Meet your friend Alif

So yes in case you missed it on the fridge flashcards, I secretly sneaked in the letter “alif”

OMG! yes, I cheated.. Technically, this vowel had to wait till Mahnoor got to meet three more of her friends from the set of consonants but I am in such a hurry for her to start reading, I thought once she knows alif (that btw sounds like “ah”) she can have her friends “buh” and  “nuh” be pals with alif to make all sorts of fun combos like بابا and نان and what not!

So yes, we got busy getting them alphabets to be pals, heres how it went:

mama: ok so when “buh” gets to be friends with “ah” what does that become?
mahnoor: baa
mama: ok here’s another buh who has no friends and look who came along and said I’ll be your friend!
mahnoor: aa
mama: and what is that together?
mahnoor: baa  baa.. *eyes twinkle with sudden realisation* BABA!!

Ok it went fine for nothing more than 2 minutes when she wanted to start writing! she pulled the pen from my hand and said I’ll write buh words.. I said sure.. what will you write.. and instantly she says
“booth”..
“huh? whats that mahnoor?”..I ask.
“mama that scary thing? a ghost?! a booth?”
and doesn’t waste a second in carefully jotting it down.. in ENGLISH of course..

I almost bang my head thinking if this summer project will go anywhere or am I doomed to raise a des-born-firangi who will end up learning to speak affected Urdu with an aussie twang, some rolling the “r”s and write it in Roman English and know nothing about reading it.. *sigh*
I am still in my thoughts when I hear her say look mama I made a scary “booth”
ugh.. mahnoor its “bhoot” “bhoot” say the “bh” sound.. she tries.. “b-h-ooth” no luck.. “b-hoooth”
..no jani forget it!

and I am most pissed thinking about where that “ب سے بھوت” (buh for bhoot) idea came from.. grrrr! more on that tomorrow..