My daughter Amiratih never lived in English speaking country. The first word that my daughter said when she started to speak, however, was English. Her understandable words at 24 months old were, "good", and "banana" came along after. And so were others English words came out from her. Her vocabulary and sentence are developing everyday, both in English as well as in our spoken language, Bahasa Indonesia. But she also understand our ethnic language, Javanese and Sundanese, language that we speak to older family members occasionally, but not to her intentionally. Her ability to understand and speak many different languages certainly has amazed me.
At 2 years old, she often argued with almost everything I told her to do (or not to do). She would argue in English no matter what language I spoke to her at that time. Through times Amiratih can speak and communicate with her family in very proper English structure and perfect pronunciation for a child at her age who never lived in an English speaking country nor with any English speaking people.
At 3 years old, Amiratih could use past tense and present tense in the right place. When she's telling story to me, she knew when to use "either" and "too" in the right sentence. At this age she’s also exploring another foreign language such as Spanish. Although not as fluent as English, she could count from one to five in Spanish. She used some Spanish words when she called her grandma and grandpa sometimes also some greetings in Spanish. Her favorite word in Spanish is,"espera".
What so unique about Amiratih to me is that her ability to speak other languages than our native language will only come out when she's interacting with someone that is very familiar to her, to whom she feels secure. She would only speak fluently in English, with someone she feels very secured.
by : Laksmira Bayuardi ( kuma laxmi ) .
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