How Joseph talks like a Frenchman

Joseph is at the fun age where he can make his own sentences. Along with this comes the learning of grammar rules and fun mistakes that only a kid first learning to talk can make (or, I guess a foreigner learning another language – after all, the mistakes are sometimes different, but it really is the same thing). I was looking forward to this age, because it really is fascinating to see how it all eventually comes together. However, I guess I was surprised to hear some of the miscommunications. Sure, there is the addition of “-ed” to form the past tense of irregular verbs (“Daddy goed in the Escort.”) Or the misuse of pronouns (“Her is on the bike.”) Those are obviously going to happen when figuring out and generalizing rules. But I was surprised (and amused) to hear some others. The one that surprised me the most was the confusion of the present tense “have” vs. “having.” (“Daddy is having the spoon.”) In French there is no distinction between the two. As my former students will remember from French 1, “Je parle” translates to “I speak” or “I am speaking” or “I do speak.” How odd that Joseph seems to be hardwired to speak like a little European. Or maybe we are all hardwired to use that grammar. I wonder why we make the distinction in English anyway. I’m sure Noam Chomsky studied his children like little linguistic lab rats.

Of course, that’s not the only mistake of Joseph’s that I find amusing. Some other cute little errors of interest:

** He uses the word “from” every time he wants to say “for.” For example, as he hands me something, he will say, “This is from Mommy.” Or earlier today he said, “That car seat is too small from Joseph.”

** We often hear him say “I forgot.” He thinks it means something specific, although I’m not quite sure what it is. He might say, “Aw man! I forgot that block.” But if you were aware of the context, you would be able to see that he doesn’t really mean that he forgot it.

** The word “crooked” also has some kind of special meaning to him. I think it means “not quite right.” He says that many things are crooked. Some really are. Some aren’t. The best was the other day when Tony was playing one of his songs on the computer. Joseph REALLY didn’t like it. He kept saying, “Get it off!” After Tony finally turned it off, Joseph, with tears in his eyes said, “Man, those drums are crooked!”

I wish I could go around with a tape recorder all day long so I wouldn’t forget all of these things he says. I mean to write them down (and sometimes I do), but there are just so many of them. I swear that I’ll remember them so I can at least tell someone, but by the end of the day I usually forget. As Joseph would agree—too bad it’s so hard from me to remember. That’s crooked!