"Ta" or wait for "Thank you"

[kiwicath]

My son has just turned 11 months and I find myself saying "ta?" (as in "thank you?") when I give him things or take things from him. I've had a few murmerings from my husband that I shouldn't be talking to him in baby and should just say "thank you?" I'm thinking though that it's never too early to learn a few manners and in a few months he should be getting a handle on it as well as saying it. "Thank you" won't be in his vocab for ages!!!! Any thoughts??

And what about our own dialect too?
I think my Ds will be picking up all sort of weird words off of me when I am talking to others.

I am always saying ta too like you are with dd, and i did wonder whether i should be saying thank you instead so glad you started this thread kiwicath! would like to see what others do too

Nursery told us that they use "ta" with the little ones because they think the manners are the important bit - when they're better linguistically then they can learn "thank you". I was a bit dubious at first, but I prefer ds to say thank you in some form (e.g. ta) rather than nothing at all. He also used to say "ssss" before he could cope with please.

Have to say, I always say thank-you to mine. Ds2 is nearly 22 months and has said a version of thank-you for a while now. It probably is partly out of pedantry, but more likely that I get so irritated at my grandmother saying "Ta!" in a really exaggerated way to small children. One small thing I learnt from my many errors with ds1 was to start in a way that fitted in with where I wanted him (and us) to end up as much as possible: so, in the long run I want to him to say "thank-you" so there wasn't much point in getting him to say "ta" and then have to teach him not to say "ta", but "thank-you". Dis any of that make any sense at all?

I thought "ta" was a universal little word but maybe it's just a down under thing. I know my mum used it with her gang of 7 and we've all got .... reasonable manners.

wait for thank you IME

hate hearing small children say 'Ta' why teach them one thing only to have to correct it? don't get that

They start developing their own way of saying it .. IIRC DS said 'kyou' first then 'nk you' then thank you .. doesn't slow them down IMHO

With DD (now 2.5yo) she did say "ta" when little, although at home we did always say thankyou, as did most of the nursery girls. TBH it sounded more like the first bit of "thank" but without the "h" in it. But it hasn't stopped her from moving on quickly to using "tankya" and then "thank you".

I like her to show manners and think it is important from an early age to start using please and thank yous. I think "ta" is preferable to nothing.

BTW, I also didn't have to re-teach her the words either - it just came as she got better with her speech. Just in the same way she said "nana" when little, but now uses "banana".

It might not be too far off. DS is 15 mo. and has been saying it for about 2 mo now. Granted, it comes out as daydoo, but most people get the drift, even without me explaining it.

Sorry, left to go do something and must have posted automatically. What I meant to continue to say was most people are receptive to anything that resembles manners, and appreciate little ones just having the concept down, even if it doesn't come out "formally".

We use please and thank you, at preschool they have a a song that goes with it and dd sings it alot... shall i sing it to you all:

Please and thank you please and thank you
i must say i must say
when we ask for something when we ask for something everyday everyday

(said in the tune of polly put the kettle on)

X factor here i come ..

Slink - don't think it's the tune of Polly Put the Kettle On - it's I Hear Thunder isn't it?

By the way kiwicath - absolutely nothing wrong with saying "ta" to a child. Me and mine said ta when the ds's were younger and there're no problems now with them saying thank you.

Don't you ever you use "ta" yourself instead of thank you? Or is it just a "southern" thing? I certainly do so, to me, ta is just a way of saying thank you. BTW DS1 was taught ta and now uses thank you - you don't have to unlearn things - like Hulababy says - they often use "baby words" for things and then develop into the proper words.

Must come in here to point out a few things!

The phrase 'thank you' is pretty challenging phonetically, containing as it does 'fricatives' and 'liquids'. I would not expect a toddler to be able to say it correctly, and wouldn't even be surprised if a 4 year old couldn't either.

'Ta' by comparison is very easy to say, thus no surprise that something similar has been adopted in many languages around the world for use with children.

99 % of languages around the world adopt a form known by linguists as 'motherese' to converse with children, otherwise known as 'babytalk'.
The feeling is that motherese with its less challenging grammar and phonolgy (sound structure) enables children to learn to speak more quickly-a gentle introduction if you like. AFAIK there is only one tribe which does not use motherese but converses with children as it would with adults-a real linguistic oddity.

On the subject of manners-the empathy required to appreciate when you have pleased/insulted someone (the basis of 'manners') does not develop until fairly late-comes under the umbrella of Pragmatic Skills. Even a 4 year old is probably doing little more than mechanically repeating a set phrase. It does of course sound 'nice', but the issue of whether on not the child knows that she is being 'nice' is a very different one!

I am a SALT by the way.

Slink, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with "Here comes thunder" too. Tried it with Polly but it didn't have that #1, top of the pops kind of catchiness to it. Cheers for all thoughts. Still undecided but will mull it over if I can get "Here comes thunder" out of my head!

Ooooooh! 'ta' would drive me insane. I'd have to wait for thank you.

can't get worked up about it tbh. agree with the complexities (brings back lots of phonetics memories, mizmiz) - so would people prefer a ta or a fank oo??

Couldn't care less actually, as long as there is some acknowlegement there or something sounding like.

we spent a few weeks in Paris just as ds was starting to talk, and he picked up 'merci'. It came out as 'uhssee' and he used it religiously for about 6 months, long after he'd got loads of (English) words. They will pick up whatever you say to them, I think, and use their own version of it that they can manage. Have to say I was quite sad the day that 'uhssee' finally vanished from our lives.

Yes you are right i was thinking about that it is the Hear comes thunder i think it was my throat telling me have a cup of tea. oops but it is a good song

DS1 def said 'ta' first, and while I don't particularly like it, it was easier for him to grasp than 'thank you' and I felt that I'd rather he give some acknowledgment than none. Obviously as his speech got better he said thank you and now ds2 has picked that up just because ds1 says it. We don't have 'ta' at all in our house now but I don't see anything wrong with it as an initial way to at least express gratitude!

Personally I hate the word 'ta', (sorry).

Used 'thankyou' for ds and dd and they picked it up fine as one of their first words. Actually dd said ta for a little while, I think from nursery or other adults maybe, but she said 'Tankqu' quite soon after!

took the words right out of my mouth Smellymelly

DD's childminder used ta with her, I always said thankyou. DD used the appropriate one (or an approximation) with each of us until our childminder switched to thankyou when she thought dd was old enough. I think they can cope with quite alot from an early age, I view it a bit like being bi-lingual I guess - why shouldn't they realise there's more than one word for something from early on?

I was determined that ds1 wasn't going to use "ta" or baby words for animals or any of that nonsense when he was little, until I realised that none of the baby books could agree whether something was a "chicken" or a "hen" and the pictures of "sheep" and "lamb" looked fairly identical to me as well...

... then he completely pre-empted all that and just called them by their sounds instead ("moo" or "baa"... can't remember what preferred chicken noise he used - think I used a different one each time anyway). I soon realised that he was more than capable of realising that you could use many words for the same thing, the richness of the English Language and all that, and stopped worrying about it.

Think he said ta or an approximation of thank you interchangably for a while.