Teaching Chinese at Home

[tamarind]

pummanuel:

When we were staying in China, my daughter and I used to watch CCTV children programmes. One of our favourites was a Chinese animation 《喜羊羊和灰太狼》. The story is about 2 wolves 灰太郎 and his wife 红太郎who spotted a herd of sheep and wanted to have them for their dinner but luckily, the witty 喜羊羊 and his friends conceived ways to help the entire clan escaped the wolves’ clutches. The cartoon comes with a very catchy song, “喜羊羊,美羊羊,懒羊羊…\"


For parents who still equate Chinese animation with 《孙悟空》and《哪吒》, 《喜羊羊和灰太狼》 is a far cry from these productions. This series was one of the pioneering efforts by the Chinese government to develop its animation industry. When it was aired in China, it was immensely popular and received rave reviews in HK and Taiwan too. For parents who are used to Taiwanese-dubbed animation, it may take some getting used to the Chinese accent in 《喜羊羊和灰太狼》but with so many Chinese mainland teachers in preschool and primary school now, the children may be more receptive to the accent. However, there may be terms that our children may not understand (more difficult vocabulary) or peculiar to China (like butter is 黄油 instead of 牛油), hence parents would be encouraged to watch it with their children.

For more info, you can refer to the official website http://www.22dm.com/ or watch snippets of it by searching for it via http://www.baidu.com or googling.

I'm not sure if the DVDs are available in our local stores but dangdang does carry it. The comics are also available from dangdang, so mothers keen to let their children learn Chinese through comics can consider it if your children like the animation. I would say this is a unisex option.

pummanuel,
I saw the 喜羊羊和灰太狼 at dangdang.com, already added it into my shopping cart My kids' Chinese teachers in pre-schools are all from mainland China, that is the only accent they know

[joconde]

i’ve seen local VCD shops selling 喜羊羊 VCDs. Those who are interested maybe can look around ur neighbourhood stores

[tree nymph]

joconde:

i've seen local VCD shops selling 喜羊羊 VCDs. Those who are interested maybe can look around ur neighbourhood stores

hi!

Do you remember how much it is retailing at?

[pummanuel]

tamarind:

pummanuel,

I saw the 喜羊羊和灰太狼 at dangdang.com, already added it into my shopping cart My kids' Chinese teachers in pre-schools are all from mainland China, that is the only accent they know

Hi Tamarind, I hope your children will like it. My daughter LOVES it.

Before my daughter was 2, she was not exposed to TV, and after 2, it was selective viewing. I found myself having a hard time shortlisting the programmes in China as there are many good quality children programmes shown on CCTV.

After I came back to Singapore, I missed them sorely. With our government's decision to keep the weightage for MT for PSLE, and the talk to make learning MT in school more interesting, there was a suggestion by the media to have Okto or Channel U (am timeslot) broadcasting good quality children programmes. I strongly think we should import good children programmes from China. Purists may think that the context of such programmes are not localised but at least the accent is music to the ears, unlike the locally produced ones, many of the adults/comperes are struggling to say their lines in Chinese.

I remember my daughter once watched one of the children's programmes on Sunday and pointed out the compere's grammatical error, i.e. the word '先' should be used in the middle of the sentence like ‘我先去看看。', he said it as ‘我去看看先。' The latter is influenced by our dialect sentence structure, at least for Hokkien and Teochew.

[tamarind]

pummanuel:

tamarind:

pummanuel,

I saw the 喜羊羊和灰太狼 at dangdang.com, already added it into my shopping cart My kids' Chinese teachers in pre-schools are all from mainland China, that is the only accent they know

Hi Tamarind, I hope your children will like it. My daughter LOVES it.

Before my daughter was 2, she was not exposed to TV, and after 2, it was selective viewing. I found myself having a hard time shortlisting the programmes in China as there are many good quality children programmes shown on CCTV.

After I came back to Singapore, I missed them sorely. With our government's decision to keep the weightage for MT for PSLE, and the talk to make learning MT in school more interesting, there was a suggestion by the media to have Okto or Channel U (am timeslot) broadcasting good quality children programmes. I strongly think we should import good children programmes from China. Purists may think that the context of such programmes are not localised but at least the accent is music to the ears, unlike the locally produced ones, many of the adults/comperes are struggling to say their lines in Chinese.

I remember my daughter once watched one of the children's programmes on Sunday and pointed out the compere's grammatical error, i.e. the word '先' should be used in the middle of the sentence like ‘我先去看看。', he said it as ‘我去看看先。' The latter is influenced by our dialect sentence structure, at least for Hokkien and Teochew.

When I traveled in China, I really enjoyed watching their TV progams both for adults and children, and I totally agree with you that their accent is music to the ears. No one can deny the fact that 北京腔 is the only correct accent of spoken Chinese. I am so sick and tired of so many local and Taiwanese productions on TV. No offense to Taiwanese, I just like the mainland Chinese productions better

[tamarind]

tree nymph,

Your piggy avatar is so cute

[BlurBee]

tree nymph:

joconde:

i've seen local VCD shops selling 喜羊羊 VCDs. Those who are interested maybe can look around ur neighbourhood stores

hi!

Do you remember how much it is retailing at?

I've bought one at ~$10 (promotion rate). I saw other titles, can't remember the actual price, something at below $20.

[dimsum]

Hi tamarind,


Does book 7 of siwukuaidu teach new words?

[mummy of 2]

tree nymph:

joconde:

i've seen local VCD shops selling 喜羊羊 VCDs. Those who are interested maybe can look around ur neighbourhood stores

hi!

Do you remember how much it is retailing at?

I just bought the VCD for 20 episodes at $19.90. Hope my kids will enjoy watching

[tamarind]

dimsum:

Hi tamarind,


Does book 7 of siwukuaidu teach new words?

dimsum,
Book 7 mainly teaches new words using 字族字, which are groups of words that share the same parts, like 巴, 爸, 把, 芭. It is mainly a reference of groups of words. When I was a student, I used to learn new words this way, on my own initiative, by looking at the Chinese dictionary and looking for words that have the same parts. I actually enjoyed learning this way.

But I don't recommend using book 7 to teach kids who are below 6 years of age. I would suggest that after book 6, parents teach kids to read interesting Chinese story books to let them practice the words that they have learned as well as learn new words. More importantly, reading good books will develop a love in the language. Once the child has a strong interest in the language, they will love to look at Chinese characters, and they will find the words in book 7 interesting and will take the initiative to learn the words. I know this seems hard to believe, but I am speaking from my own personal experience. I still enjoy looking at Chinese words in the dictionary now My P1 girl tells me that she dislikes hanyu pinyin, she likes to look at Chinese characters, sometimes she can tell me that if we add/remove a certain 部首 to a word, it becomes another word.

However, if a child who is below the age of 6 is interested to read book 7, then parents should certainly explain the concepts to him/her. If the child has no interest, parents should leave the book till much later. I think in Singapore, book 7 will be only be useful for kids who are P5 to P6.