Some Spanish and English examples from developing bilinguals

[Ignacio Moreno Torres Sanchez]

Here you have one Spanish example from my 5 years old
daugther.

On one ocassion she spilled someone's coffee. So I said
to her:

Cuidado Blanca, has tirado el café.
(Be careful, Blanca, you spilled the coffe)

Her reply was:
No lo he tirado, se ha caído solo.
(I didn't spill it, it fell down alone)

To me this example illustrates very well that children
command subtle linguistic distintions such as the one between
tirar/caerse which can be really hard to explain
to any adult.

Ignacio Moreno-Torres
Universidad de Málaga

> Hi Bruno:
>
> Here are some exx., Spanish and English, from developing bilinguals, that
> I’ve excerpted from my book (in press; Cambridge tells me it’ll be out in
> Jan. 2014 ("Bilingual Language Acquisition: Spanish and English in the
> first six years.")
>                (the link for information is
> http://www.cambridge.org/us/search?iFeelLucky=false&currentTheme=Academic_v1&query=Carmen+Silva-Corval%C3%A1n
> )
>
> The examples illustrate different phenomena. Do email me if you have
> questions. Apologies for the layout. This is my first message to the list.
> I wanted to just "post it" but I think that attempt failed.
>
>  (66) G: What’s on your mind now?     [N talking with his grandpa]
>            N: Which mind?  (2;10.22)
>             G: What are you trying to get?
>
> (148)  [N doesn’t want to tell a story]
>
>  N: Porque estoy muy cansado para un cuento. Tengo la voz, la boca
> cansada.  (3;9)
>       ‘Because I’m very tired for a story. I have my voice, my mouth
> tired.’
>
> (151) N: Bibi, cómbete con tu cepillo.  (2;7.25)  [from comb, instead of
> péinate]
>               ‘Bibi, comb-yourself with your brush.’
>
> (160) B: La Navidad está ahora over.  (2;10)  [from ‘to be over’, terminar
> in Spanish]
>               ‘Christmas is now over’
>
> (172) N: Prende el agua, papi.  (1;10.22)
>             ‘Turn on the water, daddy.’
>
> (187) C: Había una vez dos niños-
>          B: No, Bibi, no dos niños, un niño y una niña.  (2;6.11)
>
> (178) Paraphrasis and metaphor. Bren and I are playing with legos.  (B,
> 4;5)
>
>          B: ¿Sabes, Bibi, ese camión verde?
>                ‘You know, Bibi, that green truck?’
>         C: ¿De la basura?
>              ‘For trash?’
>         B: El camión verde que lleva soldados.  [that is, un tanque ‘a
> tank’]
>              ‘The green truck that carries soldiers.’
>         C: ¡Ah, el tanque!
>               ‘Ah! The tank!
>          B: Sí, el tanque.
>              ‘Yes, the tank.’
>          B: Le cortaron la trompa a ese camión verde.  [trompa ‘trunk’ for
> ‘cannon’]
>              ‘They cut the trunk of that green truck.’
>         C: La trompa; you mean ‘el cañón del tanque’?
>              ‘The trunk; you mean ‘the cannon of the tank’?’
>         B: Sí; el cañón por donde tiran esa bola, ese cannon ball.
>              ‘Yes; the cannon from where they throw that ball, that cannon
> ball.’
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Carmen Silva-Corvalán
> Professor, University of Southern California
> Editor, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
>
>
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