Teaching Chinese at Home

[hquek]

jollyme:

i'm also currently reading \"Hao ma ma shen guo hao lao shi\". thanks for the recommendation!


btw, i want to buy a good chinese dictionary. any suggestions as to which one to get?

if you have those newfangled phones like iphone, strongly encourage to find those free apps. Installed Pleco e-dict on my hubby's iphone. After some experiment, quite easy to use. But if you want those additionals to make it more powerful (eg using handwriting to find the word), you have to pay for the add-ons.

[tamarind]

toddles:

tamarind:

Hi Haley,
The only way to improve her Chinese is by reading as many story books as possible. There is no other way. Since your daughter is only in primary school, it is definitely not too late to do so. You must be prepared to put in a lot of hard work. Look for books that she likes. Sit with her and ask her to read out loud to you, she should read more than 1000 words everyday. You will need to read the books ahead of her, check the dictionary and note down the hanyu pinyin yourself. Do not make her check the dictionary and write down new words, this is sure to make her hate Chinese. When there are words that she cannot read, just tell her how to read and move on quickly. The aim is to let her enjoy the stories and develop a love for Chinese. If a child does not love Chinese, she will never get near perfect scores in Chinese, especially in upper primary.

Hi Tamarind,

I read in 好妈妈胜过好老师 and a number of your posts that we should not kill their love of reading by constant dictionary checking.

However, I recall in my own growing up days, for english books at least (cos I was never really exposed at a young age to a lot of chinese fiction), my mum used to get me to check the dictionary for words that were unfamiliar, same goes when I read newspapers.

I actually found that quite fun, and looked forward to the 'discovery'. it was like a treasure hunt game, almost.

however, I guess if every other word has to be checked then it impedes and stilts the flow and joy of reading altogether. But perhaps there is a time and place for the dictionary, for select words, not more than 1 or 2 in every reading session. guess that also trains a measure of independence, to know that if parents are not there, the dictionary is great source of knowing a foreign word immediately.

for mandarin books, this probably only works after a certain age,when a certain literacy is attained, since checking the chinese dictionary is definitely not as easy as checking an english one.

any views welcome!

toddles,
Thanks for sharing We can encourage kids to check the dictionary, but they must be willing to do so on their own, like you did. When I was a student, I actually enjoyed reading the Chinese dictionary I find the Chinese words in the dictionary very interesting. But we cannot expect every child to be like us.

For a child who does not have a strong foundation in Chinese, forcing her to check the dictionary for every word that she does not know, is only going to make life very difficult for her.

For kids who are learning to read Chinese books, we should focus on making it an enjoyable experience for them. Reading books is not only about learning new words, the most important thing is for kids to enjoy the stories, then they will develop a love for the language.

[tamarind]

ttlkbs:

Brenda10:

[quote=\"ttlkbs\"]fr experiences (i hv 3 kids with at least 4yrs gap btw each of them), start young is the most important factor. when they were young, they'd juz accept whatever u teach. if ur kids r in childcare centre, try to speak to them only Chinese at home coz they usually speak English in childcare centre. When my 3 yrs old boy speaks to me in English, i'd reply him in Chinese or repeat his questions in Chinese. The effect is tremendous. now he speaks to the maid in english but chinese to dad n me.

Yes. I agree. Since last year we only communicate with dd in Chinese and this save our headache of preparing Oral or Listening Compreh Test.
This morning she just learn a new cheng yu 望尘莫及 that describe her standard now is still very far away from one of her classmate's CL compo. Her classmate 不费吹灰之力 can write a CL compo. slightly more than 4 pages (Approx. 1000+ words) within 50 minutes with good quality of words/phrases. Therefore we still have a long way to learn from her.

汉语拼英 is a good help for students nowadays. Build up a good foundation in this area before they go pri sch. MMy 3 yrs old boy is now trying to pick up this fr his 哥哥姐姐. You'll be amazing to know that they can actually absorb much more than u can imagine. Of course his 哥哥 always protest that he's the guinea pig & no wonder his 弟弟妹妹's chinese is better than him coz mummy learnt fr past experiences![/quote]
I actually do not advise kids to learn hanyu pinyin before the age of 6. Between 3 to 6 years old, it is best for the child to learn as many Chinese words as possible. It is possible for a child to know enough words to read long Chinese novels by 6 or 7 years old. He can learn hanyu pinyin at K2 or P1. I know many kids who know hanyu pinyin very well, but not enough Chinese words. These kids reject reading books without hanyu pinyin.

When kids write Chinese compositions, they are writing the Chinese characters, not in hanyu pinyin. If we want our kids to do well, they must read as many Chinese story books as possible, without hanyu pinyin. The truth is that when a child reads a book in which every word has hanyu pinyin, she is looking at the pinyin instead of the Chinese characters. If you take away the pinyin, she cannot read most of the words.

This is not my own theory. Berries classes teach hanyu pinyin only at K2. From N1 to K1, they focus on word recognition. The excellent resource like Si Wu Kuai Du series of books also focus on word recognition before the age of 6. In the book 好妈妈胜过好老师, the author also commented it is not correct to focus on hanyu pinyin before learning Chinese words.

Also, it is best to focus on English phonics at 3 to 4 years old. If the child learns both phonics and hanyu pinyin at the same time, he is going to be very confused.

For more details about raising a bilingual child :
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html

[Brenda10]

tamarind:

When kids write Chinese compositions, they are writing the Chinese characters, not in hanyu pinyin. If we want our kids to do well, they must read as many Chinese story books as possible, without hanyu pinyin. The truth is that when a child reads a book in which every word has hanyu pinyin, she is looking at the pinyin instead of the Chinese characters. If you take away the pinyin, she cannot read most of the words.


This is not my own theory. Berries classes teach hanyu pinyin only at K2. From N1 to K1, they focus on word recognition. The excellent resource like Si Wu Kuai Du series of books also focus on word recognition before the age of 6. In the book 好妈妈胜过好老师, the author also commented it is not correct to focus on hanyu pinyin before learning Chinese words.

Also, it is best to focus on English phonics at 3 to 4 years old. If the child learns both phonics and hanyu pinyin at the same time, he is going to be very confused.

For more details about raising a bilingual child :
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html

Hi Tamarind

It is very true of writing a good compo. is not easy to achieve if the children are weak in 词汇,内容, 语法, 篇章 etc

Like in P5, the requirement is to write a comp. of not less than 150 words in 50 minutes. You may meet the requirements of the word counts but could be written with a lot of reluctant words.

I am impressed by one of DD classmate who can write a good quality comp. of slightly more than 4 pages (1000+ words) within the timing.

Sad to say that the rest of them are 望尘莫及 as the standard are too far behind.

As such, is very important to by all means (reading books, listen to CL songs or watch the news/historical CL show) to enrich the 词汇。

[tamarind]

Brenda,

Yes I totally agree with you that we need to enrich the 词汇, listening to songs and watching good TV shows are excellent ways, in addition to reading books.

Besides knowing the enough words, it is also important for the child to have ideas of what to write. When I was a student, I could also write many pages when I had 灵感 (inspiration). 灵感 comes from reading a wide variety of interesting books, we can actually get ideas from both English and Chinese books, or from books translated from other languages. But I wrote best when I wrote about my real experiences. So we should let kids try out new things in life, and not just study all day long.

[yuppybb]

Hi all


need some advice here.

i placed an order with dang dang. I received an email confirmation from dang dang that order has been received and will ship out my order once payment is received.

I went in to make payment. They led me to the screen from payease for choice of VISA / MASTER / AE and VISA was selected.

Another screen pop to fill up the visa information after that another screen pop to enter my one time pin code (for the secure online shopping). Bank indicated authentication successful and shortly after payease screen says transaction rejected. What could be a possible reason? i tried so many times, on my citibank visa and ocbc visa...

tried calling payease but communication breakdown. having a hardtime understanding the powerful mandarin. Though m from chinese speaking environment, but the terms i usually use is too simple haha.

according to payease, they say i did not submit my payment..What the hell. Im fuming.

any kind soul met the same problems can share with me?

[/img]

[wonderm]

yuppybb:

Hi all


need some advice here.

i placed an order with dang dang. I received an email confirmation from dang dang that order has been received and will ship out my order once payment is received.

I went in to make payment. They led me to the screen from payease for choice of VISA / MASTER / AE and VISA was selected.

Another screen pop to fill up the visa information after that another screen pop to enter my one time pin code (for the secure online shopping). Bank indicated authentication successful and shortly after payease screen says transaction rejected. What could be a possible reason? i tried so many times, on my citibank visa and ocbc visa...

tried calling payease but communication breakdown. having a hardtime understanding the powerful mandarin. Though m from chinese speaking environment, but the terms i usually use is too simple haha.

according to payease, they say i did not submit my payment..What the hell. Im fuming.

any kind soul met the same problems can share with me?

[/img]

I had exactly the same problem using Citibank card. Initially it was because I did not apply for the Secure Code. After I got that, I still had the same problem as you, and I canceled the transaction after seeing the error message. However, after 1 or 2 days, I received email from Dang Dang that they had received my payment. Sadly since I canceled the transaction, they can't continue the purchase, would refund me. I tried again, this time, I saw the same error message, and I just waited. 1 or 2 days later, I received the email from Dang Dang that they received my payment. Finally, I think the purchase went through, I am waiting for the shipment now.

[yuppybb]

wonderm:

yuppybb:

Hi all


need some advice here.

i placed an order with dang dang. I received an email confirmation from dang dang that order has been received and will ship out my order once payment is received.

I went in to make payment. They led me to the screen from payease for choice of VISA / MASTER / AE and VISA was selected.

Another screen pop to fill up the visa information after that another screen pop to enter my one time pin code (for the secure online shopping). Bank indicated authentication successful and shortly after payease screen says transaction rejected. What could be a possible reason? i tried so many times, on my citibank visa and ocbc visa...

tried calling payease but communication breakdown. having a hardtime understanding the powerful mandarin. Though m from chinese speaking environment, but the terms i usually use is too simple haha.

according to payease, they say i did not submit my payment..What the hell. Im fuming.

any kind soul met the same problems can share with me?

[/img]

I had exactly the same problem using Citibank card. Initially it was because I did not apply for the Secure Code. After I got that, I still had the same problem as you, and I canceled the transaction after seeing the error message. However, after 1 or 2 days, I received email from Dang Dang that they had received my payment. Sadly since I canceled the transaction, they can't continue the purchase, would refund me. I tried again, this time, I saw the same error message, and I just waited. 1 or 2 days later, I received the email from Dang Dang that they received my payment. Finally, I think the purchase went through, I am waiting for the shipment now.

Hey wonderm

u are lucky I'm not so fortunate leh...I already applied for the online shopping tingy early last week..tried making payment starting last wed till now no good news for me. den WEF oct, i was told by citibank, its no longer required to apply for the online shopping code. all will be issued a onetime password to our mobile...I tried again many times..still no luck.

But then hor ,wen i use citibank, they never even say i had a successful authentication of my onetime password, immediately payease screen says failure. when i was using the OCBC, at least it bothers to say authentication successful (from OCBC screen), den once u close the screenpop, payease will reflect failure..

So shity leh. i saw alot of pple facing all the frustrations. i went to popular n bras brasah..the siwukuaidu is sooooo expensive. hao mama book - sold out and alot of places dun carry.

Someone overhere mention daigou website. BTW wat is that ? is the prices of books cheaper ? shipping oso cheaper? hows the waiting time? anyone noes?

Thanks. :celebrate:

[momof4]

yuppybb:

But then hor ,. hao mama book - sold out and alot of places dun carry.

Someone overhere mention daigou website. BTW wat is that ? is the prices of books cheaper ? shipping oso cheaper? hows the waiting time? anyone noes?

Thanks. :celebrate:

I didn't order from dang dang because I didn't want to go through the stress you went through. So I just bought my set of siwukuaidu from http://www.sgshinekids, plus delivery is slightly more expensive, but save the hassle and long wait. You want to try them? Definitely cheaper than popular.

[momof4]

yuppybb:

But then hor ,. hao mama book - sold out and alot of places dun carry.

Someone overhere mention daigou website. BTW wat is that ? is the prices of books cheaper ? shipping oso cheaper? hows the waiting time? anyone noes?

Thanks. :celebrate:

I didn't order from dang dang because I didn't want to go through the stress you went through. So I just bought my set of siwukuaidu from http://www.sgshinekids, plus delivery is slightly more expensive, but save the hassle and long wait. You want to try them? Definitely cheaper than popular.