Wow, lots of new words lately, and Chinese, English, and Shanghainese are starting to mix together at a frantic pace. Here are some of the things I’m hearing lately (some are new, some probably are not… I’m not being too systematic about keeping track):

English * This is a ___ * one, two, fee, four * book * cat * shoe * cow * pod (for “iPad”) * Mommy’s car

One time she very seriously said to me and SS in the car: “Daddy is two daddies. Mommy is two mommies.” It was very deep.

She’s getting the possessive thing, here and there. I’ve heard things like “Daddy’s hair” and “Daddy’s foot” as well.

She kind of uses “this is” and “that is” and “there is” interchangeably, and her pronunciation isn’t too clear either.

I’ve noticed a few interesting things about “two.” She can’t tell the difference between “two” the number and “too” at the end of a sentence, and I can tell it’s confusing her. But what can I do? They’re both common words.

I’ve also noticed that sometimes she uses “two” to mean “many.” I had to smile at this, because I’ve read that there are some languages with extremely simplified numerical concepts, where “one” and “many” are the only numbers.

Mandarin * yi, er, san, wu, ba (1, 2, 3, 5, 8) * Wo bu yao (I don’t want it) * gou-gou (doggy) * ma (horse) * hema (hippo) * hao (good)

Shanghainese * Wa-wa le (I got a boo-boo) * ma (to buy) * niu-niu (meat) * a (shoe) * ve-ve (rice)