Thursday, September 24, 2009

Second Language Milestone

"Dude, I don't want to do homework for the Russian school, " said my six year old when she came from school the other day.

I thought I heard her wrong and ignored the d-word. So when she used it again and again the next few days while using various "I don't wannu" and "I am not gonna" sentences, I had to accept that my daughter has officially entered the next step in her English language development also known as learning the SLANG. I am happy that she is progressing, but hearing her say words like dude, dumbest, and weirdo makes me both laugh and cringe. It is funny because at this time last year, she entered school knowning no English at all other than colors, letters and numbers. It makes me cringe because I don't think a first grader should be going around using "dude" in every other sentence.

If she starts talking like this early on, by the time she grows up she will for sure beat all those "Like, for sure, dude. Totally. Yah, right" people who have annoyed the heck out of linguists and other educated professionals.

2 comments:

  1. At least she is not using Russian slang. My niece went to Ukraine for a month this summer, and suddenly, her vocabulary is "enriched" by all of these Russian slang words.
    Yuliya

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  2. i think it is sorta cute to hear dude, but only up to a point. it is hard to explain any level of nuance to such a young person. addy too uses words that while they aren't "bad" words, they are these preteen words that make me cringe. i say be vigilant.

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