George attends a lovely Japanese daycare each day while Chris and I work. They only speak Japanese-they speak English to him only if he is feeling completely lost or not understanding directions. So 98% of the time, he hears only Japanese during the day. He has been there only 7 weeks, but he is beginning to pick up some of the language. We got a note from his Sensei the other day which said, "George is beginning to use some Japanese phrase. He says "Yamete" a lot. This means "don't!" We had a good laugh that the first word he uses reguarly is a negative, but he did learn the one word to help him express frustration. Last night my parents picked him up from daycare as Chris and I had to work late. Then we all had dinner together at my parents (they served us dungeness crab, oysters, and caesar salad! Yummy!). When we were leaving, George went and said goodbye to Grandma and Pop and gave them big cuddles and kisses as usual. But then Pop said, "Sayonara." George's response: "No Poppa, that's talk for school!" So he does understand, but as far as he's concerned, Japanese is school talk, English for everywhere else.
Clever boy!
