A picture speaks a thousand words

Interpreting my daughter's speech

I finally figured it out. The mystery of why my daughter was calling lobsters "granolas." She kept telling me, "shop Hyvee - granola" but then made the little lobster claw movement with her hand that helped make her meaning clear. But...granola? What does granola have to do with lobsters? First, the word in Spanish for lobster is "langosta" (lahn GOS tah) and my daughter also knows the word for crab "cangrejo." (cahn GREH hoe), but neither of these words sound like granola. So they other day we had a talk about "granolas." I said "langosta." She said "granola." Langosta. Granola. Langosta. Granola....but before I decided to "call the whole thing off," I thought to myself "Well, there are a few consonant blends there that she can't pronounce." So let's just pretend for a minute that I took those out. Lagota? Then I thought, "well, what if she can't pronounce a few of those sounds?" Gagoga? Well, she doesn't pronouce all the sounds in granola either. It sounds more like ganowa. So, I listened again. Langosta was somewhere between ganowa and ganoja (spanish j is like h). So there it is. My daughter was saying langosta all along. Who knew?