For the pregnant wives, expectant fathers

[Patrick & Li]

I was wondering if you plan to teach your children the Chinese language after they are located here in the USA.

Forgive my ignorance on this subject, But, Can a child learn both languages at the same time? Or should English be taught 1st, and then Chinese after they get older?

 

Patrick

[Mick]

I suspect our child will have English as a first language because her/his native country will be the US. However, we do plan to teach the child Chinese as well. Children can learn more than one language although it is best to ground them in their first language before beginning the second. When I lived in China, a Canadian couple I knew had an adopted Chinese daughter. They adopted her when she was around two months old. Her first language was English but by the time she was three, she could converse in both English and Chinese.

 

I only wish I could understand and speak more Chinese. I lived there for such a long time and still couldn't master the language very well. I speak just enough to get into trouble by saying the wrong thing. I imagine it will be doubly difficult having a wife and child who can speak a language I can't understand.

[Dave G.]

Infants can learn languages well. One friend of mine has a daughter who is 3 and can speak/understand English and Indonesian. She also understands Mandarin. When I saw them in July, I told the kid, "Wo I Ni." Her eyes got huge when some White guy said it to her. It was clear she understood.

 

Our plan is to have Jing Mei speak to the baby in Chinese and I'll speak English. I'm sure there will be a mixture of English and Chinese TV in the house (God help me!). With her son, I want to try to have him learn English by teaching me some Chinese. As far as writing Chinese, I'm not sure how to deal with that hurdle for the baby. I guess when it's learning how to write it's name, it can learn how to do it in both languages and go from there. Of course, that's JM's responsibility. If you saw my attempts of writing Chinese.....I'd be better off doing with with my feet.

 

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[se_lang]

My first wife spoke spanish and I wanted her to teach the kids spanish and she didn't needless to say here it is 14 years later and I am making my kid take a second language in school, so he takes spanish, what a waste of 14 years. Kids can learn language far easier then adults so by any and all means teach them young when it is easy. For my kids now and any in the future a second language is not an option it is required I dont care which language, but being able to speak 2 or more is better in todays world.

[Robert S.]

Studies have been down that show a child can learn up to 5 languages at the same time. The key is that each person teaching the child to talk must speak only their own language to the child, this is called being a reference person. This is how the famous language teacher, Berlitz, grew up. It must be done during that time when the certain part of the brain is still working which is responsible for language acquisition and can intuitively understand. That part of the brain shuts down at about age 5.

[keelec]

I think it is a wonderful idea to teach children both parent's native language. I have always thought it was sad to see children who had to start from scratch studying their parent's native language, or to have children who can't even communicate with their grandparents.

 

I've heard that Russian is supposed to be easy once I get past the dang alphabet..... Does that mean I can wait to teach it to the kids until 1st grade?

 

What will the kids be like if a "backwards-N" is a valid Russian character, but not English character. There is a Russian "E" that looks like a "3", and one has to remember that "p" means "r" and "H" means "n", and "c" means "s", but that "backwards-N" means "I", "y" means "oo", and "u" means..... Well, it is getting too late tonight.... Then, of course, there is the character that looks like a cross between an "X" and an "*"

 

Hmmm, Italian was horrendously difficult in High School / College..... But, it now seems easy compared to trying to learn Russian..... Perhaps I am not dedicated enough, but I can't hardly make heads or tails out of it. I still only know a half a dozen words after 2 trips to Russia.... Irina had better be and awfully good teacher, otherwise I will be an abysmal failure

 

Of course, I should't say too much to a group of people struggling to read Chinese.... What an ominous task.

 

Best of luck to all of the future Chinese Scholars (this generation, or the next),

----- Clifford ------

[MoonCarolCafe]

By all means, teach your children multiple languages!!

 

The hardest part about learning Russian was indeed having to remember that letters that looked like somthing in English had a different pronunciation in Russian. For example PECTOPEH is Russian for "restaurant", and if you pronounce it while visually decoding for russian it sounds like "restoran". If your mind slips and you decode for english you'll end up saying "pec-to-peh" and nobody in either language wll understand you.

[Patrick & Li]

Hmmmmm, I thought they came out speaking chinese and all ya had to do was teach them English......bwahahahaha! Just kidding!

 

Thanks for your reply Robert S. , That helps immensely!

 

Patrick

[owenkrout]

By all means, teach your children multiple languages!!

 

The hardest part about learning Russian was indeed having to remember that letters that looked like somthing in English had a different pronunciation in Russian.  For example PECTOPEH is Russian for "restaurant", and if you pronounce it while visually decoding for russian it sounds like "restoran".  If your mind slips and you decode for english you'll end up saying "pec-to-peh" and nobody in either language wll understand you.

Learning Pinyin for Chinese is much the same, only in some ways even worse. The familiar letters now have unfamiliar pronunciations and sometimes swap pronunciations from one letter to another. That Pinyin looks even more familiar than the Russian but when you confidently try to pronounce it, nobody in either language has a clue what you are saying!

[robhon]

Youyue and I have discussed this issue regarding Sonny. We came down on the side of each speaking our native language to him. Actually, Youyue wants to speak Mandarin to him even though her first dialect is Sichuan.

 

It's going to be a balancing act. My family and I wil all be speaking English with him. Youyue will be speaking Mandarin. Youyue's family will be speaking Sichuan dialect with him. And he's also going to hear mommy and daddy speaking a mixture of English and Cantonese with each other. If he'd known all this ahead of time he may have elected to stay in the womb.

 

A note: When I took Cantonese classes at San Francisco City College most of the other students were American born Chinese whose parents spoke Cantonese with each other but spoke English to them. Here they were in their 20's and they were frustrated at not being able to speak their parent's native tongue. Ironically, most of them could comprehend Cantonese but they just couldn't spit out the words. I, on the other hand, learned the words fairly easy (because I worked hard at it) but had the damnedest time comprehending anything said to me.

[Dave G.]

Youyue and I have discussed this issue regarding Sonny.  We came down on the side of each speaking our native language to him.  Actually, Youyue wants to speak Mandarin to him even though her first dialect is Sichuan.  

 

It's going to be a balancing act.  My family and I wil all be speaking English with him.  Youyue will be speaking Mandarin.  Youyue's family will be speaking Sichuan dialect with him.  And he's also going to hear mommy and daddy speaking a mixture of English and Cantonese with each other.  If he'd known all this ahead of time he may have elected to stay in the womb.  

 

A note:  When I took Cantonese classes at San Francisco City College most of the other students were American born Chinese whose parents spoke Cantonese with each other but spoke English to them.  Here they were in their 20's and they were frustrated at not being able to speak their parent's native tongue.  Ironically, most of them could comprehend Cantonese but they just couldn't spit out the words.  I, on the other hand, learned the words fairly easy (because I worked hard at it) but had the damnedest time comprehending anything said to me.

A future glimse of Rob's home while he uses the computer to translate languages to talk to his kids.............

 

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[frank1538]

A note:  When I took Cantonese classes at San Francisco City College most of the other students were American born Chinese whose parents spoke Cantonese with each other but spoke English to them.  Here they were in their 20's and they were frustrated at not being able to speak their parent's native tongue.  Ironically, most of them could comprehend Cantonese but they just couldn't spit out the words.

Different generations, same result. My parents spoke fluent Italian, Spanish, and French but would speak to the kids only in English. This was the time of the great Americanization of the immigrant, I guess. What a missed opportunity for us all.

 

If there is a chance to teach multiple languages to the kids, do it, do it, do it.

[Q&Q]

I have a friend whose son is now 7 years old. He was born in USA. My friend and her husband are both Chinese. Now the little one speaks both languages very well, he has no problem swtiching from one to the other. I don't know if he speaks Cantonese too. His father(my friend's husband) speaks Cantonese. I'm curious. I should ask her next time I see her.

 

It's musch easier for kids to pick up languages. I think if you keep talking to your baby in both languages, he'll pick up both languages without any difficulties in speaking and listening. But by the time he goes to school, he has to focus on English and he's going to learn English language art instead of Chinese language art. If you only expect him to speak and understand daily use Chinese, you may try to talk to him in both languages after he's born. He'll pick up both without any doubt. But if you expect more, if you expect him to learn Chinese as well as English, you should send him to a Chinese school to learn it.

 

My 12-year-old son is in a different situation. After being here for nearly 8 months, I'm so surprised to see his improvement in his English and at the same time so depressed to find that he's forgetting his Chinese charactors. The last 8 months, we were busy helping him with English, and did little with his Chinese. We did keep him reading some Chinese books. But when I think it's time for him to write in Chinese again(I try to let him write an essay every week), I found he couldn't write some charactors, even those very easy ones. How frustrating!

 

oh, well, I guess I have more work to do now. I have to teach him Chinese by myself, since we can't find a Chinese school here in our city.

 

Hmmm....

[owenkrout]

Interestingly, I have had students in China tell me that even they have a problem with forgetting characters that they don't utilize commonly. Since it is not a phonetically based language, you can't puzzle out a character or at least something close enough to be understood just from the way that it sounds.

 

I had a Cambodian student when I was teaching college in Ohio who had immigrated when he was about 12. He had literally been sold to an American while in Cambodia and they had managed to fake the paperwork enough to get him accepted as being adopted. He had a thick accent, but had forgotten his native tongue almost entirely. He complained about not being proficient in either language. Actually he was pretty good in English, you just had to get past the accent.