uno, dos, flis, rauncho...

My little girl is a linguist. Of course its been said that the younger a child is when they learn a language, the more easily they will pick it up and retain it, accent and all. Well, with two grandmothers, a father and a mother who know French, Lady M has heard pieces of the French language her entire life.

From my time living in Sweden, I still recall some of the language, so I will throw the odd word or sentence at her, with my oh-so-realistic Scandinavian accent. Its a stretch, but who knows, she may find herself living in Scandinavia someday with an uncanny ability to order a ham and cheese sandwich, or take the #54 bus to the university.

I have also studied some Spanish, so will bestow my vast vocabulary on her from time to time, but I can't take all the credit for her love of the Spanish language. Rather, she has recently developed a mild obsession with Diego (the animated animal rescuer), and her mastery of this delightful romance language is budding before our very eyes.

In fact, just a couple of days ago, she started counting something...in Spanish, rather than English. It caught me off guard a little bit, and while I had a moment of pride, I had an even longer moment of laughter For my little Lady M counted as follows... uno, dos, flis, rauncho, cinco, seis, siete, ocho...

Pretty close! But, for anyone who knows how to count it out, 'flis' should be 'tres', and 'rauncho' should be 'cuatro'. Let's be honest though, 'flis' and 'rauncho' were WAY funnier.

So, if she learns all of her Spanish from her pal Diego, we may have to work on pronunciation a little, but I'd say she's off to a great start. A little linguist in the making...