My Three-Year-Old to English Translation Guide

Do you ever look at your child and say, “You’re really cute, but I have no idea what you are saying!” I have several of these moments with my almost-three-year-old. After a spectacular and well-witnessed incident, I decided she needed a Seven Quick Takes completely devoted to her developing language skills.

1. What’s in a name? She calls herself Mah-nie, though Maddie would be a more correct short form of Madilynn. She calls Dietrich “Dee-Dots” – I love that she’s made his name plural. This is when she isn’t calling him “diet” because Peter often calls him Diet-Rich to be silly.
2. Toys and Television. First the story behind the post: while hanging out with our church friends, she kept whining “hun-ghee ma-mals” at me. Several minutes this continued. Finally, she dragged in a Hungry Hungry Hippos game, and I understood. Another expression that took me awhile “Echoes Bared” while means “Legos”
   Two words that make little sense in Madilynn-ese are FaLas and LaLas which are Princess and Mario, respectively. Her favorite shows are Sunshines or Little Einsteins (this one also took me a little while to figure out) and Doc Hah-mas, Doc McStuffins.
3. Restaurants and food. Chichen Press is Chicken Express, Chicky Racecar is Chick-fil-a because the play place has a racecar, and Sockick is Sonic where she orders a pupull frushy (purple slushy). If she should tell you she wants a “brape” that would be a grape.
4. Basic pronunciation. Some words are simply shortened, like exercise is simply “size” and hello becomes “LO!” C’s often come out with at T sound – I “tan” do it. “Tat” meow; R’s and L’s typically have an adorable W roll. “Sit wap now” means she wants to sit on my lap.  Friends becomes Fwends, Pray and Play are both “Pway.”
5. Context is everything. As in the example above or this one: “Chi-chen” can be chicken, except when she says, “Chi-chen wuhld” which means “Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
6. Beebins are penguins and afants are elephants.
7. Everyday phrases (for us). Sit on ouch (couch), pi-pitch cheese (take picture/say cheese), Choon is a spoon, Puddles are cuddles/snuggles – which often occur on my “wap” sitting on the “ouch.” If she says “monkey back” that means she wants a piggyback ride. This came about because I asked if she was a monkey on my back and she said yes. Since we have a pharmacy in our house to fight the allergy/asthma situation, she nightly asks for mem-ness, her medicine.

This is a quick reference guide and likely not everything you need to understand Madilynn-ese. What funny words and phrases do your children use as they develop their language skills? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!