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Duolingo for Understanding Toddlers
Lesson 1: The Basics
Congratulations! You have taken your first, exciting step in learning to communicate with toddlers. Toddlers speak their own language known by many names: Gibberish, Nonsense, and Is-That-Kid-Having-a-Stroke-or-Something? For consistency and clarity, we will refer to it as “Toddlerese” throughout our lessons.
The first thing to understand about Toddlerese is that there is no universally shared language. Each toddler speaks their own dialect, in which only the child’s primary caregivers (in Western Cultures, the Nanny) can be truly fluent. It is not uncommon for a toddler to say something that sounds unintelligible to you, as if they are sounding out all of the letters in a Word Search puzzle, but which makes perfect sense to their caregiver.
A conversation may sound something like this:
TODDLER: Nrmabockdahdeedee.
ADULT: That’s right, dogs do bark at garbage trucks.
Despite this linguistic diversity, some commonalities tend to show up among most young children. By studying these shared attributes, secondary caregivers such as grandparents, aunts/uncles, and fathers can learn “conversational Toddlerese,” which is who these lessons are aimed at.
Without further ado, let’s jump into some key concepts of Toddlerese!
Subject-Shout Agreement
In English, our sentences generally include a subject and a verb. Take the following sentence as an example:
My son skips his nap once a week for no reason.
Here, we would say that the subject is “son,” the verb is “to skip,” and the subject’s parents are “losing their minds.” A fundamental concept of English grammar is that subjects and verbs must agree in number; this is called Subject-Verb Agreement.
Not only does this concept not apply in Toddlerese, but it is not even necessary to have both a subject and a verb. A full sentence in Toddlerese can consist of a single word repeated over and over again, at increasingly louder volumes. For example, in English, we may use the phrase:
I would like blueberries served in my favorite green container.
In Toddlerese, this same sentence is simply expressed as:
Green! Greeeeeeeeen! GREEEEEEN!!!
This is a perfect example of what’s called Subject-Shout Agreement. It involves a toddler shouting the subject over and over again until there is agreement with (or at least surrender to) their demands. This is a daily occurrence among most toddlers, and so it is a good thing to try and master early on in your learning journey.
Relationship Tense
Naturally, an understanding of tenses is a crucial aspect of English proficiency. The English language generally includes three tenses — past, present, and future — which also exist in Toddlerese. But Toddlers also introduce “Relationship Tense,” which involves repeating verbal nonsense, thus making their relationship with their caregiver increasingly tense.
Let’s try an example:
TODDLER: Sweentches.
SPOUSE 1: …Sweets?
TODDLER: Sweentches.
SPOUSE 1: Do you want sweets? You can’t have sweets.
TODDLER: Sweentches.
SPOUSE 2: Swings. He wants swings.
SPOUSE 1: Swings? You want swings?
TODDLER: Sweentches. Sweentches!!!
SPOUSE 1: I got nothin’ here.
SPOUSE 2: He wants swings.
SPOUSE 1: I asked about swings!
SPOUSE 2: Hey buddy so you want to go on the swings?
TODDLER: Sweentches!!!
SPOUSE 1: See?!
SPOUSE 2: OK, OK!!
Note how the spouses start to turn on each other in their fruitless attempt at deciphering the Toddlerese. That’s the beauty of Relationship Tense.
That’s it for this lesson. Stay tuned as we dive deeper into this complex and infuriating language!
Always remember that the best way to learn any new language is immersion, so if you really want to be fluent you are welcome to babysit my kids.
Seriously, no background check required. Just take these monsters off our hands for one weekend. We beg you.
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