As most of you know Noah turned 2 on 19 December. I think on his second birthday he had about 10 words that he used on a regular basis by himself {Mama, dada, nannan, baba, jiji, ball, go, colouring, there & star and a couple of others that he might use when prompted} – It is a month since I posted the last update with the advice we got from the child psychologist and different things we could do to help him strengthen his mouth muscles.
In the last month he seems to have hit a bit of a language explosion. He is definitely still behind his peers with his language {of course he is not going to catch up overnight} but since turning 2 I would say he has over 50 words right now. Most of which he will use by himself unprompted- he also attempts to say a lot of words if we ask him. For example today I said “Time for a bath. Can you say bath?” at first he said “No” and shook his head and then I said “No, you should try. Say bath” and he stopped, thought about it and then said it perfectly with the th at the end and everything.
I think the highlight of having him start talking more has been him starting to say almost all of the words he used to sign {he still signs as he says most of them though} like car, cat, drink, eat, more, banana, bye bye, book, bird, duck etc. He still can not say train or airplane which is a shame as he makes me say those words for him 50 million times a day…Well he say “chhhh” for trains and “aaaa” for airplane and has fluked saying airplane properly a couple of times but as I said, pretty sure they were flukes or me mishearing. He attempts a lot of animal sounds and has mastered woof woof, quack quack and moo moo {although he had moo down for awhile}
He has his first Japanese word {that wasn`t un, baba or jiji}- Ooishii. He only says it if we say it though.
He strings words together. Today when I finished my lunch he said “mama eat fished” …he signed “finnished” and that is the word he meant.
Another highlight is having him say I love you. Every night when I put him to bed I say “Night night Noah. I love you. I will see you in the morning”…..I have done it since he was a teeny tiny baby. He now responds with “Night night. Love you”…..of course it has that 2 year old feel to it and is pronounced nigh nigh wuv you but still it melts my heart.
He really struggles with S words. He can make an ssssssss sound like a snake but will not attempt to say words with S in them. L`s too.
His favourite word right now is “No”. Typical 2 year old! He says no even to things we know he would want/like. We have to remind him that he probably means yes and then he says “essss” and shakes his whole body up and down instead of just his head.
I am not sure if it is anything we have done specifically that has prompted his language to take off but we have been giving him larger bits of food to eat, making him do funny faces/sounds and move his mouth and tongue around and we ask him to try to say a lot of words. I have upped our reading as well and we now read 20 plus books a day- some of them are the same books over and over again. I love reading with my kids especially now as Shion is getting super interested in books as well and is no longer trying to eat them {well not as often!}. Both boys will pull books from the shelves and flick through them by themselves as well.
Shun does a lot of work getting him to sound and say individual sounds {like the Japanese alphabet sounds- a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko etc} and Noah loves copying his daddy.
When he says a new word, and practices it over and over again, Noah is so proud of himself. He is very deliberate in what he does try to say though and will not attempt things that he doesn`t think he can say {like elephant etc, if i ask him if he can say it or try to say it he just says no}
Noah has a long way to go before he catches up with children his own age- he is still six or so months behind but I am just so relieved that he has started talking more and is now adding new words each and every day as well as the words he has are becoming clearer. It is hard to believe that a month ago he had so few words and now seems to have so many.
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I am just a twenty something Aussie girl living in Chiba, Japan with my Japanese husband trying to make sense of the crazy Japanese world we live in! We welcomed our first son in December 2009 (Noah) and a second son in January 2011, 2 months premature (Shion). I am working hard at raising them to be confident, bilingual, happy kids!
He should be proud of himself, he is working so hard, and so are you! Great job!!!
Two year old pronounciation is so cute, isn’t it? I was almost kind of sad when DS started speaking “properly” because that little baby voice is the sweetest thing.
Sounds like Noah is making great progress. It it funny how deliberate he is about his speaking, really thinking it over and deciding whether or not to attempt to say a word. You can tell he’s a smart cookie!
It warms my heart to hear that things are going smoother! Kids really do grow in leaps and bounds, don’t they? I hope the progress continues on this positive path!
That is just precious <3 Ive read about your journey with your boys, especially Noah… you both have worked so hard, its nice to see your getting good results! I used sign language at my previous company, when teaching ages 1-3.. I think it is so great and I am using it with my son now. Its amazing how smart kids are.. Keep up the good work!
Good job Noah! I love that even though he has been delayed a little bit his favourite word is still ” No! ” just like any normal 2 yr old. I wish my 2 yr old would learn a different phrase because i am tired of hearing ” No! Mum no! “….
thats such fantastic news to hear his speech has exploded over the last month. He is only five months younger than Ryu and really doesn’t seem that far behind Ryu at all – especially considering he can sign and speak English
Ryu’s I love you is ‘ruff you’ but god it melts my heart. His favorite word is ‘baachan’ – which also melts my heart but in a completely different way!
His English is rather limited to the colors of the superheros and ‘five …. MONKIES ….. BED …. no more …. MONKIES…. on the BED’
I reckon if the boys got together now they’d have a great conversation with Ryu speaking Japanese and Noah speaking English and completely be able to understand each other
Wow, that is so great!! I love the “little kid” pronunciation, too
Aw, that’s wonderful news! That is a very positive thing to start off 2012!
That’s so great! He’ll catch up eventually. Must be harder for him too having to learn two languages.
Yay go Noah! It must be so much more freeing for him to be able to communicate and be understood.
Glad to hear Shion is more interested in the books for their content than their flavour – Little S just insists on grabbing any book off me and sticking it in her mouth so reading isn’t much fun at the moment.
Hello ! Nice to meet you. I often read your blog but didn’t post a comment.
Being late for talking isn’t something frequent for kids who learn 2 languages ? 2 friends who have French/Japanese kids around 2 are saying they are pretty late too.
Don’t worry and ganbatte kudasai ne.
Wonderful! I’m usually a lurker, but I’m so glad to hear that Noah’s “catching up.” Honestly, and this speaking as a person who only really started working with young kids six months ago (but works with them a lot now), it sounds like he didn’t see the need to speak when he could just sign, but now that you’re making him talk instead of letting him just sign what he wants (something you mentioned in a previous post), he’s realized it’s something that has to be done.
Sorry if that came of judge-y at all–it wasn’t supposed to, but I know kids can be a sensitive topic.
I am not a parent because I know I’m not patient enough for it right now, and all of the tot school that you do with the kids is AMAZING. It’ll pay off so much when they start kindergarten, too–there’s an obvious difference with the little kids I work with in terms of which ones had parents that never made them do anything, and which ones have parents who help them develop intellectually and physically.
And nothing’s cuter than two-year-old speak. “Nigh nigh, wuv yoo,” indeed.
Yay, it’s so great that Noah’s words are coming along. I think one of my favourite things about being a parent so far, is being able to talk with Max. I adore toddler speak, they way they say things with their cute little baby voices. So sweet!! I’m really glad you’re getting to enjoy it too