The mind of a three year old

My little one asked me, in Italian, why I don’t speak to him in Italian.  I replied that it was because I am English and that it is important and useful for him to know another language.  He seemed to accept this, but his progress with English is not promising, not to me, at least.  I guess that is down to his living here and being surrounded by all things Italian.  He is now insisting on seeing all films in Italian, not in English, which is a problem because it means that his exposure to English will be limited to the words he hears from little old me.  Not that I don’t speak to him, it’s just that with him being at school and me being at work, our paths do not cross that often.

Our little joy has been super grumpy recently too.  If I insist on putting a DVD in English he throws on almighty tantrum and all hell lets loose.  I generally give in, just to avoid his balling and to avoid him ending up hating my language,  my other half also believes that by insisting, he will end up hating English, so she does not insist either.  This means that Marty will not receive enough stimulus and thus will not learn English.  This is a worry in some respects, because, from my own experience, I know that knowing another language can be interesting and useful.  Anyway, Marty seems to be getting more and more grumpy and flies of the handle at the most silly of things.  I hope it is just his age and the change of school and not some sign of illness.  He used to be such as happy little chap, but does seem to have changed.  Maybe he is becoming more aware of his environment and this ‘discovery’ is forming or changing his character.  Maybe.

To change the subject a little, our wee one told me, in Italian, that a monster, ‘il piu grande di tutta le volte’ was going to get me.  Now, if you know Italian, you will know that ‘volta’ means ‘time’ – in the sense of ‘once I went to New York’.  However, it does not mean time in the sense of ‘the biggest monster of all time’, in this case the correct Italian is ‘tempi’ (‘times’), which is not interchangeable with ‘volta’.  In English ‘time’ or ‘times’ have two senses, but the words are the same.  If you are still with me, I doubt it (!), you may be wondering why our little one made this mistake.  Was it because he is just learning? Or was it because he is confusing English and Italian?  I think it was the latter, because I understood exactly what my son wanted to say, whereas my wife did not. 

This post was written by Alex P Roe

Tags: My son