Finny is our chitty-chatty, super-verbal guy. He loves narrating the adventures of his vehicles and toys, and he’s always happy to meet new folks and fill them in on the important details of his life…like “Hi, I’m Finny. And this is my brother Henry. I’m four, and he’s three. My favorite colors are red, yellow, green, silver, and orange…”
The noticeable thing about all this chatter is that Finny’s always had a hard time correctly pronouncing his R’s. They come out very soft – often sounding like W’s, which is totally common among kids under 5. We’re so used to it, we don’t even really hear it when he says things like “Henwy” or “cahws” (cars). Of course other folks do, which has made us wonder if it’s something that will resolve itself or if we’ll need to take him to speech therapy to get it sorted out.
The great news is, I think he’s sorting it out for himself. And I think going to bilingual Spanish preschool, with all its rolling R’s, has really helped his pronunciation! In the past few weeks, I have noticed more and more hard R’s creeping into his words. He’s actually working so hard he over-pronounces them, and the R’s are comically noticeable since he’s really growling out those R’s! CaRRRRs, HenREE, cARRRpet, TRiscuits, and so on.
I’m sure at some point, the new correctly-pronounced R’s will sound totally normal, but for now, it sounds so unfamiliar to my ear, it’s like listening to someone with a British accent try to sound American!
[Great post, hon. I think it’s time we got Finny his very own keyboard, don’t you? See below.
— Love, Dad-O-in-Seattle (who enjoys getting corrected on his Spanish pronunciation by El Finnstero. 🙂 ) –J.]
One reply on “Arrrrr!”
I have a lingual frenulm – normal they snip it, but mine was to think and vascular, at that was back in the 50’s when they were still using clubs for anesthesiology. Anyway, I talked funny. Some might say I still do, but i did attend speech class in the 3rd and 4th grade, and it helped. I am not expert at most tongue twisters.