Attuning to our world
"You really live in a place where people don't have the Book in their own language?" my nephew asked as he swung from my arms. "Yep, but we're working on that." I answered. My older nephews have been exploring the idea of other languages, asking me for Spanish to use with kids they want to talk to at the playground, or just exploring the world of other sounds. Another thing they've enjoyed is a game where I give them a foreign word, and then use English to describe it until they figure out what the word means. "I really like masindza. Do you like masindza? It's long and yellow, and there's some on the counter." "Bananas!" "Yep! Good job!" That's basically what you do when learning language on the street in any part of the world. Describe and explore until you understand how ideas are communicated. But really, it's more than just vocabulary. When we encounter new ideas, we understand them by asking questi...