Waterlemon, Binanna & mashmallow .

You might wonder why did I wrote those words in the title. This time, I just want to share some interesting words that my daughters coined when they pronounce them. . This is what normally happen to children who are bilinguals. In our case, we are teaching our first language, Bahasa Malaysia (ke Bhs Melayu? tak tahu yg mana dipakai skrg) and also English.(most Malaysian parents I believe introduce BM and English at home too)

Though we are now staying in Hamilton, New Zealand, acquiring English doesn't come naturally to our kids. That's why when my hubby bought a watermelon last week, Fathini called it "waterlemon". We (my hubby and I) were amused at the new coined word. sebenarnya mama dgn papa Tini teruk tau sbb gelakkan Tini bila dia sebut mcm tu.ehehe I can also recalled some other words that Fathini and Hafizah have created like they say Banana as "Binnana" and for some resons (don't know why) they call mash potato as "mashmallow".

Yesterday when we had our playgroup at my friends's house, I discovered that my friends' kids have also created their own words! It turned out that Fathini is not the only one who calls "Watermelon" as "Waterlemon"! Some of them are confused with "Potato" and "Tomato". May be I'm quite ignorant about this language acquisition (walaupun dulu pernah belajar masa ambik TESL.huhu) among the kids until I saw what happened to my own children.

What about your kids? Have you ever heard they created new words? How do you deal with that?
We(my hubby and I) don't really mind when they innocently made this kind of mistake because we know they are actually acquiring the language. Never discourage them but treat it as some of the creative inventions! walaupun mesti kita nak tergelak. mmg tak boleh tahan mula2 tu Eventually we would tell them the correct words but before that we just enjoy using the new words they have created as it's much more fun and somehow let's us bond with our kids.