I started doing comparable games (repeat long words, non-sense words and sentences) when they were quite young (basically growing out of talking with them when they started learning to talk). With the older trying too. But these games only confirm the same thing: Repeating a sequence by rote is hard (for them). Repeating whole sentences is much easier—but it likely happens that only the meaning is transported not the literal form. Songs are even more easy—but I’d guess that that’s due to other types of memory (rhythm?) cueing in.
Re: nonsense words—I use it to teach English to my 4-year old when we go outside. He sees a car—I tell him that it’s an ‘elephant’s car’, and say ‘elephant’ in English—he returns ‘elephant-mobile’:)
I started doing comparable games (repeat long words, non-sense words and sentences) when they were quite young (basically growing out of talking with them when they started learning to talk). With the older trying too. But these games only confirm the same thing: Repeating a sequence by rote is hard (for them). Repeating whole sentences is much easier—but it likely happens that only the meaning is transported not the literal form. Songs are even more easy—but I’d guess that that’s due to other types of memory (rhythm?) cueing in.
Re: nonsense words—I use it to teach English to my 4-year old when we go outside. He sees a car—I tell him that it’s an ‘elephant’s car’, and say ‘elephant’ in English—he returns ‘elephant-mobile’:)