Tags
babies, baby talk, bilingual kids, dictionary, parenting, Spanish
So as much as we try to maintain the Mommy and Supernanny speak English, Daddy, sister, grandparents, world at large speak Spanish, there are some kiddie terms that have slipped into our household, here are a few examples:
Abu, abus – those are the grandparents, the abuelos
Caca – yeah you guessed it and its not like I am running out to replace this with an English synonym, I mean poop or doodie are just as bad, so caca it is.
gua-gua (pronounced wow-wow) – dog (perro) double r words are hard, hence the synonym on this one. Hard habit to break, no matter how many times you repeat “perro” or the much easier “dog” after it.
Mami/Papi – this is an especially unique idiosyncrasy of Argentine parent/baby relations. Many parents fondly call their kids the very monikers they use for themselves, often even swapping genders. Ex. M calls his daughter Papi all the time and no-one thinks anything of it. While this has always sound very confusing for a little person to me, everyone seems to manage to grow up knowing exactly who is who, so what do I know?
Mema – a bottle, from mamadera though we slipped through on this one and Chip called it a bottle, first word out of his mouth in the AM and last one at night. Now thank goodness he doesn´t think about them any other time of day!
Noni – this is kiddie-speak for sleeping, much like beddy-by time, night-night or whatever your family calls it. Its sweet and our jardin clearly uses it, but I don´t.
Papa – which means potato in proper Spanish, here it is used to refer to any mealtime or food group.
Póta (this is Chip speak for pelota or ball, his favorite toy by far, Messi watch out!)
Titas – short for galletitas, which are COOKIES! precise and to the point on this one.
Toot- toot – car, again we skipped this one, going straight to the more grown-up auto or car which sounds more like KA, but hey, its English, so I´m not complaining!
Tete – passifier, dummy, binky. Chip however stuck closer to the original chupete, (as they are officially known) and calls his a pé – té. Which would be just fine if it didn´t sound exactly like a local slang word for BJs. This is one we are trying to phase out, asap.
I´d love to hear some other foreign language terms that have crept into your dual language household or Spanish baby words that I have missed. Do share and I will be sure to add, this is a working dictionary, so to speak…
Olive´s in BA 
Your picture provoked a thought, what if we taught children words and phrases (ABC’s) in another language at the same time as teaching in our native tongue? Great post! (http://blog.dinolingo.com)