They say that the best way to learn a new language is to completely immerse yourself in it. So when Jordan expressed how much trouble he was having learning his caretaker's native language, she decided to teach him the way she was taught growing up. The exact same way.
The rules were simple. Jordan's "age" would be tied to his language comprehension. So to "grow up" he would have to learn the new language. Until then, he was stuck as his mommy's little baby. And to that end, his caregiver would only be speaking Russian to him for the duration of his stay here. If Jordan wanted something, he would have to either communicate it non-verbally or learn the language.
Fast forward a month later and He had managed to pick up a few basic words. But overall progress was still going very slow. He remembered when he had managed to say his "first word". Which was just the word for "no". His caretaker had fawned over him like you would for an actual baby making that achievement. Even if he didn't understand a word of it, her tone was encouraging enough to make him feel good about himself.
Reading was even harder. It was a completely different alphabet so he was often confused about what the letters even sounded like. It made reading impossible. But he was pretty sure that a baby like him would be a long way away from reading anyway, so it didn't bother him that much. If nothing else, it was really nice having his caretaker read to him.
The story about the weird bun thing was pretty good. At least the pictures were. He still didn't understand a word of it when he was read from it during story time. So he only had context clues to try and figure out what was going on.
After a month of this, it was clear that Jordan still had a long way to go before he would be allowed to "grow up". And cuddled up in his mommy's arms, he didn't think that was such a bad thing...
The idea of a Caregiver using a language you don't speak to simulate you being too little to talk is very button pressing for me. Just treating everything out of your mouth that isn't in their language as baby babble! So if you want to ask them for something, you have to learn their language like a baby would! And your words are probably going to be short & childish to them, which makes it even better! <3
Also, According to the artist, the words they are speaking say: "Look at that pretty princess! Are you having fun playing with your toys?"
And the book is called: "The Bun". Which is an actual children's book.
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This idea came to me back in college when I was struggling to pass my required language classes. You would think that taking Spanish 101 & 102 three times (middle, highschool, & college), that I would actually be good at it. But you would be wrong. Despite spending more time on it than any other subject and even attending summer classes, I only passed Spanish 103 because my teacher bumped up my grade to a D.
Years later, I only remember a small handful of words and grammar rules. If I was assigned an age based on my understanding of Spanish, I would probably be forced to join the babies at daycare! XD
Dairycow!
