Questions tagged [language-development]

Learning to talk in the first place, and learning to speak properly. See also the tags [language] for general language issues and [bilingual] for issues involving more than one langauge.

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15 votes
4 answers
5k views

Teaching the difference between "you" and "me"

My daughter is 20 months old and quite the talker. However, she doesn't understand the concept of pronouns (understandable since it's an abstract concept) and thinks that the word "you" ...
7 votes
3 answers
421 views

How to help our 7 year old "get to the point" of his stories. Or is this a developmental stage?

Our 7 year old takes a long time to tell a story or relate an event. He will repeat sentences over again if he stumbles over a word or detail. He will ramble on over a minor detail. How can we help ...
5 votes
2 answers
460 views

Should we raise our child as trilingual or quadrilingual?

Let me provide you first with some context. My partner and I live in the Netherlands. I am Italian and he is Spanish, and we both speak fluent English (the second language for both and the language we ...
3 votes
1 answer
296 views

First Dad - How to make her understand that I am DAD [closed]

I am first time parents and my daughter is 22 months, she is turning 2 in 60 days. My concern is she is not responding to her name, sometime she do, like once or twice in a day. Her hearing is fine. ...
  • 131
2 votes
1 answer
301 views

Appropriate age for use of electronics

I was searching for this video for the last 3 years. In it a salesperson refuses to sell a tablet to the parents of a 5 year old saying that they can come back in 7 years and 12 years is the ...
3 votes
1 answer
585 views

Introducing English to toddler later than planned. What's the right approach?

We're an already bilingual household, neither of which is English. Parents speak the primary language, and grandparents speak the secondary language (who visit frequently and babysit) Our son (21 ...
  • 3,441
5 votes
3 answers
908 views

Raising a quadrilingual child

My husband and I are aiming to raise a child who’d speak 4 languages natively (I’m a native speaker of Ukrainian and Russian, my husband is Japanese, and we are both proficient in English and use the ...
  • 369
1 vote
1 answer
130 views

Can I read the same topic to my toddler with two different languages from two different books at the same time?

I am not a native English speaker neither is the country I am living in. However, I want to introduce my toddler to English. Does reading the same topic for example “feelings” from different books one ...
  • 13
1 vote
1 answer
408 views

My son doesn't understand me when I talk to him

My son is 20 months old, and an active child. He listens when I call his name, and we have some non-verbal communication. But he doesn't understand what I'm saying to him. Whenever I say, "Come ...
  • 21
1 vote
3 answers
299 views

Which is better for a toddler - music or podcasts?

My son does school with mom in the morning for 30-60 minutes during which time I take care of our daughter. We go downstairs to not be a distraction. I've been putting podcasts on in the background ...
  • 111
3 votes
1 answer
227 views

Introduce third language not consistently

My wife and I expect our first child and are currently preparing everything for the arrival. We read some books and also were able to observe friends with their children. I speak fluently English (...
  • 141
5 votes
2 answers
326 views

Can I teach my baby to talk with a recording of my own voice?

My baby is coming in four months, and I am doing my homework on how to teach it to talk. I have seen some studies show that babies cannot learn languages ​​through voice recording and TV program, ...
  • 81
3 votes
1 answer
229 views

Trying to figure out how to teach three languages to our soon to come twins?

My husband is Armenian and I am Mexican. My husband speaks a good amount of Spanish and we both speak English. I have 2 amazing stepchildren, 9yr old girl and 11yr old boy. They only speak English. We ...
2 votes
0 answers
200 views

Identify this A-B-C children's song in Dutch

My wife remembers the first couple of verses of a children's alphabet song (in Dutch) from her childhood and would like to find the lyrics of the complete song. She remembers singing this at least 22 ...
0 votes
1 answer
105 views

Communication, Wording, Elaboration, Language Expression

How can a parent that has a severe problem in communication, wording, elaboration and language expession without any problems with the languages in themselves communicate with their offspring so as to ...
0 votes
3 answers
293 views

Functional illiteracy, Reading and Listening

How to stimulate one's own offspring to process/hearken to/understand what they read and what they hear in everyday life? What questions to ask so as to test their Cognitive Function and incoming ...
2 votes
2 answers
296 views

Should we link words when we talk to our 2-3 year old children, For example: her eyes /həraɪz/?

Ok, Linking words is one of the main point in speaking English. For example, "her eyes" /hə-raɪz/ But I am worried that my 2-3 year old child may misidentify the correct pronunciation. For example, ...
  • 301
12 votes
6 answers
6k views

Is it common that 2 to 3 year old children use articles and plurals incorrectly?

Ok, English is not my first language. My mother tongue is Vietnamese. There are 5 people in my family: my parents, my wife, my son and me. I decided to teach my child bilingually. So, about 6 months ...
  • 301
22 votes
10 answers
9k views

Two year old son sometimes using female verb endings - grammar issue?

My native language is Russian and this is important in scope of the question: past tense verbs are gender-specific here, for example "I've made..." will be "Я сделал" if you are a boy and "Я сделала" ...
  • 405
6 votes
2 answers
345 views

Does excessive cooing mean early talking?

My grandson is three months old and is cooing/making noises ALL the time, except when he is crying and sleeping, of course. Does that have any correlation to talking? Meaning, are there statistics ...
  • 482
2 votes
2 answers
377 views

One parent one language: three-way conversations

We are planning to use One Parent, One Language to raise our child bilingually. Parent A uses German with Child, Parent B uses English with Child. Communication between Parent A and Parent B is in ...
  • 23
1 vote
1 answer
313 views

When should we be concerned about garbled speech in my 2.5-year-old?

My 2.5-year-old toddler has started saying words (more like noises) that me and my wife can sometimes understand, but they barley sound like the intended words. At what point should we start to get ...
5 votes
3 answers
1k views

Why do we teach animal sounds to children?

I was reflecting on the fact that, at least in Western culture, most children are taught at a young age what sounds animals make. However, this is mostly a "useless" information from a practical point ...
1 vote
0 answers
126 views

How best to help a language-delayed 3.5-year-old in a foreign language environment?

We are an English-speaking American family with 2 children, and have recently moved to Germany. The length of our stay is indefinite, and we've decided to try to integrate culturally and ...
  • 150
1 vote
1 answer
3k views

Is it normal for a 3-year-old to repeat the question before answering?

My 3 years and 3 months old son has speech delay. He repeats the question and then answers (mainly choice questions). At age 3, if I asked him any question ('this or that'), he simply repeated ('this ...
  • 369
2 votes
2 answers
229 views

My 2 1/2 year old won't talk on his own And stares into the distance

He does say things like "mommy" "daddy" "ewww" "Mickey" "owww" and "drink". They're slurred and you have to know what he's saying to understand them. But he won't say anything else on his own. We can ...
2 votes
1 answer
236 views

Teaching a child 2 languages that are not part of their environment

I've seen a few question regarding language, but none that fight my current situation. I live in Ukraine and my wife has a 2 year old child that almost exclusively heard Russian so far. I, on the ...
3 votes
2 answers
203 views

Can a 2 year old learn "hard" and "soft" for "don't throw"?

At 22 months we've just entered the throwing and hitting stage. For "throw this, not that" I'm thinking of teaching him "hard" and "soft" and that's okay to throw soft things. I'm wondering if anyone ...
0 votes
2 answers
160 views

Which languange should I start teaching my baby after moving to a new country? [duplicate]

I moved from my home country to America and gave birth to my first baby, and one thing bugs me. I want my child to know my languange so she can speak to her family from my side because my family doesn'...
-1 votes
2 answers
392 views

My 2 year 8 month old son is not interested in hearing stories [closed]

How to make child get interested in stories? He colors the book but by seeing somewhere. He just shows interest in only very limited food. He is suffering from constipation. He is able to say rhymes, ...
  • 1
0 votes
1 answer
393 views

My 2-year-old son is still not talking. Is this normal?

I have a 2-year-old son. He still isn't talking, he'll say words here and there like "bird" when he sees a bird and he'll say words like mama or dada sometimes but never in correlation with my wife or ...
  • 103
6 votes
1 answer
740 views

How to explain -gasm to 10 year old

I was watching a daytime TV programme about Asian food with my 10 year old son. One of the presenters said while looking at a very nice piece of fresh tuna "I just had a sushigasm" My son asked me ...
  • 281
4 votes
5 answers
597 views

How to encourage speech of minority language for bilingual child?

Note: I am going to use 3rd person plural pronouns (e.g. "they", "their") when referring to my child as I think gender is not important here. Situation: My wife and I are using the One-parent-one-...
  • 161
-1 votes
1 answer
109 views

How to enrich my “everyday” vocabulary as an ESL parent in the U.S.? [closed]

How to quickly acquire the "everyday" English vocabulary needed to communicate with my preschool child? I am an immigrant IT professional who speaks fluent English, but who learned his English as an ...
  • 1
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

How to make my 5-year-old speak in first person when she speaks in second person?

My 5-year-old daughter talks a lot. But when she does, it's in second person (i.e. the second person in the conversation), saying what she expects I would say when directed towards her. So she's not ...
  • 143
4 votes
2 answers
421 views

Impact of moving to Germany with a stepson and a toddler with signs of autism

I live in the midwestern U.S. with my wife, my 8 year old stepson and our 2 year old son who shows signs of and is undergoing therapy for autism. The company I work for just offered to relocate us to ...
  • 150
2 votes
4 answers
5k views

Difficulty pronouncing R and L: how fast is it overcome?

This question concerns difficulty pronouncing the sounds R and L between the ages of 4 and 6 years old. Assuming that there's no serious problem (that is, all other sounds are correctly pronounced ...
5 votes
3 answers
610 views

Raising our daughter to be bilingual without one-parent-one-language

I've been through a lot of answers here on raising bilingual children, and the general consensus seems to be (1) each parent speaks their language to the child ('one parent - one language') and (2) ...
user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
769 views

Can I teach my 9-month-old child my native language if I only see her for a few minutes at a time?

I am the father of a 9-month-old girl. I am divorced and my ex-wife speaks only Hebrew with the baby while my mother language is Russian. I am also able to speak Hebrew. I see the baby for about 15-20 ...
  • 101
44 votes
7 answers
18k views

Toddler made "incorrect" animal identification that is actually correct. Better to correct her or not?

My niece is a year and a half old. I was reading a book on animals with her recently and helping her learn the names of the animals in it. I noticed that she identified the picture of a lion as a "...
4 votes
4 answers
645 views

Raising a bilingual kid. How to speak to my daughter in Spanish (my primary language) when also wanting to perfect my English?

I have an almost a year old daughter. My husbands only speaks English (although understands Spanish very well) and I speak Spanish (my native language) and English (which I learned mostly as an adult)....
  • 43
17 votes
3 answers
1k views

How can I deal with adopted son who promised to the god he believes in to never to speak until he sees mommy again, when mommy is dead?

My 5 year old adopted son is, contrary to everyone else in his entourage, religious - a leftover from his days in a war zone. His mom died some time ago - by suicide - and since then he hasn't said a ...
  • 271
4 votes
3 answers
20k views

20 month old doesn't follow commands

My 20 month old doesn't respond to commands. He doesn't talk yet. He is not responding to his name. Hearing problem? But, he responds and looks at me when I sing any of his rhymes. Wherever he is ...
4 votes
3 answers
2k views

My 2-year-old son can't speak beyond 2 words yet?

My son will turn 2 on the 5th of August this year. He hasn't picked up any words beyond mama and papa. Firstly is it okay that he hasn't yet spoken beyond these 2 words? There are a few things which ...
  • 41
3 votes
1 answer
7k views

4 to 5 year old child taking time to answer questions

When asked my 4 year old either does not respond to the question or responds slowly and I've seen 3 year olds respond much more quickly. Is this a development concern or is something in the "normal" ...
15 votes
2 answers
686 views

How to further an aptitude toward early literacy?

Every so often in our 2.5-year old daughter's life I catch myself marveling at some skill that our daughter seems to master far beyond what I naively expected her to be able to do. I'm sure many ...
4 votes
2 answers
3k views

My five year boy child is not able to speak letters starting with "L" or "R" clearly

My five year boy child is not able to speak letters starting with "L" or "R" clearly. For example if he has to say "Light" he pronounce it as "Aaight" or sometimes "Haaight". Similar for say "Rat" ...
  • 193
3 votes
1 answer
533 views

What to do about a 19-month-old not talking?

My 19-month-old son is an only child and doesn't go to daycare. He doesn't talk, just says mama and baba and not all the time - maybe one or two times a day. I try to talk with him but I don't know ...
1 vote
1 answer
267 views

My daugter could not retain letter names prior to kindergarten, now she is taking piano and can't remember letter names. Help!

I worked with my daughter on learning her letters with sounds, books, tiles, refrigerator magnets, ect from age 1 to 5 and she could not retain the information. I could not get her to learn any ...
  • 49
14 votes
2 answers
920 views

What benefits does using "baby talk" provide, and how do you maximize those benefits?

When I was doing my initial language development research about 7 years ago, I vaguely remember seeing several (probably non-scientific or blog sources) recommend against using "baby talk", arguing ...
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