Malika
Well-Known Member
The perennial question... This is about speech development. A brief background. J was born in Morocco and lived there until he was 3 (although we had almost 6 months in the UK in that period). The first sounds he heard were obviously Moroccan Arabic and he was always surrounded by this; when we left Morocco, he was speaking a little Arabic, a few phrases and words. His "main" language was English, though, partly through being with me (first word "cat", at 10 months) but more significantly because from 18 months to 2 we lived in England where he went to daycare and that was where he really started to learn and speak English. Then, at age 3 we came to France (he had previously attended a French language nursery in Marrakesh for 6 months) so he wasn't totally unfamiliar with French, but basically learnt it at school. His French is now, I would say, around the level of normal for his age although his teacher complains that his vocabulary is "poor" and that he has difficulty remembering the words they learn in class - though the fact that he only speaks English at home is likely a factor in this. So he now speaks French, English and limited Arabic, which he re-acquired after spending this summer in Morocco. Even though he only knows a few words and phrases, his pronunciation of Arabic (very difficult!) is absolutely that of a native speaker...
That all seems quite a jumble of linguistic influences to me, just writing it down... ! What concerns me a little now is his English and I wonder whether it is a sign of some speech delay or other problem. Or, simply, that his only English source (we occasionally meet English friends) is me and so he doesn't progress as he would if he were surrounded by the language. Basically, his English is a bit "odd" - he doesn't have an accent, I don't think (that is, his accent sounds like mine ), but the intonation is rather odd, a bit like a foreign speaker's. He has particular ways of saying things that are not "correct" and even though I systematically correct him now, he doesn't see to remember or acquire the correct forms. For example... he says "let fall" for "drop", "of me" for "mine", "you have to don't" for "you mustn't" and so on. If one were to anaylse them, few of his sentences (although he speaks quickly and fluently) would be totally correct. A small example from this morning - "Look the birds what they do", meaning "Look at what the birds did" (we had left crumbs out for the birds and they ate some). He doesn't use the irregular past forms but says "I seed" (I saw), "I did go", etc. Very occasionally he will remember the correct form but mostly these are just stuck.
His French, on the other hand, while probably more limited in vocabulary than other kids his age, is perfectly correct.
I just wonder whether this "stuckness", his language not evolving in English, is a sign, as I say, of something else... Obviously his situation is rather unusual in having been exposed to three languages in a rather complicated way so it is perhaps also difficult to judge. I cannot ask a speech therapist about it because they can only judge his French (he did have a speech therapist evaluation earlier in the year and she found that his speech was basically normal although he had problems with naming colours and some confusion with behind/in front of kind of vocabulary).
So... any insights would be interesting.
That all seems quite a jumble of linguistic influences to me, just writing it down... ! What concerns me a little now is his English and I wonder whether it is a sign of some speech delay or other problem. Or, simply, that his only English source (we occasionally meet English friends) is me and so he doesn't progress as he would if he were surrounded by the language. Basically, his English is a bit "odd" - he doesn't have an accent, I don't think (that is, his accent sounds like mine ), but the intonation is rather odd, a bit like a foreign speaker's. He has particular ways of saying things that are not "correct" and even though I systematically correct him now, he doesn't see to remember or acquire the correct forms. For example... he says "let fall" for "drop", "of me" for "mine", "you have to don't" for "you mustn't" and so on. If one were to anaylse them, few of his sentences (although he speaks quickly and fluently) would be totally correct. A small example from this morning - "Look the birds what they do", meaning "Look at what the birds did" (we had left crumbs out for the birds and they ate some). He doesn't use the irregular past forms but says "I seed" (I saw), "I did go", etc. Very occasionally he will remember the correct form but mostly these are just stuck.
His French, on the other hand, while probably more limited in vocabulary than other kids his age, is perfectly correct.
I just wonder whether this "stuckness", his language not evolving in English, is a sign, as I say, of something else... Obviously his situation is rather unusual in having been exposed to three languages in a rather complicated way so it is perhaps also difficult to judge. I cannot ask a speech therapist about it because they can only judge his French (he did have a speech therapist evaluation earlier in the year and she found that his speech was basically normal although he had problems with naming colours and some confusion with behind/in front of kind of vocabulary).
So... any insights would be interesting.