Now we're talking!!!

We have spent nearly two months listening.... now we get to speak! Every afternoon, when the boys nap, we spend about 2 hours with our awesome language tutor and friend, Bryan, learning Tagalog. We're following a program called Languaculture, where we learn the language the way a child does.... we begin to understand before we start talking. We have 300 words that we understand and have been obeying all kinds of random commands from Bryan.... put the knife under the table, sit on the chair in the corner of the room, put the sheep in the pot and sprinkle pepper, and so on. We use objects in the house and picture cut-outs and we listen while Bryan speaks and points and then gets us to point at stuff. Just like we do with Cody while reading books.... we actually even use his books for lessons. But now we are describing the pictures ourselves! 

Its been really fun to transition to speaking after so much time spent listening. Its also neat to see Cody do this in English... he now describes pictures himself too and, of course, gives us very clear commands of what he wants:) And just like we find certain Tagalog words quite funny (the wall is a dinging!), Cody is entertained by words too.... like sandwich- saaaamich! And some words have remained in the original Cody version, despite being able to say it properly... like motorcycle.  Here's a video of Cody talking (more fun to watch him then us, right?) and being silly. It's kind of long but I think the grandparents will appreciate it:)