A2 English Language ...

[laura_123]

"Child language acquisition"

If a 21 month old child was to say, "Fall down daddy"
Meaning "Daddy's fallen down"

How would I go about explaining the incorrect tense of the 3 words (i've never been able to understand past/present simple/continous etc)?

Does anybody have any ideas?
Thanks in advance :)

[Scylax]

Don't try to explain ~ he wouldn't understand the
explanation.Just repeat the child's utterance, but
use the correct grammar :
'Yes dear, Daddy has fallen down. '
Young children have an amazing ability to mimic
all words, phrases, accents and dialects.
Always use good spoken English to a child , and
avoid 'motherese'. He will learn with astonishing
rapidity.

[laura_123]

Ah i didn't explain properly .. it's not to explain to a child, it's actually for an essay I am writing on how children develop language. I need to talk about how children of that age get the different tenses wrong speaking in past/present tense.

[abstibus]

Can you get hold of any works by David Crystal? The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of English would be a good starting point.

[sophie_1003]

Could you use a different example becase fall and fallen are difficult ones to put into tenses (I think anyway!), as you could say "Daddy fell" "Daddy has fallen" or "Did Daddy fall?" and all would have much the same meaning. What about instead using the example "I drink my milk" in place of "I drank my milk" in this case the child has used the present tense as 'drink' is a word they are more familiar with.

[novelist]

"Fall down daddy" is in the present tense, though she's omitted the "s" on the end of a singular verb, and misplaced the subject noun "daddy" to the end of the sentence.

"Daddy's fallen down" is in the present perfect tense.

You probably don't want this advice, but it will help you a lot in your A2 exam to learn verb tenses properly for yourself. Consult a grammar book or your textbook or the internet and make some flash cards to revise. This is the sort of precise knowledge that examiners reward.

(from a former A-level English teacher)