Ad astera per aspera - our ml adventures
Mar 9, 2022 8:11:06 GMT 9
Post by Ilyah on Mar 9, 2022 8:11:06 GMT 9
Hey everyone,
Been a while since I posted – I meant to put up an update around our 2nd birthday. Before I blinked, M is now 2.5 and growing up at a pace! As a quick background, I am Russian-born long time US resident, fluent in both languages. My wife is a US native, whose father’s side of the family is Hatian but speaks English almost exclusively. We follow the OPOL strategy. Here are some of our recent adventures:
Relationship with me – I was reading the recent post by CHRISTOPHER L WILSON about how his son sees target language as dad-specific activity. Of course this is also the case with us, since we don’t (yet) have a Russian-speaking nanny, daycare, or weekend program. However, I do appreciate and enjoy the exclusivity of that bond, which I guess is easier since M hasn’t developed self-consciousness and therefore rarely shows resentment one way or another.
Vocabulary development – M says individual words, and his Russian vocabulary has expanded a whole lot in the last ~6-7 months. He is also beginning to form simple sentences, “this is a horse” or “here is a dog”. I am thinking this is on track, at least average. We are not quite at the stage of “give me an apple” (he says “apple!” and points, albeit I’ve won the battle for saying “apple” in Russian which so far has been one of the tougher ones). He does know how to say “give it back!” mostly when I take something that he’s not supposed to have – wonder where he got that from?
Counting – M can now count up to 20, at least in Russian. He also associates quantities with the corresponding number, for example if you ask him “how many cows?” he will count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and say “five cows!” He can also point to the corresponding number (e.g. if there are numbered stickers). Not always 100% correctly, but he gets the concept.
Great memory – he learns new words on the first few tries and then remembers them easily several days or even a couple of weeks later. I joke that I have long forgotten how good your memory is at two years old!
Loves coloring – I’ve seen suggested activities with pictures, “Point to the cat. Where is the cat’s tail?” and right now that lasts for all of two minutes. However, with coloring, I can print a picture of a cat, and then we can talk about what color will he paint the ears, paws, whiskers, and so on. Moderate degree of success, but he stays engaged longer than passively with a book.
Trip with American family – we rented a cabin for a week with my wife’s family. I was somewhat concerned that this would cause a regression for M, since everyone would be speaking English to him. I think it was actually quite the opposite, because I was hanging out with him most of the time every day: we got to watch his Russian language tv programs, discussed new toys and unfamiliar objects, and even played piano together. It was very cool to see that bonding with his American family did not conflict with using and developing the target language.
Grandparents visits – we have decided to have a weekly dinner with my parents. This has been good, since he gets to see interaction in the target language among adults that’s not on TV, and also they can play with him in different ways than what I have come up with.
Understands some abstract concepts – I can consistently get him to understand things like, “after you get ready for bed, you can finish coloring the kitty”. And woe be upon mom if she didn’t understand that promise and tries to take him straight to bed. However, some are even more impressive. One day at the grandparents’, my brother’s dog was visiting. The dog was in another room, and M picked up the dog’s ball. I said to him, “You found a ball? That’s the dog’s ball. If you throw it to him, he’ll play with you.” Now, I don’t know how much of that M understood, but immediately he walks over to the other room, directly to the dog, and throws the ball straight in his face (point blank, no less). It was hilarious (poor dog) and at the same time made me wonder, did the two-year-old really just understand all that?
Been a while since I posted – I meant to put up an update around our 2nd birthday. Before I blinked, M is now 2.5 and growing up at a pace! As a quick background, I am Russian-born long time US resident, fluent in both languages. My wife is a US native, whose father’s side of the family is Hatian but speaks English almost exclusively. We follow the OPOL strategy. Here are some of our recent adventures:
Relationship with me – I was reading the recent post by CHRISTOPHER L WILSON about how his son sees target language as dad-specific activity. Of course this is also the case with us, since we don’t (yet) have a Russian-speaking nanny, daycare, or weekend program. However, I do appreciate and enjoy the exclusivity of that bond, which I guess is easier since M hasn’t developed self-consciousness and therefore rarely shows resentment one way or another.
Vocabulary development – M says individual words, and his Russian vocabulary has expanded a whole lot in the last ~6-7 months. He is also beginning to form simple sentences, “this is a horse” or “here is a dog”. I am thinking this is on track, at least average. We are not quite at the stage of “give me an apple” (he says “apple!” and points, albeit I’ve won the battle for saying “apple” in Russian which so far has been one of the tougher ones). He does know how to say “give it back!” mostly when I take something that he’s not supposed to have – wonder where he got that from?
Counting – M can now count up to 20, at least in Russian. He also associates quantities with the corresponding number, for example if you ask him “how many cows?” he will count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and say “five cows!” He can also point to the corresponding number (e.g. if there are numbered stickers). Not always 100% correctly, but he gets the concept.
Great memory – he learns new words on the first few tries and then remembers them easily several days or even a couple of weeks later. I joke that I have long forgotten how good your memory is at two years old!
Loves coloring – I’ve seen suggested activities with pictures, “Point to the cat. Where is the cat’s tail?” and right now that lasts for all of two minutes. However, with coloring, I can print a picture of a cat, and then we can talk about what color will he paint the ears, paws, whiskers, and so on. Moderate degree of success, but he stays engaged longer than passively with a book.
Trip with American family – we rented a cabin for a week with my wife’s family. I was somewhat concerned that this would cause a regression for M, since everyone would be speaking English to him. I think it was actually quite the opposite, because I was hanging out with him most of the time every day: we got to watch his Russian language tv programs, discussed new toys and unfamiliar objects, and even played piano together. It was very cool to see that bonding with his American family did not conflict with using and developing the target language.
Grandparents visits – we have decided to have a weekly dinner with my parents. This has been good, since he gets to see interaction in the target language among adults that’s not on TV, and also they can play with him in different ways than what I have come up with.
Understands some abstract concepts – I can consistently get him to understand things like, “after you get ready for bed, you can finish coloring the kitty”. And woe be upon mom if she didn’t understand that promise and tries to take him straight to bed. However, some are even more impressive. One day at the grandparents’, my brother’s dog was visiting. The dog was in another room, and M picked up the dog’s ball. I said to him, “You found a ball? That’s the dog’s ball. If you throw it to him, he’ll play with you.” Now, I don’t know how much of that M understood, but immediately he walks over to the other room, directly to the dog, and throws the ball straight in his face (point blank, no less). It was hilarious (poor dog) and at the same time made me wonder, did the two-year-old really just understand all that?
) in moments of frustration. It was very funny to hear her start chirping these same curse words when she herself felt frustrated about something, but I quickly realized that she was soaking up even more language than I had anticipated and that I had to be a little more careful when she was within earshot! 
