Amy's check-up

Amy had her eighth regular check-up ("U8") the other day (for children between 3.5 and 4 years of age).

I think her speech was fine this time (as opposed to, say, her two-year check-up, where she spoke quite a bit less than "average"), as was her knowledge of things such as colours.

Her shortcomings were her motor skills: for example, she doesn't hop on one leg, and she's not very good at drawing (as opposed to colouring in). The square, circle, triangle, and cross she had to copy turned out rather wobbly and shapeless.

The doctor (a substitute, since our regular pædiatrician was on holiday) was a bit disapproving and told us to practise a lot with Amy (both drawing shapes and things such as walking with one foot in front of the other or hopping on one leg) and to come back for a repeat of the U8 in half a year, though the assistant later told Stella not to worry too much and that coming back in a year's time should be sufficient, and that Stella would know best where Amy could use more practice.

Kriminalität gehört generell verboten

Edit: this is a non-entry, better titled "Philip should read the context". See elgrande's comment.

I happened on a page (in German) which describes various political parties present in Hamburg describing their views on a variety of topics.

One thing that just caught my eye was the PARTEI's statement on "Innenpolitik" (also visible here, along with other responses only from this party), which included this gem:

- Kriminalität gehört generell verboten.

That is, roughly: "All crime should be prohibited".

Which is kind of circular, isn't it? Or what's the definition of "crime"?

Dictionaries say, for example: "an action or an instance of negligence that [...] and that is legally prohibited" (Dictionary.com); "an act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it [...]; unlawful activity" (AHD).

Both dictionaries also allow for extended senses such as "any offense"; "a foolish, senseless, or shameful act"; "a serious offense, especially one in violation of morality". But it seems to me that the primary meaning is related to legal prohibition, in which case demanding that crime be prohibited is useless: it's already prohibited, otherwise it wouldn't be a crime.

Ĉu ne?

L-vocalisation

Amy seems to have a fair bit of L-vocalisation going on in her English—"miok" for the white stuff that cows make, etc.

I can imagine that the fact that German has no "dark L" might contribute to her difficulty in making that sound, though that change is also one that native speakers in some parts make. (It's not one I think I make myself, though.)

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Also, the other day, we talked about where we change busses, and I said, "at Harburg Rathaus", and she repeated it as "at Harburg Rathouse".

In other words, while I pronounced HR in German (code-switching the German name into the English sentence), she pronounced the final syllable with her English "ou" sound rather than her German one, perhaps because she thought that when speaking in English, one should use only English phonemes. (Though I think the remainder of the syllables she pronounced in German, like me, even though the German long A is not that close to my English "ah" sound, and the German uvular fricative R is completely missing from English....)

Still, I found it interesting.