English. But she says more words in French than in English. She understands whatever we say to her in English or French. She can understand very basic mandarin.

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  9. That's very good Cooking Ninja. Keep it up! :)

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