What language do you speak at home to your kids?
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Huiwen86:
Well done, I would have done that with my kids if I had the chance to do it again. Too lateHubby speaks Teochew and English/Chinese to my girls while I speak Cantonese and English/Chinese to them.
DH insists on being multilingual with them and the girls are able to understand and speak dialects esp Teochew and both English/Mandarin well.
Now my kids are \"monolingual\" in English and Chinese is used only when there is no other choice.
We are like you , Teochew and Cantonese combination, only in reverse order.
Cantonese and Teochew are both \"foreign\" language to them now and I really regret it a lot.
My only ( and very lame one) excuse for this is my children were never raised by either set of the grandparents and were in Childcare when young.
So keep it up and I am sure the language skills they have will add to their versatility in future. -
wiimum:
Their Cantonese is decent cos they grew up with my parents who are Cantonese and Teochew in Malaysia. Hubby says if they don't learn then the dialects are lost forever.He grew up with his late grandmother who was Teochew too.My Teochew is so so only.
Well done, I would have done that with my kids if I had the chance to do it again. Too lateHuiwen86:
Hubby speaks Teochew and English/Chinese to my girls while I speak Cantonese and English/Chinese to them.
DH insists on being multilingual with them and the girls are able to understand and speak dialects esp Teochew and both English/Mandarin well.
Now my kids are \"monolingual\" in English and Chinese is used only when there is no other choice.
We are like you , Teochew and Cantonese combination, only in reverse order.
Cantonese and Teochew are both \"foreign\" language to them now and I really regret it a lot.
My only ( and very lame one) excuse for this is my children were never raised by either set of the grandparents and were in Childcare when young.
So keep it up and I am sure the language skills they have will add to their versatility in future.
I know of some parents who do not want their children to learn how to speak dialects because it is irrelevant. -
when the kids were younger, hubby and i spoke to each other in cantonese so that they don’t know what we are saying…but they picked up the dialect very fast, including the maid.
our kids should learn our mother tongue ie the dialect. at least they can understand and communicate with the elderly even if it’s just a little.
if they had to order a plate of 叉烧饭 or 烧肉饭, the can do so in cantonese. it’s an asset to have another dialect on top of just english and mandarin. if they can learn malay as well, lagi better.
my daughter can speak a little cantonese although she sounds off-key. we watch cantonese dramas together…but hk cantonese can be rather chim…the other day son told me, ‘sup sup sui’. -
I learnt how to speak Japanese in junior college.Husband knows a bit of German from watching war movies in German but his command of Cantonese is totally CMI.He can use some Hokkien and Japanese as well.We speak Japanese to mask our conversation when the girls are around.The girls sometimes have problems understanding DH’s English because of his Australian accent.But they slowly got used to it.
The girls use Cantonese/Teochew to communicate with my parents when they were growing up in Malaysia and Teochew with their paternal grandparents.They also picked up some Korean from watching Korean shows/K Pop on cable TV.I for one can’t understand Korean. -
We usually speak our language ( Filipino) at home. But, since they are also fluent in English, we use this as our second language.
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It'll be great to start kids learning languages from a young age.
Happy Rogers and her sis are good examples of proving how coming into contact with the language and learning about its culture at the same time can make learning enjoyable and easier.
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaGlobalTVNetwork/videos/2015270331847110/
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaGlobalTVNetwork/videos/2017715178269292/ -
Mostly English
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Both English and Mandarin. Bilingualism is good for children
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Nina888:
Mostly English
Mainly English. Hubby and I speak Cantonese to each other occasionally, so the kids picked up a little. They do understand but cannot speak.
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