30 November 2009

Tangi, meme.

It's official now, Julia says sentences that we can clearly understand. It's unbelievable how her capacity to communicate has improved in the last 2 months! She repeats a lot of what we say.

I've noticed that in Portuguese we have lots of words with 3 or 4 syllables (I have never paid attention to that before), and it seems a bit of a challenge for her. I do a lot of pronouncing in syllables with her, so we have been practicing different sounds, which is a lot of fun. So we say for example, lâm-pa-da, or ca-cho-rro, I pronounce each syllable and she follows me.

She says "I want to sit here", which for me sounds quite complex, or "I want to read a book", or "I want one bic" (biscuit), but no sentences in Portuguese. It's clear English is the main language at the moment for her. While Michael was away (for 1 month), her vocabulary in Portuguese increased a lot. Now that he is back she is again focusing more on English, which after all is the "family language".

But the funny think is she doesn't say "thank you" or "obrigada". It's ONLY "tangi meme", which means "thank you madam" in Oshivambo (meme = madam, woman, or mother), and she does it regardless if it is for a man or a woman.

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