Thursday 8 November 2012

Hee-hee-hee

One way that Henrik copes with being bilingual is to call animals by the noises they make, rather than their names.  Every animal has at least two names, but only one sound.  This idea is reinforced by his two Fisher Price "The Farmer Says" toys; one in English and one in Norwegian, but with identical animal sounds.  So it's not an owl or en ugle, it's a "hee-hee-hee" (Henrik's owls don't hoot so much as giggle).  Panting means a dog, or it means my poppies because he thinks I said for him to look at the puppies in the flowerbed. Cows and kuer are "mmm".  Snakes and slanger are "hisssss". And so on.

Except for foxes.  Foxes are "alala".  The reason for this is the display of stuffed animals near my office.  It's a large case, with rodents, birds, and such, but the highlight of the display for Henrik is the fox.  So when I ask him if he wants to see the animals, what he really wants is to see the fox.  So animals = alala = fox.  

2 comments:

  1. Henrik is already a very logical and practical young Man ;)

    Yay a blog! I look forward to reading it Shea!
    Kate

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  2. Yay! He's is so darn cute :) I'm with him. I would prefer giggling owls any day.

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