that’s not………. how child speech works…………………………………………..
god okay in an attempt to be less of an asshole, here’s how child speech DOES work (or tend to work, at least)
kids tend to hypercorrect — this means that they tend to say things like “sleeped” instead of “slept,” “writed” instead of “wrote,” “goed” instead of “went,” etc
kids tend not to make errors such as omitting verbs (“i hungry”)
kids also tend not to make errors in the i/me, she/her department (“me am hungry”)
simplification of difficult sounds — consonant clusters especially, so things like st, sp, ps, etc., as well as f, v, th-sounds, ch-sounds, etc.
“babbling”-type utterances (“apwen” for “airplane,” using one babbly word for multiple objects, things like that) generally occur in children under the age of three and a half
say it with me: an eight-year-old child is not going to be saying “me hungwy”
do not confuse child speech with stereotypical learner english mistakes, that’s not only incorrect but also gross on the stereotypical learner english front (“me love you long time,” anybody?)
if you’re going to write kidfic please do some * research
Totally. It can be helpful to remind yourself that young children tend to speak as though the English language actually made sense. Our brains are pattern-recognising machines: children are really, really good at puzzling out the implicit rules of the English language, but they don’t necessarily know all the silly exceptions and bizarre edge cases that break those rules yet - those can only be learned through experience and rote memorisation.
Basically, when children who speak English as a first language make mistakes, it typically reflects a tendency to treat English as more grammatically, syntactically, and/or orthographically consistent than it really is. In some cases, this can be compounded by the fact that some kids will get offended at how little sense “proper” English makes, and insist upon using the more consistent forms even though they know very well that they’re technically “wrong”.
for a long young portion of my life I insisted on pronouncing Sean “SEEN” because that’s how it’s spelled.
As someone who spends a good majority of her time working with kids, it irks me to no end when I see children written as if they’re babies.
Past the age of about five or six years old, children can have deep, intellectual conversations about the most bizarre of things. I HAD A CONVERSATION LAST WEEK WITH FOUR THIRD GRADERS ABOUT THE GAS PRICES AND TAXES IN HAWAII.
Were they entirely correct in the facts they were giving? No, because it was all from what they had heard from parents or on the news. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was having a genuine conversation with four eight and nine year olds about taxes.
Just about the only speech problems most kids have, unless they have a speech impediment, is not being able to pronounce certain consonants (replacing ‘th’ with ‘fw,’ for example, and some letters are harder to form with your mouth than others) and doing exactly what the person above said: using the English language the way they know how, which isn’t always the way English works.
Kids aren’t stupid. Stop writing them like they are.
I was tutoring a little kid (second grade, I think). He was complaining about a worksheet. “This is hard.” I started to correct him as I knew he was more than capable of it and this bright kid, who had obviously heard the lecture before from others, interrupted me and said: “I know. I know. It’s not really difficult. It’s just time consuming.” Some kids are spooky-smart and even quite articulate.
If you need (plotwise) to emphasize that the child is specifically childish … have them tell the same joke to everyone they meet, cracking themselves up before they get to the punchline … have them ask “Why?” incessantly … have them fidgeting and possibly breaking things (”Oops.” “What?” “Nothing!” “WHAT?!”) … and if you have more than one kid, even of the same age, you don’t have to write them at the same intelligence level or emotional maturity. Some kids are messy and some are obsessively neat. Some are quiet, some loud. Some giggly, some surly. They basically come in the same range of personalities as adults.
If you don’t want to invest a lot of time writing dialog for kids, just establish that you have a quiet kid. But a kid who gives single-word answers is usually doing so because they don’t like you (or trust you) or they are focused on their own thing and you’re interrupting them. It doesn’t mean they lack the vocabulary or that they don’t understand the adult conversation going on “over their head” (the more inappropriate the conversation, the more likely the kids are paying attention).
I have jabbed the back button so many times on terrible kid fic. This is an excellent resource - kid fic, when done well, is a real treat for me.
The only children I have ever met who did say things like “me hungwy” were the ones who had figured out that if they sounded “adorable” they could wrap adults around their precious little fingers. Kids get it.
Kids also slur and mumble a lot. Especially when they’re tired. They don’t say “me hungwy”, they say “M’hungry”, or “m’hung’y” cause it just takes too much effort or time to do a proper distinct ‘r’.
Really, with kids, it’s more about how they say the words than what they say. A sleepy kid can be adorable, but they’re either cranky as hell or nearly dead on their feet. A hungry kid is going to be cranky (again) or whiney. A bored kid’s going to be fidgety and/or whiney. etc.
Generally speaking, in my experience, kids are as smart as any adult. What they lack is: * Life experience and knowledge about the world. So sometimes, things that seem silly and cliche to us are new, exciting, and profound to them. * A long term perspective. They don’t have a sense of “this too shall pass.” If something upsets them right now, it’s the end of the world. If something makes them happy, they think they’ll never be unhappy again. This hurts their judgment and can make them emotionally reactive. * Self-control. Try to get kids to sit quietly when they’re tired or hungry or angry, and you’ll see what I mean. * The ability to know what they know and verbalize it to others. Any therapist will tell you kids pick up family dynamics and detect conflict parents are trying to hide like no one’s business. They can’t usually talk directly about it, though, although they might enact the patterns they see with dolls and pretend play. * Defenses and seeing themselves through others’ eyes. I love teaching and doing research with children because their personalities are so quickly and easily visible. Their parents are another matter. Until at least 5th or 6th grade, they’re not constantly thinking about how others perceive them and constructing complicated facades. * Meta-thinking. When I ask a child who just solved a logic puzzle or answered a question correctly how they knew, they’ll often say something like “I just knew,” “because I’m smart,” “my sister taught me,” or “I don’t know.” This is related to kids rarely knowing and being able to verbalize what they know. * Basic executive functions like working memory, processing speed, and inhibition. All of these rely on the frontal lobe and develop slowly. A concrete example: on a brief IQ test like the Woodcock Johnson, I’ve seen kids get lost in the problem and forget part or all of what they were being asked, but they could solve it accurately if you kept reminding them (but did not otherwise provide help). Their standard scores with reminders were often over 120 (roughly “gifted range”), while without, they did about average. * They ask questions, but they don’t critically question what you’ve been told. In my experience with gifted kids for example, they ask so many questions it wears parents and teachers out. But until adolescence, they trust what they learn from books, parents, and teachers. They don’t ask constantly, “how do you know? How do I know?” I vividly remember beginning to ask these how-do-we-know questions at 14. I suddenly became aware of a lack of certainty of everything I knew and believed.
Kids are smart and observant, but they are not little adults. Their perspective is so different given their size, relationship to time, and dependence on the adults around them. If you want to write about kids, keep that in mind, listen to them, and observe them closely.
i’m a speech/language therapist who specializes in language development for preschool aged children (under 5). as a rule of thumb, children approximate adult language at 5 years of age. i didn’t really include speech sound development because that’s a whole lot of explanation. but, here’s what their language looks like from birth - 5 years:
Birth–3 Months
Startles to loud sounds
Quiets or smiles when spoken to
Seems to recognize caregiver’s voice and quiets if crying
Makes pleasure sounds (cooing, gooing)
Cries differently for different needs
Smiles they see caregiver
4–6 Months
Turns eyes to the direction of sounds
Responds to changes in tone of voice
Interested in music / toys that make sounds
Babbling is reduplicated repetitions of different easy to pronounce sounds, (i.e. ”papapa,” “bababa,” “mamama”)
Chuckles and laughs
Vocalizes excitement and displeasure
7 Months–1 Year
Enjoys games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake
Turns and looks in direction of sounds
Listens when spoken to
Recognizes words for common items like “cup”, “shoe”, “book”, or “juice”
Begins to respond to commands and requests (e.g. “Come here” or “Want more?”)
Babbling has many different sounds (”pabamima”)
Uses gestures to communicate (waving, holding arms to be picked up)
Imitates different speech sounds
Has one or two words (hi, dog, dada, mama) around first birthday, although words may not be intelligible
1-2 Years
Points to a few body parts when asked.
Follows simple commands and understands simple questions (“Roll the ball,” “Kiss the baby,” “Where’s your shoe?”).
Points to pictures in a book when named.
Vocabulary size increases every month
Child over generalizes words (i.e. every four legged animal is “doggy”)
Uses some one- or two- word questions (“Where kitty?” “Go bye-bye?” “What’s that?”).
Once vocabulary size reaches ~250 words child begins to put two words together (“more cookie,” “no juice,” “mommy book”).
2-3 Years
Understands opposites (“go-stop,” “in-on,” “big-little,” “up-down”).
Follows two-step requests (“Get the book and put it on the table”).
Should be able to listen to story books for longer periods of time
Vocab size increased to the point where they have a word for almost everything, new words every day.
Uses two- or three- words sentences.
Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time.
Often asks for or directs attention to objects by labeling them.
Asks “why?” but may not be able to answer (**asking questions comes far before being able to answer them!!)
May stutter on words or sounds (this is normal unless it distresses the child)
3-4 years
Will respond when called from another room.
Can talk about familiar activities that happened at school or at friends’ homes while the listener was not present. Uses about 4 sentences at a time. (Not yet a full adult-like narrative, but making progress.)
People outside of the family understand child’s speech.
Answers simple “who?”, “what?”, and “where?” questions.
Asks “when?” and “how?” questions.
Understands simple meta-linguistic structures such as rhymes (i.e. “hat-cat”)
Uses pronouns, such as I, you, me, we, or they
Uses some plural words, like toys, birds, and buses (may overgeneralize plural or past tense “
Sentences have 4 or more words.
Usually has outgrown stuttering behaviors.
4-5 years
Understands sequencing words like first, next, and last.
Understands words for time, like yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Follows 3-4 step directions, like “Put your pajamas on, brush your teeth, and then pick out a book.”
Says all speech sounds in words. May still make mistakes on sounds that are harder to say, like l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, th. **Mistakes on /r/ are common until 7 years of age
Uses sentences that have more than one verb.
With adult support can construct a short narrative about something the listener is not familiar with (i.e. “What happened in the movie?”)
Understands that they must change their language depending on the listener and place. May use short sentences with younger children or talk louder outside than inside.
