Language acquisition

As I said before, Baby Bear is learning two languages.  We do not speak English with her, but everyone else does!  

She was a little bit late talking, but she understood everything in both languages.  I really thought that she would talk earlier because she was a babbler from a young age, but when she got to be a little over a year, she didn't say much more then "Aba" (Dad), "Mama", NaNa (instead of saying Nanny for my mom), "BaBa" (from the word Saba for Grandpa) and "MA" (she calls my sister Mima, the Yiddish word for Aunt) and of course "NO!" and "all done".  She could use these words creatively to get her point across.  If she didn't like something, then she said "all done", But that was pretty much all she said until the last few months. 


This video is BEFORE she started talking.  We were at my friends house and she just started saying "doggie" out of nowhere.  

 


All of the sudden she started speaking in BOTH languages.  She can say more words in English, but for the most part, the words she says she can say in BOTH languages.  I thought that was so interesting that she didn't just learn words in general, but the word for an item in both languages.  Baby Bear loves to sing and dance, so she will sing along with her songs.  

Not only does she have a really large vocabulary, she also can form short sentences with them like "Azit Shamma" (our dog Azit is over there) and "BaBa Come!".  She can count to 10 in both Hebrew and English and can say some of the alphabet.  She repeats almost every word that we say to her to practice, and I can hear her in bed in the morning before she gets up practicing her words.  

It was totally worth the wait in her speech, and it is so exciting to hear the new words that she says every day. 


Here she is a month ago. I am asking her what she is eating.  She says bagel, door (so I will close the door) and cookie when I ask if she is eating a cookie.  

This one I had to add because it is so funny that she says "hummus"