Baby Talk

You know what's an unexpectedly difficult thing to do in a foreign language?

Talk to babies and children. Or even pets.

Aha, don't roll your eyes at me! You may be thinking, "My dear, what can you possibly mean? They are children. Their vocabulary and speech is supposed to be the most elementary among normal human beings. Speaking to children should be the most simple of colloquial endea--"

NEIN.

This is because in every language, there are what linguists call "registers." I should have paid more attention in the linguistics class I took last year, but here's more or less the scoop. As far as I know, a register is something like a level of language that is changed depending on what the social situation at the moment calls for. For example, you would say, "Hey, what's up?" to your friends, but not to your grandmother, or to your interviewer at an interview for a corporate job. These situations use different registers.

Going back to the topic, it is remarkably difficult to talk to children in a language that you are still learning (or at least keep them amused/not confused about the fact that you don't seem to know how to talk) because of the register that most people use specifically for children.

People like me, of course, are used to the normal registers that one would use in shops, asking questions from people on the street, and at the university.

In a nutshell, there are 6-year-olds here that I have a harder time understanding than some German professors.