Facing my language limitations

I think that everyone who is teaching a non native language to a baby realizes one day that the words and phrases need to be refreshed with new words.
How do I know we need new words? My daughter says my lines before I say it. lol First I thought “wow” she is finally using English but I think she founds my answers boring :blush:

If you find spare minute, please write some of your most common phrases, sentences, situations and words you use with your toddler during a day or night :slight_smile:

Many thanks

I don’t know if this will help, but here is a list I made of all the words that my daughter said or signed spontaneously at 15 months. I made this to teach her to read all these words, figuring that she must be interested in them.

car, drive, music, yes, no, pray, roll, spin, dance, run, walk, play, want, go, jump , blow, tickle, climb, laugh, fall, pig, cow, horse, chicken, donkey, sheep, duck, elephant, monkey, giraffe, bird, pants, shirt, coat, socks, shoes, boots, hat, gloves, up, down, flower, bear, doll, cards, book, ball, toothbrush, piano, clock, potty, happy, sad, excited, silly, angry, sick, messy, sleepy, cute, lion, necklace, bracelet, off, on, thank you, please, ice, snow, wash, lick, swim, help, talk, straw, book

How about instead of saying things like “good job” , surprise her by saying “good potato” or other silly things. (sorry for the cliche example!)

How cute…good potato. I love it! mypashmina

lelask, What kind of things are you saying now? Maybe we can think of some variations if you give an example.

I also love " good potato" lol

What I use in different situations are phrases such as: well done, see, that was easy, goooood, that is great, be careful, do not do it, you did it, I knew u can do it, fight it and beat it, … hmmm very boring lol It looks like I need help with praising :smiley:
I would like to expand her and mine vocabulary and use more complex sentences instead of two words. :wub:
I read somewhere on the forum : " That was easy for you, next time I will give you something you can really learn from"…
These are the types of sentences I would like to start using.
But I do love good potato lol lol lol lol

I empathize with you because I am in your situation teaching my son Spanish (my second language). Since I have convinced myself to get over my lack of confidence and speak to him in Spanish I have found that he is picking up A LOT of Spanish. It occurred to me that this might be because I repeat the same things over and over and I probably speak a lot slower and emphasize the words a lot more. This is good for my confidence that he is learning but I know we will eventually come to a plateau of his ability will exceed my ability with the language.

I am busy (with the help of my MIL) translating his 500 books lol to give him a richer experience with the language and to hopefully let some of it sink in for me too. If find that I can learn even from simple children’s books. I have learned words like “acorn” and “tadpole.” :slight_smile: It gives me a good perspective on why kids who read have such great vocabularies. Of course it is more than vocabulary that we will learn. Sentence structures that are different from English, idiom translations, etc.

Okay, back from my tangent…

Maybe here are some ideas based on what you are already saying:
I am so glad / happy / proud that you kept trying even though it was a little hard at first. You did it because you didn’t give up!

Each time you try you get a better and better. You are really improving. Keep practicing you will get the hang of it.

I am proud of you for not giving up.

It was a lot easier than you thought it was going to be wasn’t it? Aren’t you glad you gave it a try? I knew the whole time you could do it.

Be careful, you might fall / break it / hit your head / get stuck / pinch your fingers / hurt yourself…(ha ha just thinking of all the trouble kids can get into)

Each time you try you get a better and better.

Sorry should be:
Each time you try you get better and better. (no a)

I am Malaiysia chinese and my country is full of different language. like malay, english, mandarin, Cantonese, hokkian, india and so on. I have learn the Korean language and Deutsch Language. And I am ok with Deutsch Language as similar sound with Malay language with the formula language Grammar. hahaha! funny! But in my home, I used to talk English to my toddler and her grandmother talk cartonese, her father talk cartornese and mandarin. end up my toddle know a lot of language. I practice use flash card before and now my toddler is getting to 3 years old I am going to work on lap book together with her.

For flash card… I teach english and Deutsh language. She knows how to speak english now … not the sentense by word by word. I teach her from the beginning of her procession. like her bady part. her clothes… her bedroom … her stationay… her toys… whatever can be seen. I think this is the most suitable to teach and when she wants shw will point to the shoes and tell you - " shoes" and you will see… how funny you are enjoying.

Using the flash card… it is better using the picture before the flash card so that they know what is that… but sometime you may find they love to see picture then words… this is ok because mainly is affected by the right brain… ( which sides …right or left brain… i know one sides of brain love picture and have a good memory and the this sides of brain will stop active from 3 years old start… oh ya ! it is right brain … so … you need to give her space to learn piano let her active back the right brain if you can ) .

For the flash card you could teach as simple by showing but when it is growing up to four - five years old or even sometime after you will find she will get negative impact on the flash car… be bored to this method… so i have written a blog how to teach your toddler step by step as i used it now a day to share with you all… refer to my blog - http://littlemommy2012.blogspot.com/

for for the foreign language i give up for temporary as I need to build the foundation on the international language first… chinese and english language. whereas the foreign lauguage will continue to teach after 3 years old.

I have my own schedule posted. for reference please go to my blog. http://littlemommy2012.blogspot.com/ :laugh: