Language acquisition

My Swedish pronunciation must be really bad, for even Xuanie who does not yet speak any Swedish, breaks into uncontrollable giggles when I say “jatte gott” as we read one of his Swedish story books.

I worry if Xuanie will speak Mandarin well. Many signs tell me he understands Mandarin. However, most of his first words are in English. Where did he get them from?!! Sometimes, when I try to coax him to say something in Mandarin, he does translation for me, e.g. “chong” but he always tells me it’s “bug.”

Research has shown that babies who are exposed to more than one language tend to be slower in acquiring any language, but they soon catch up and surpass their monolingual peers in linguistic abilities. Xuanie has his share of linguistic mix-up. For e.g., he used to always point to his butt and makes an “ehnnn” sound as if he’s pushing something out whenever he saw a waterfall and heard me saying “pu bu” (cf “poo-poo”).