That's right: read it yourself, kiddo.
My daughter has started to realize something about me: her (otherwise wonderful, lovely, and adoring) mother talks funny. Everybody else calls it an ‘accent’; in our house, it’s just called weird. Although most days I am deluded into thinking it’s barely noticeable; I must acknowledge it gets stronger when I’m tired, or when I’m reading out loud.
No problem; Isabella is more than happy to point it out when I make a mistake. In fact, she’s absolutely tireless when it comes to correcting me; there’s not a ‘th’ sound she lets me skip, not a single ‘r’ she lets me roll. If I keep making the same error often enough, she adds mocking laughter to her gentle reminders. Such a nice, helpful girl.
Personally, I think mispronouncing things now and then adds flavor; things are more exciting if my kids don’t always know what I am saying. It forces them to listen really, really well. Not that they actually do that, but hey; I can dream.
Recently, she’s upped the ante. She knows that the letter ‘r’ is my least favorite; its Dutch pronunciation is entirely different from its English counterpart; it does unspeakable things to my tongue, and I usually just give up after a while. So, she’s picking her bedtime stories with an agenda in mind: we’ve been reading about Rani-the-Fairy, about Ramona, about a mouse named Wemberley who worries too much. Particularly that last one bothers me; it uses the word ‘worry’ 50 times, and it’s a very short book. The kind of book you’re expected to read in less than one sitting:
Wemberley worried in the morning.
She worried at night.
And she worried throughout the day.
“You worry too much,” said her mother.
“When you worry, I worry,” said her father.
“Worry, worry, worry,” said her grandmother.
“Too much worry.”
I challenge any Dutch person to read this out loud without tongue-twisting; I don’t care how fluent you are. I’ve told her to take the book back to the library; if she tries anything like this again, we’ll be reading War and Peace every night from here on out. In Dutch. My daughter is not the only one who can be devious.
Comments
I think this is a fantastic story/article. Thanks for sharing.
When I was in the third grade, there were 2 new girls in school whose previous school had closed. Their dad had once been in the air force and their older brother had been born in Germany. Their mom was very nice, but she talked a little different. It wasn't until, oh, about a year ago, that I learned that she was actually German and her parents met while he was stationed there. How old am I? Yeah, exactly.
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