I now know why Douwe often answers the question "How are you?" with the name of the person speaking to him; and often answers "How was school?" with the name of his teacher that day or the names of the children who were there or sometimes the names of the children who were not there.
It has bothered me a bit now and again, it seems so odd for him to answer a completely different question. I have chalked it up to the language disorder. Well, It was a problem with auditory processing, I think. But, um, somebody else's.
In Dutch, the question is, "Hoe is het met jouw?" (How is it with you) or "Hoe was het op school?". (How was it at school). The first word is pronounced "Hoo".
Did you get it yet? I didn't, for a very long time.
Today he was pretending to talk on the phone with his father. I asked him in Dutch "How is it with your father?"
He said in english, "No one, but he wants me to come,".
So I asked him what he meant. He said, "No on eis with papa, so he wants me,".
Ah. He hears the English word which is pronounced the same way when we ask that question: "Who is it with Papa?". "Who is it with you?" "Who was it at school?"
How did I miss that for so long?
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6 comments:
J9,
When I was in France, families I knew were advised that one parent should be the "French" and one the "English", so that the language parts were clarified by identification with the speaker. Don't know if it worked, since I wasn't there long enough...
Hi, Christi,
Yeah, that's called One Parent One Language and it's the most recommended method for that reason. The only problems OPOL doesn't address are: 1) what language do the parents then speak with each other, and 2) what do you do if you are (like me) apparently genetically incapable of speaking two different languages to several different people in the same room. I am Very, Very Bad at that. I wind up speaking a horrible mish mash of Dutch and English all in the same sentence and it gives me a headache besides.
However, we have switched to my speaking English to the children since January, mostly because Daan was in danger of not speaking English at all. Paul speaks mostly Dutch to them. Nel, interestingly enough, has begun speaking to them in whatever language they speak to her. (This is a very hard habit to break; I find that I do it, too -- you do just naturally respond in the language someone speaks to you)
I, with my really bad switching problem, often speak to Paul in English and he answers me in Dutch and neither of us notices until someone points it out.
Geeez:
I have enough difficulty in not speaking broken "american" english.
Dad
ps: And I get headaches also when in certain situations and conversations.
Hey, Dad, those conversations wouldn't be the ones about putting a water treatment plant in Piedmont Park would they?
Or maybe the fabled tunnel under Fort McPherson?
(Hee, hee)
Jeannine:
Actually, we did pay for a tunnel under Fort Mac. over 25 years ago. It is about 24 foot diameter and takes wastewater over to a treatment plnt on the Hooch.
Dad
Yeah, I know. But as everyone knows, the only reason it's there is that the rich white folk don't live there.
Has nothing to do with the location of the plant.
Headache coming back yet?
Oh, wait, that wasn't your headache was it? It was....Maynard's? Andy's? I don't know. I'm guessing Maynard, he was Mostly Mayor, lol again.
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