Fun With English

Wynn came to me Sunday night with a translator message, "Please teach me some idioms."  As a language therapist and as a mom to an Aspie, this really cracked me up, but I felt bad when I laughed, and she questioningly handed me the translator, "Is this not a good idea?"

I thought she was jumping ahead a bit, so I distracted her with a different idea.  We went over google translate history and made a list of sentences that have been used more than once or twice.  I wrote them in English, and she wrote them in Chinese.  Then, I read and typed each sentence into a recorder on the iPad so that she can read the English words and listen to my pronunciation at the same time (and refer back to her Chinese writing if she can't remember the meaning).  She has been practicing and practicing.

I thought it was a good idea, functional daily life sentences, but it did not distract her for long.  She came back the next night with the translator, "Please teach me some idioms."  LOL.  So I added a few idioms to her list of practice sentences on the iPad.  It was harder than I would have thought.  I can think of lots of idioms that are in the Idioms Fun Deck in the speech closet, but honestly, we don't use many of those examples in this home.  I tried to make a short list of idioms that she might actually hear around our living room.  You know, like, "Pain in the neck!"  I have just enlisted Cameron's help in compiling the list. He actually might hear and recognize idioms as they pass by, where for me, in the midst of my multitasking, they go in one ear and out the other. (ha ha).

It did initiate a new phase in the use of English.  She's been less and less self-conscious about trying her English with ears around, but ever since Sunday night's practice session, she's been saying something almost every time she approaches with the translator.  Many times, she uses the translator history as a reminder of what she wants to say, but then says in English, "Please follow me."  "I am hungry.  I want dumplings."  There is also more spontaneous English.  "Ari, come here!"  ("Why?") "Because watch TV!"  She even asked her Dad for the phone in English.

Yesterday, at a stop sign, she said, "No cars.  Go!"  And I was just as tickled and proud of my 14 year old as I was when it was my 18 month olds.  :)