Children repeating bad grammar they hear at nursery

[caughtinthesnow]

My little one is 2 and a half and I've noticed she repeats some grammatical errors. She definitely hasn't heard them from us..

The main one I've noticed is ' was ' instead of ' were '.

I know it hasn't come from us, because that's how the nursery teachers speak and write too...

It's not ideal is it? Has anyone had this issue with nursery or school ? I would expect a school teacher not to make grammatical mistakes like confusing was with were, but I don't know. I wouldn't have expected nursery teachers to make that kind of mistake.

'Absolutely ghastly' doesn't sound great either 😂

just keep talking properly yourself op

Sign of the times, innit brev. Safe.

(I'm 40 and just shivered typing that 😅 )

I had to correct my DD when she came home from school pronouncing aitch as haitch. As she was only five, and very indiscreet, she then corrected her teacher’s pronunciation. And the teacher told her, “You can say it either way.” Well, yes, you can, but only one way is correct. Six years later and I’m still irritated my daughter was given incorrect information by a teacher.

It also annoys me that teachers who frequently misspell words or use apostrophes incorrectly feel free to tell my children to say “pardon” instead of “what”. I wouldn’t dream of telling someone not to say pardon, so I do wish they wouldn’t.

I agree . I can honestly say that the nursery my children went to was fantastic and I never gave the grammar and elocution of the carers a second thought!

Well, time to hire the governess then!

I would expect a school teacher not to make grammatical mistakes like confusing was with were, but I don't know.

We have four primary schools within 10 min walking distance for us so we looked round all of them when DD was starting school. The grammar from some of the teachers in all of them was really awful.
One of them had a PowerPoint presentation that was full of either missing or incorrect apostrophes.

could be worse - friends grandson after being quite chatty suddenly became mute after a couple of months at nursery - currently has been for about 8 months I think.

there's other stuff at play, but I think his parents would love to have him speaking again.

Im a bit amazed at educators talking like this. I interviewed for a nanny recently and one woman mentioned she “done her degree!”, and another applicant said the was instead of were thing. Instantly off the list.

I'd be amused if my northern kids started talking with a long vowel sound. We don't have barths etc. My sister married a southern bloke, her kids settled on the short vowel sound,like their peers.

My dd came home from nursery putting an R in castle. Car sel.

We soon moved back up North. It's an S not and R!

Imagine your 3 year old declaring something as 'absolutely ghastly' 🤣

Although I must add, the poor grammar of the caregivers at my children’s nurseries didn’t worry me. They are more there to keep my kid alive and happy than to educate as far as I’m concerned. My children have made mistakes grammatically and it’s been nothing to do with exposure to adults saying similar, it’s just natural mistakes that children make as they develop language. My three year old would occasionally say something like, “Can you take I with you?” Just learning, that’s all.

I think they eventually end up sounding like the parent they spend most time with. I sound English despite having lived in the Middle East until I was 18, because my mum sounded English. I went to non-Brit international schools too so if anything you'd expect more of an accent impact, but no!

I can’t cope with wading through all the comments.

I just came on here to say you just need to get a better job, or have married into more money, so you can hire a nanny.

You are some form of Squeezed Middle - unfortunately not quite rich enough to avoid the grubbier classes. It can manifest as snobby twattery.

Prep school isn't necessary. Kids will always get words and phrases wrong just continue to gently correct it by paraphrasing what they've just said by using the right words. That and lots of reading alone and aloud so they are continually exposed to the correct syntax.

"We was eating chicken nuggets."

"You were eating chicken nuggets? Yum!"

It's really, really not a big deal, its just kids learning.

I think you're being a little picky and possibly unfair on the staff. My DS went to a South London nursery from age just under 2 to 4 and lots of the staff spoke with London accents, with slips of inaccurate grammar and I remember one once wrote in his daily log 'he been fine all day.'

But, they were the most wonderful, warm group of people and my son loved them and he was nurtured and cared for by them which I could never argue about.
I was much more interested in this aspect than their bloody grammar! We actually chuckle about it now. DS is now an well educated professional man, so no harm done from the inaccurate grammar!

Youngest picked up the speech patterns of the kids and adults at her after school club. It wasn't standard English, but it was perfectly reasonable grammar for such a diverse environment.

The accent was a little more problematic. Nobody needs a three year old with a perfect Kingston accent. Not when you don't mean the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, you're on a bus going past Brixton Market at the time and she's started singing Three Little Birds, at any rate.

Hopefully she’ll also learn that you don’t use a space before punctuation

Nursery workers do a very difficult, undervalued job for feck all money. The vast majority we've come across have been absolutely lovely and put far more effort into their jobs than most would for the pay.

"We was" is common informally in some areas. Here it's more "I done". It's not fair to expect the staff to alter their natural way of speaking while also keeping a room full of toddlers in check.

Cut them some slack. Your DC will learn to speak properly.

Haitch and aitch are both correct, you mark yourself out as being a bit ignorant to say otherwise.

All children go through a phase of regularising irregular verbs (including ones they previously got right), quite independently of how people around them speak.

I’d be pissed off with any nursery worker saying ‘we was’ - and yes, I heard it at a Gdc’s nursery. Another time, dd heard, ‘We was, wasn’t we?’ to one of the children.

She didn’t mention it to the management - they probably find it hard enough recruiting staff anyway at the wages they pay - but she didn’t like it.
If that makes us snobs, so be it.

A lot of children in London nurseries are bilingual. If their brains can sort that out, then yours should be able to get on top of English grammar when they need to.

Nursery workers are not teachers.

ExDH and I are from NW England with similar accents and good command of English grammar. DS grew up in Yorkshire, and his two key nursery workers were Scottish and local to where we lived.

Interesting times were had, but he turned out fine (with a degree in linguistics). He’s now concerned about poor grammatical influences on his own DS…

It will all work out fine. Don’t stress too much.