Nemes, Magdolna (Debrecen, Hungary) Where do you live? – children talking about their surroundings Abstract This paper seeks to report children’s way of talking about their area in a measurable way. Our research is being carried out within the early childhood research group at the University of Debrecen and is also part of an international research project called Journey to School (Plymouth University). Another goal of the paper is to explore the development between different age-groups. In our research we asked 48 children who attend kindergarten (they are aged 5-7). We also asked 52 children who attend first and second class in a primary school in Hungary (N=52; S=7.98). The aim of the interviews (2014) is to compare the way these children talk about the way they get to nursery or primary school. We also want to investigate what they use in narratives – whether these are names or orientation points. In exploring the way children get to know their home town, several sources have been used: drawings, interviews, and chatting with children. Our research helps us to see what is meaningful to children in their surroundings. We came to realize that at the age of six children start to use place names as well as orientation points, enabling them to more accurately verbalize their cognitive map. 1. Background and previous onomastic studies Carrying out research into children's speech and lingustic development can be useful for parents and professionals as well (psychologists, linguists or pedagogues). The active and passive vocabulary of children grows rapidly during the pre-school years due to their improved speech activity (GÓSY 1999, LENGYEL 1981, S. KÁDÁR 1985). In the active vocabulary of a child there are mainly nouns and verbs in the beginning, with adjectives and adverbs coming later. A four to five year-old child uses adjectives and numerals in his/her speech too. In accordance with cognitive process and a more sophisticated way of thinking, adverbs referring to place (e.g. here, there, behind, in front of) and later to time (e.g. now, tomorrow, soon) also appear. However, we know very little about the appearance of proper names, especially place names in a child's vocabulary.