Well, now Monster is up too, so at least I'm not alone forced to chat with myself. She going to be out of reach for at least another 25 minutes while she watches Curious George with her morning milk though, let me take this time to share what happened the first time I tried to teach Monster anatomy in Urdu.
I pulled out a Karen Katz book one day, determined to at least teach her a few more words in Urdu. She already responds correctly to idhar aao, haath ooper, and calls drinking water her paani-su (yes, it's half urdu, half turkish. Her name for water to play in is water-su).
We successfully talked about haath (hands), pair (feet), naak (nose), kaan (ears), munh (mouth) and then the motherload came...the belly button!
The belly button??? What the heck is a belly button in Urdu??? Soorakh? That's hole! Not very accurate. I can't teach her that there is a hole in her tummy!
So after a few painful seconds of delibration, I put on a big smile on my face and told her "That's yooourrrr......BELLY BUTTON!"
She can find this one out on her own.
how cute! can you teach me urdu too?
ReplyDeleteYou'll speak like my daughter does. "Cish aa rahi hai" "paani-SU chahiyai" "window kapat" " Give Haath istemiyorum!"
ReplyDeleteTo understand my daughter's dialogue, one has to understand all three Urdu, English AND Turkish languages =)
Hi. Am from Hyderabad, India..I know that colloquially we call the belly button 'bambi'. .dunno if that is proper urdu or slang, though :)
ReplyDelete