Teaching Chinese at Home

[jemlth]

I am not sure if the parents have have seen the recent televised 华文谁怕谁. This is 相声 performed live on stage and one of the ones I feel is easier to understand. Hope your children can derive enjoyment and good humour from it! It takes a while to load so be patient!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kICPlIZKl8M

[windows]

jemlth:

I am not sure if the parents have have seen the recent televised 华文谁怕谁. This is 相声 performed live on stage and one of the ones I feel is easier to understand. Hope your children can derive enjoyment and good humour from it! It takes a while to load so be patient!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kICPlIZKl8M

missed both the actual and repeat show anyone knows where can view the entire episode?

[pummanuel]

Hi, for those who are looking for dictionaries, I have a few recommendations. If you are looking for


字典

I would recommend 《新华字典》. It is a pocket sized dictionary published by 商务. It is one of the most popular dictionaries in China and constant revisions are made in accordance with the changes in usage by the Chinese population. Many students in China own one.

词典

I would recommend 《现代汉语词典》. For 词典, it covers both the meaning of the word, as well as provides a list of 词语 (that use the word) with meanings of the 词语. It is also published by 商务. A Chinese lecturer in translation recommended me this dictionary. It is pretty thick and more suitable for home/office usage.

商务is highly regarded in the Chinese publishing industry for its academic works and is known for its high quality. Hence, I prefer to use dictionaries published by 商务.

If you are looking for dictionaries which cover all sorts of words, including archaic words, you can try 辞海, also published by 商务. It comes in one thick volume. I managed to get it from one of the shops at Bras Basah. Another two famous dictionaries will be 辞渊 and 康熙字典.

翻译电子词典

I would recommend 金山词霸, Kingsoft PowerWord. It was immensely popular in China when I was residing there, not sure about now.

It provides English-Chinese or Chinese-English translations and it has collaborated with Oxford to provide meanings to English words too, along with the verbalised pronounciations.

I bought my soft copy from China (very cheap even for originals). I believe you can get a copy online from iciba.com. It's available on iPhone too. I downloaded it for US$4.99.

For 实事求是, the meaning offered by Kingsoft is literally, to seek truth from facts, i.e. to be practical and realistic.

[jollyme]

pammanuel,


thanks for your detailed write up on dictionaries, will go get one soon.

[jemlth]

Hi there,


are you a fellow translation student? Just wondering if you are one of my ex-translation classmates in the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

pummanuel:

Hi, for those who are looking for dictionaries, I have a few recommendations. If you are looking for

字典

I would recommend 《新华字典》. It is a pocket sized dictionary published by 商务. It is one of the most popular dictionaries in China and constant revisions are made in accordance with the changes in usage by the Chinese population. Many students in China own one.

词典

I would recommend 《现代汉语词典》. For 词典, it covers both the meaning of the word, as well as provides a list of 词语 (that use the word) with meanings of the 词语. It is also published by 商务. A Chinese lecturer in translation recommended me this dictionary. It is pretty thick and more suitable for home/office usage.

商务is highly regarded in the Chinese publishing industry for its academic works and is known for its high quality. Hence, I prefer to use dictionaries published by 商务.

If you are looking for dictionaries which cover all sorts of words, including archaic words, you can try 辞海, also published by 商务. It comes in one thick volume. I managed to get it from one of the shops at Bras Basah. Another two famous dictionaries will be 辞渊 and 康熙字典.

翻译电子词典

I would recommend 金山词霸, Kingsoft PowerWord. It was immensely popular in China when I was residing there, not sure about now.

It provides English-Chinese or Chinese-English translations and it has collaborated with Oxford to provide meanings to English words too, along with the verbalised pronounciations.

I bought my soft copy from China (very cheap even for originals). I believe you can get a copy online from iciba.com. It's available on iPhone too. I downloaded it for US$4.99.

For 实事求是, the meaning offered by Kingsoft is literally, to seek truth from facts, i.e. to be practical and realistic.

[windows]

anyone heard of "新朋友"？it’s something like "好朋友"but introduces complex mandarin.

[tamarind]

jemlth:

Thanks for sharing Tamarind. You have always given very good resources. I was reading an article on 我报 recently. It states that Chinese in China are gradually losing their ability to write as well cos they have gotten used to typing hanyu pinyin and selecting the word when the selection pops up on their screen. While it is something that some educators may lament over, I agree that it is very important to get kids to recognise as many words as they can from young.

tamarind:

Actually I have heard of 实事求是 used in Chinese
newspapers, TV news, etc in Singapore

I notice that one of my students is quite good in typing messages in Chinese on the computer. Try this Chinese input using hanyu pinyin

http://dict.cn/ime.html

That gives me the idea that parents can use this tool to encourage kids to write in Chinese, also ask them to send SMS in Chinese. The biggest problem for kids who do not have a strong foundation in Chinese, is that they cannot remember how to write most of the words. It is easier for them to recognize the words using hanyu pinyin. So this Chinese input tool is helpful to them, at least it helps them to get used to writing Chinese sentences. As they write more, they will become more confident and more motivated to learn Chinese. Also note that nowadays most Chinese writings are input into the computer, not written on paper. I heard that over 50% of the content of the internet is now in Chinese.

I would only recommend upper primary kids to use this tool. Younger kids should still focus on recognizing as many Chinese words as possible, and start to practice writing from 6 years old.

jemlth,
It's my pleasure to share with other parents

I have recently returned from China, having worked there for 7 weeks. I would like to share some of my observations.

One colleague of mine said that he took higher Chinese while in school. However, now at age 37, he could not read Chinese words ! He asked us how the word 汤 looks like. He saw me happily buying tons of stuff from taobao.com, and he was very keen to try. But he could not understand the words on the taobao.com website. He told me that he hated Chinese while he was a student. He was probably forced to take higher Chinese by his parents.

Looking at him, I realized that there is no use forcing our kids to learn Chinese. We should instead, focus on developing their love for the Chinese language. Then they will always be motivated to use the language and not forget about it after the exams.

Also, I think that one major problem in Singapore, is that teachers only teach the Chinese words, they do not teach the Chinese culture or history in school. I actually brought a group of about 20 Singaporean students(almost all Chinese) to China, and when they returned, every one of them concluded that they have learned a lot about the Chinese culture. I thought that we are all ethnic Chinese, isn't it ? Why is it that these students must go to China in order to learn about the Chinese culture ?

One Singaporean Chinese lecturer told me that she only knew that 嫦娥 is a satellite that China has just sent up into space. She knew nothing about the beautiful story of 嫦娥 and 后羿.

I think that we cannot love a language without knowing anything about the culture and history. A good way to start is to make sure that our kids know all the traditional stories of China. I let my kids read wonderful books like these :

http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/03/books-about-filial-piety.html

我最喜欢的经典传统故事精绘本--哪吒闹海
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20478656&ref=search-1-pub
There are other books in this series which are also good.

[Busymom]

jemlth:

Thanks! Unfortunately it's only available for Iphone 3.3 and above or something. Didn't work on mine. Time to upgrade.

yuppybb:

hey for those who are eyeing on \"学前阅读计划-首100字“...not too sure if any of you realise that there is an IPHONE APP that also carry this series. I check with my HARDCOPY book liao. The apps and the actual book is the SAME! :lol: :lol:

there is a voice recording that u can play to listen to the story. there is oso a quiz session to test on recognition of words.

the first book for the 首100字 is FREE!! so download n try. subsequent books u will need to pay 0.99/bk. u can search under STICKBOY LEARNS CHINESE / CHINESE 100

(pls dun be mistaken - m not working for this company heee)


:celebrate:

:roll: :roll:

Thanks for the info. This is much cheaper than buying the books!

[Busymom]

tamarind:

HyperKiasu:

[quote=\"tamarind\"]I also encountered many problems with Citibank visa, though I managed to order successfully a few times. The problem is with the Citibank server. I canceled the cards already.


Now I am using DBS Amex card, it is very easy to order with these cards. Remember to try once only, just ignore the error message.

Hi, Tamarind,

just received books from dangdang yesterday....

my kids are very excited about the books and the quality of the books are better than expected....

my son who once told me he hated chinese, last night 一口气 read two books of '不一样的卡梅拉', it is the first CHinese Books that he read independently (though he needed my help for some words he didn't know)....my daughter completed one simpler book at one go as well....

i am very happy and think i will place a new order from dangdang for those books in your updated blog....

thanks again.... :thankyou:

It's my pleasure to share good books with other parents [/quote]And my kids really love 小猫当当. Thanks for the recommendation.

[tamarind]

Busymom,

You are welcome


Dear all,
I have bought more books from dangdang while I was in China. I will be adding more good books to my blog soon

http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html