More Amy

[pne]

Amy uses very few syllable-initial consonant clusters, which occasionally makes her hard to understand. (This isn't unusual for children her age, as I understand.) For example, if she lies down and snores, she's 'leeping, and if she runs around with outstretched arms, she's 'lying. And the colourful things that grow on meadows are 'lowers.

She's recently started trying to make initial clusters with an /l/ as second element -- typically, they'll turn out either as /ɬ/ -- much like Welsh "ll" -- or as something like /ɕl/ (regardless of whether it's /sl/ /fl/ /bl/ or whatever in standard pronunciation).

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She seems to tend to read boustrophedonically -- if I ask her to spell out words on short two-line inscriptions, she'll tend to spell the bottom line right-to-left.

She also doesn't seem to distinguish yet between things such as "14" and "41" (since they're both "a one and a four"), and while she can recognise some two-digit numbers (especially "14" = "fourteen", perhaps since that's her favourite bus), she'll tend to read "11" as "two", since it's "one and one". (Cue polysemy of "one".)

When counting, she'll typically go ..., eleven, twelve, fourteen, sixteen; I wonder whether this because "thir" and "fif" are not words while "four" and "six" are.

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"I wonder whether this because "thir" and "fif" are not words while "four" and "six" are."

What it is like for her in German? I imagine she shouldn't have problems with 13 and 15 in German, but perhaps with 16. But then again it seems odd to me to think that she'd misread certain numbers only in one language.

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

Given my own experience with small children (my mother has run a day care in her home for about 25 years now), I can say that confusion about two-digit numbers is fairly common.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Most kids I've seen this age who are writing (all two of them I can think of) will write right-to-left more often than left-to-right. Maggie has a lot of trouble with thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, sometimes skipping one or more, other times repeating thirteen, although she repeat it as often as she did six months ago.

[eva]

Most kids I've seen this age who are writing (all two of them I can think of) will write right-to-left more often than left-to-right.

According to my parents, I was writing right-to-left too - with my left hand, although I'm not left-handed.

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to watch her speech develop because you document EVERYTHING. *L*
J still has a hard time with cluster sounds. Like, we we go in an airplane we're 'fying'.Or when he's laying down taking a nap, he's 'seeping'.

When counting, she'll typically go ..., eleven, twelve, fourteen, sixteen; I wonder whether this because "thir" and "fif" are not words while "four" and "six" are.
J does that too! *L*

[pne.livejournal.com]

I don't know; I haven't heard her count in German much.

But when I asked Stella just now, she counted with Amy, and it went "..., zehn, elf, zwan... zwölf, dreizehn, vierzehn, sechzehn, sieben... kannst du mir helfen? siebzehn siebzehn, achtzehn, neunzehn, zwanzig".

So "sechzehn" was fine, for some reason (and it wasn't "sechszehn", either), but she left out "fünfzehn". And her "vierzehn" sounded like "vier" + "zehn", whereas for me the vowel in the first syllable of "vierzehn" is short, as in "Birne".

[pne.livejournal.com]

The interesting thing is that final clusters seem easier for her than initial ones.

Which of the sounds gets dropped wasn't always constant, either; I think I've heard both "lying" and "fying" for "flying".

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

I also have to ask, is her speech fairly intelligble to complete strangers?

That's another thing we've been working on with J..unless you're around him a lot, half the things that come out his mouth are a complete mystery. People are always going, "What did he say?" to us.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"And her "vierzehn" sounded like "vier" + "zehn", whereas for me the vowel in the first syllable of "vierzehn" is short, as in "Birne"."

Oh, I forgot that in your lect and in standard pronunciation "vierzehn" has a different vowel from "vier"; that's why I only asked about "sechzehn". Amy's pronunciation of "vierzehn" would be just fine in my lect.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

But as a kind of compensation, "siebzehn" and "siebzig" have a short vowel for me. How do you pronounce them?

[pne.livejournal.com]

I also have to ask, is her speech fairly intelligble to complete strangers?

So-so. It doesn't help that she speaks fairly softly most of the time.

Being around her for a while definitely helps, but yes, I think people often have to ask her to repeat herself so that they can have a second attempt at deciphering her sometimes.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I think both words can have either a short or a long vowel for me.

Long vowel is perhaps slightly more formal, but not odd the way "vierzehn" with long vowel sounds to me.

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

I think every kid I've ever come across has gone through a phase of dropping the first part of a word. I think it may be more difficult to pronounce these words, as my sister (who is physically disabled and has speech difficulties) also does this - she's well aware of how the word should be said, but her speech is slower and she struggles to get the right sounds together. The only way she could say "flying", for example, would be to put a pause between the f & the l.

[bluewingedcat.livejournal.com]

Unrelated - I'm getting spam replies in my mailbox from a reply to a post of yours I made a little while back. Know what that's about?

[pne.livejournal.com]

I've no idea; sorry.

You were one of three or four commenters to that entry to get a bunch of spam replies today; apparently with text grabbed from a web page somewhere.

I've deleted-and-marked-as-spam them, for all the good that'll do (I doubt they're anything but throw-away usernames that won't get reused).

[bluewingedcat.livejournal.com]

No worries! Was just wondering if you knew what was up. Heck, *I* don't know what you do with your computer free time! *wink wink nudge nudge*

Honestly, looks like they were grabbing the top couple of posts to reply to, so was probably just bad luck on my part. :)