lellow and lickle

[cairnterrier]

Can anyone explain why children often pronounce yellow as lellow and little as lickle?

DS can say 'yes' and 'yuk (!)' without problems so why 'lellow'?

Other than repeating them with the correct pronunciation is there any other way of encouraging him to pronounce them properly as it makes my teeth itch when he says it!

OOOOoooo, I know this one!

You get them to say "yes yellow" over and over in succession, it really works!

That's interesting, I will have to try with DS2. He is 4.8 and a really fluent talker, but does say 'lellow'. I will give it a try .

My DD (5) has just taught her friend (5 also) to say it although she says that her friend will keep referring back to "lello" as it is probably a hard habit to break. At least her DM knows she can say it now though :)

Reverting, sorry. I only know this because my DB taught my DD to say it when she first learnt to talk as he had experience with his DS

My MIL says 'ickle' at the age of 63 and it makes me want to vomit. DD pronounces it perfectly (I corrected her once after she copied MIL and now I live in dread of her correcting MIL...)

OP, it's normal to do this up to age 6. Don't correct him and dont make him say words over and over again, he will just wonder what he's done wrong. Just copy the word with the 'y' sound so he can hear how you say it. He will get there!

Thanks everyone. DS seems to have no problems in pronouncing the 'yuh' sound when saying yes, so I was wondering if it was something to do with the combination of the 'yuh' bit followed by the 'luh' sound. Sorry if that doesn't make sense.

Anyway, before I'd read all your replies, I suddenly asked DS if he could say it and he could! I'm pretty sure he used to pronounce it correctly as well so I'm wondering if he's been copying someone else at pre-school - guess which colour table he sits on!

Any ideas about the little/lickle thing. Again I'm pretty sure that he used to say little so again I'm wondering if he's copying someone else or if we all go through these stages as we learn to talk?

My DS says "Yehyo" for yellow and "itty" for little. He used to say loads of words "wrong" (he's 2) but they are all gradually turning into "proper" words now.

The only ones that he still seems to have difficulty with are letters with "L" and "Y" though. Must be tricky letters.

Another thing my DS does which I find odd (sorry for thread hijack) is that some words he seems to make more difficult than they really are. So he says "Ozarnge" (with a sort of french accent) for "orange", "show-oom" for "showroom" and "Ajix" for "Alex". Oh and "Mazazine" (also with french accent) for "magazine".

No worries about the thread hijack. I'm fascinated to hear about other's DCs and also any theories behind it - like what TheJoyfulPuddleJumper suggested. Does anyone know any SALT to ask?

My DD saw a ST when she was 4 because she coudn't say her; g's, c/k's, r's, y's and th's.

The ST said that these were all fairly common sounds to have a problem with and showed me some word games to play with her, that emphasised words with - say - a 'g' sound and a 'd' sound so she could start to see (from my lips) and hear the difference. Apparently the letters sound the same to the child and they think they are saying them correctly. For example my DD would say 'montey' instead of 'monkey' and 'tidder' instead of 'tigger'. So by over enunciating you can help them to learn how to use their mouths to form the sound correctly.

She is now 7 and can say everything correctly with the exception of her r's which she still struggles with.

I think it is a case of perserverance and just repeat what they say with emphasis on the incorrectly pronounced word. So if they say - 'look at the lellow flower mummy' you say 'oh, yes, it is a lovely Yellow flower isn't it' with loads of emphasis on the Y in yellow.

I have no idea of an answer for this but I remember that all my sister ever wanted was 'Yots and yots of yong lellow hair' - she got it too.

I think ozzie that you will find your DC is in fact French!

The funny thing is cheekydevil, he used to refer to rabbits as "lapin", with a perfect french accent, even though I used to call them rabbit......

He's never even been near France and DH and I are as British as anything, and we live in Australia.....

I have this. Ds2 is 4 and was tongue tied, so I was wonderign if it was that. Asked HV, but she refused us a Speech Therapist appointment, I assume she just thought he was too young.
We have already tried 'yes yellow' and although most of the time he got it wrong, he did get it right atleast once, so I know he CAN say it. I think , like others have said , it is quite a hard habit to break. He too says 'lickle'.
He also can't say 'J', so calls ds1 'Dack' instead of 'Jack'.
Am just hoping that with us taking the time to pronounce words properly, it will come good in the end.

I've been driven up the wall since this weekend by DS starting a load of glottal stops all of a sudden. Bu'er my toast, compu'er, twinkuh twinkuh li'ul star, aaaargh. I have been trying not to "understand" until he says it properly but he seems not to twig. Might force myself to ignore, with great difficulty.

We had the lellow for yellow until just under 3yo. Then suddenly he got it. About the same time that he said strawberries rather than strawbudgeries (never had a problem with blackberries, raspberries, blueberries)