Can your DH understand your 2 year old's speech?

[AngelsfromtherealmsofgloryDog]

DH is feeling a bit bad that he finds DS hard to understand. I don't know if he's just a bit slow at picking up DS's lingo or whether DS is genuinely difficult to understand.

DS is 23 m.o. and very chatty. He has a wide vocabulary (at 19 m.o. I counted about 500 words, dunno what it'd be now).

His pronunciation is hard to understand though. Some is jargon (eg 'gee-gee' for train (from 'choo-choo') but most is just indistinct. I can understand about 95% of what he says, but I'm a SAHM and with him all the time. I know it's normal for toddler speech to be unclear to people who don't know them well but I'd expect DH to understand more.

DH sees him every day, plays with him for about twenty minutes daily and is around at dinnertime too. He doesn't spend a lot of time with DS on his own though, and doesn't often spend long periods of time with DS.

I have to translate the majority of DS's utterances for him, even when I think they're easily understandable from the context.

DS is at the stage where he wants the adult to repeat each word after him (and has been for the last 6 months ). Hence he gets a bit frustrated when the adult doesn't understand a word as it means he can't continue saying the sentence/phrase he wants - and the adult can't guess at the difficult word by the context of what follows it.

Any thoughts?

Totally normal - you are helped by being with him all the time - seeing his utterances in context etc etc. My 2.9 year old speaks very well now & there are still often cases where I tell my DH what she has said. Take heart in the fact that it is a fast shrinking issue as she becomes more and more eloquent.

You have to let DH & DS go their own way yes DS may get frustrated but if you are always there to jump in then there is no room for them to learn to communicate together iyswim. Although I understand more of DD2's words she & DH have always had their own little catchphrases /stuff which I stay well out of.
You sound a little fed up about them not spending time together though & this is really a different issue which it would be good to address.

Yes, there are various reasons for DH not spending much time with DS (it's not that he doesn't want to), but it is something we've discussed and are working on, and (to be fair to DH) he has seen DS quite a lot more recently.

It probably does mean he's slower to learn DS's language though as I'm almost always around for him to check with.

I do try not to leap in immediately - if DS is talking to DH and DH doesn't understand, I'll wait till DS has repeated the word several times before I tell DH what he's saying. But I could probably step back a bit more.

Thanks. :)

I'm like you a SAHM, so generally understand what DD (2 next week) is saying because she's constantly with me. DH spends a fair bit of time playing with her when he gets in from work but still sometimes needs me to translate! It's mostly when she uses her own unique words that he needs help with, for instance she says 'bobok' when she wants a yoghurt.

Yes, that's a factor here, but DH often can't understand words which are more similar to the 'right' ones, even if they're ones which DS has been saying multiple times a day for the last 5 months.

Mind you, I forget how often DS sometimes has to repeat himself to me before I choose the right word from several possibilities. With me, he makes his funny 'no!' noise if I get it wrong, but with DH he just keeps repeating what he was trying to say, and if I'm around, looks at me expectantly.

I don't think it's unusual, but I think you could help by trying to get your son to be more distinct when he speaks, repeating back the correct pronunciation etc. That will not only help your DH, but also all the other people who do and will come into contact with him.

However, my 19mo only has about 8 words, so I'm in no position to talk (but DD1 was a fantastic talker, and elderly neighbours etc could chat to her when she was 2)

This happened in our house too.

DS1 is now 3.4 and his speech is very good. Occasionally DH will look at me for a translation, but not often. I actually stopped translating so much when we had DS2 (when DS1 was 2.8) because I thought he needed to focus more when DS1 was talking and work it out for himself rather than relying on me.

Neither of us could understand much of what DC3 could say at the age of 24 months. In fact we asked to be referred to a speech therapist. He is two and half now and is speaking in 4 word sentences really clearly. He suddenly took off at 28 months...

Thanks. He gets a lot of reinforcement as he wants the adult to repeat Every Single Word after him (apart from the words he breaks up into syllables, when you have to repeat each syllable after him).

If you don't say the word, he won't continue with the phrase or sentence. It makes people laugh when we're walking around the shops talking in a very disjointed way. He's been doing that for about 6 months now, and I'm really hoping he gets the idea of stringing together words without an adult repeating it all soon!

Maybe your DH just isn't very good at learning new languages? I'm serious, because sometimes I feel like DS1 speaks his own unique language and I am his official interpreter. And if your DS has such a massive vocabularly that is even harder. Some people just don't have the 'ear' to hear subtle differences in unfamiliar speach.

Good point - he'd describe himself as 'not a natural linguist' so I think that's true. I'm much better at learning other languages so of course I find it easier to understand DS (well, that and spending 24 hours a day with him, of course).

Can your DH maybe go out with DS once a week by themselves? Park? Swimming? It really helps.