Friday, October 17, 2008

At about two years of age, a child is likely to abandon his made-up words for "real" words. Before age two, Ethan called his blanket "mok". At two plus, we corrected him and he started to call his blanket "tumok". Oh well. The two year old's sentences may still be telegraphic but he can now use as many as four words in sequence, sometimes right smack in the standard subject-verb-object order. Here are some points that can guide you assess your child's linguistic development.

Language Milestones Two to Three Years

* Understand but does not always correctly use common personal pronouns such as "me", "you", "mine".
* Understands and begins to use a few prepositions such as "on", "under", "with".
* Uses three-word and four-word sentences
* Correctly employs the present and past tenses of regular verbs.
* Adds suffix "-ing" to verbs to denote temporary action. " Ethan eating"
* Begins to refer to future events - all other future events may be labeled "tomorrow".
* Refers to self by name.
* Uses regular plurals (adding s)
* Distinguishes objects by using demonstratives - this, that
* Uses helping verb structure, often getting it wrong: "Me gonna eat" for "I'm going to eat."

We chose to talk to Ethan in both Filipino and English. The problem is (or is it?)he is a lot more fluent in English. He cannot speak Filipino aside from phrases such as "ano ka ba?" and "kain na". He understands a lot of Filipino words though, but you have to say it slowly. Now we're all shaking our heads - Ethan needs tutoring in Filipino!- and here we are living in the Philippines surrounded by Filipino-speaking natives.
Posted by desperateblogger On 10/17/2008 12:28:00 PM 5 comments

5 comments:

  1. same thing with my two and a half year old nephew, but for his case he has to use english,he's down under with roos. :)

    the only two words he knows in the vernacular are not even Filipino but ilocano.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hahaha....to give him credit, he improved from 1 syllable to 2....'tumok'...as in kumot?

    Kakatuwa. I've been watching our little one's home video when she was about 3 and it's funny to listen to her talk at that age...lahat exaggerated.

    What's the plan for the weekend? Teka..do you still make taya sa lotto dyan?

    Huling

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Lena! It's actually good for Ethan that he fluently speaks in English... I think it will be an advantage when he starts going to school,right? About speaking in Filipino, he will eventually learn as he grows up and mingle with some boys his age or maybe his classmates who speak Filipino...

    About my little boy, I talk to him in English, while Dana is the one teaching him basic Filipino words.. Baliktad no? hehe...

    ReplyDelete
  4. dom: i have nephews and nieces in the US and they too, can't speak tagalog but they do understand it.


    huling: yup, tumok for kumot. it's really funny watching old home movies. i had some real old betamax and vhs tapes transferred to cds. when we watched the cds namatay kami katatawa.

    weekend: go home to taytay then buy stuff for my son as his team is going to dumaguete.

    last week's pot for the lotto was i think 135M. hindi ako nakataya eh. give me your numbers so i can just bet anytime i feel like it. =)

    debbie: ethan's in kinder (prep equivalent in PI) and all his classmates speak in English. The school is actually conducting a special class to learn basic Filipino words for in grade 1, Filipino is a required subject.

    You mean Dana speaks Tagalog?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Lena, it's me again.. Yes, Dana speaks our language, but not fluently... well, not yet. He's learning alot though (very determined), and actually, he's very good, I am so proud of him. When we talk to my family in Manaoag, Dana talks to my mom in Tagalog. And with our Filipino friends here in GA, he speaks with them in Filipino....medyo baluktod ( 0r baluktot? ) nga lang...trying hard ba...pero pwede na rin, hehe...At least, he wants to learn... He really loves not only our country, not only the Filipino people, at hindi lang pagkaing pinoy, pati salita natin...lahat na!

    ReplyDelete

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