Bilingual Tots: 22-24 months

I haven´t blogged on here for awhile for two reasons: Firstly, I´m finding it hard to find time to blog anything these days especially as I have two blogs and now my new project, a Facebook page, and as I hardly have time for anything,then it´s been falling a bit by the wayside and secondly, I haven´t had much inspiration about posts and what I could write about!!!A case of writer´s block,you could say!!

Anyway, I´m back with an update about my daughter´s language progress and I am increasingly amazed at how quickly she seems to be acquiring language,processing and assimilating language now. It´s like a little language explosion has taken place! She appears to pick up at least one new word in both languages per day  (this is a rough guesstimate and maybe I´m exaggarating but that´s what it seems like!). She constantly repeats or tries to repeat what we say, sometimes with amusing and cute-sounding results, and is quite a little parrot.She can say her name now more or less although the pronunciation is a little off but it´s sooooo cute. She has also learnt to say "Abuelo", "Abuela" and "Granny"....she even managed a "Grandad" a couple of times but then reverted back to "Abuelo". She is also starting to mix languages a little as a couple of times,she  called my Mum "Abuela" but then self-corrected or later referred to her once again as "Ganny"(she can´t quite pronounce Granny clearly yet!)

She is also starting to string words and phrases together to make short sentences such as "Sientaté" (although she can´t pronounce it properly), ".....a la calle" "...a comer".(sounds more like "a mamer") "It´s cold"etc. She seems to say more short phrases in Spanish than in English at the moment. She also says "a co" for "cogerme"...pick me up! As I mentioned she also likes singing and will often join in or initiate songs and does the actions,especially "Hokey Cokey"-she particularly likes the in-out-in-out line!, The Wheels On the Bus-she is quite good at the last line: "All day long",Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes and Ring-A Ring a Roses. The other day she was singing something and we eventually made out that it was Happy Birthday to you.It was so cute and on the final line of the song she flung her arms out as if she were on stage!!

One of her favourite games to play is Hide and Seek.We all take turns to count while the others go and hide and she has even started joining in with the counting, at least up to 3. It sounds more like she is counting in Spanish as opposed to English. We are continuing to read in both languages and she likes to take the book off you and "read" it herself!

As for the Bilingual Playgroup despite my worries...it has taken off again and we also have a new member, which makes 5 adults and 5 children,not counting the two babies,who I´m sure will be participating more actively in the Playgroup when they are a bit older so it´s going well!

Bilingual Tots:20-21 months

I´m a little worried about the bilingual playgroup I started up as it seems to slowly be fizzling out due to us all being busy with other things and a variety of reasons. However,we are still trying to struggle on and meet most weeks so we‘ll see how it goes.
My daughter is talking loads more and is a little parrot as she is repeating many words and phrases. I think she is going to be a chatterbox! I was a bit worried recently because it seemed that she was saying more words and phrases in Spanish than in English.
Although this past week,it appears to be the other way around, possibly because my mum was visiting.
She can now say Granny and has starting saying something resembling Mummy and Daddy too.She is learning at least one new word a day or more I think! The other day it snowed for the first time and she could say "snow"...I think seeing one of the Peppa Pig episodes about snow has helped her learn this word too!!! Other new words are baby or bebe(it sounds more like the Spanish word!),cupcake,garlic (I think she´s going to have my love of food and cooking!!)frio, co(for coger"pick me up!"), it´s cold, milk(although she can´t say it properly!)mel( short for Actimel), yogur for yoghurt, pipi,caca,poo poo and probably more that I can´t think of right now!She has also learnt the word "mío" (mine) which she´s probably picked up from nursery.We aren´t too happy about this as she is using it a lot and we want to teach her to share her things even though is maybe a bit young to understand this concept at the moment.

She is also saying "a mi" as in "give it to me" and starting to use pronouns although she is a little confused as she says "tu,tu" when she means you but also to mean "me" when she wants to do something herself although I have managed to teach her the English equivalent "me". She is also starting to pick up other children´s names and joins in when counting but mainly in Spanish.She is also starting to repeat colours in both Spanish and English,such as blue, purple,azul,green and says "colour" when she wants to colour.When we sing certain songs such as "The Hokey Cokey", The Wheels on the Bus, or Ring a Ring of Roses or she hears them on BabyTV she likes to sing along and sometimes initiates the song herself and she loves doing the actions.It´s all very exciting,seeing how her talking and bilingualism is developing and so far I´m pleased with how it´s going! She´s been calling my mum "Granny" but the other day she said something that sounded very much like "abuela" to my mother-in-law so maybe she is starting to distinguish who speaks which language? Then again it could have just been a coincidence or it could have just been repetition!