the 90th minute

Until September 2007, when my oldest daughter was born, this blog covered daily life and politics in Israel, as well as Hebrew-English linguistic issues, from the perspective of an American-raised journalist and translator living in Israel. Now it mostly serves as the SmunchMonk&Bear news agency, a portal into the bizarre universe of the little people. Read more at: www.shoshanakordova.com.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Light bulb

Funny how we expect kids to learn to speak from us, but we find it amusing when they actually do. To wit: Rimonit's latest phrase is "I have an idea" (which she must have picked up from me) - usually followed by her latest plan to avoid eating dinner/taking a bath/going to bed (as in, "I have an idea! I'll play a little bit more first!").

I have been quite good at not laughing or smirking when she uses it, but it did make me think about how there's this meta-awareness on the part of adults regarding what words or phrases kids "should" use, even if that makes no sense based on how children learn to speak (ie from hearing others speak) and even if we give them no cue that this is a "grown-up phrase" - and why should we? they'll eventually have to speak like us, after all.

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