Adopting Languages
At home, my family converse in English. Sometimes I speak to my husband in Cantonese. However when I talk to my children, automatically I will switched to English. I am not sure why I do that, it seems to be so natural to me. The funny thing is they will laugh when they hear strange Chinese words. I find that they understand Cantonese but feel weird to say it.
At least at the babysitter, they converse in Mandarin because my babysitter uses Mandarin and Hokkien with them. I guess they learn faster when they are using the language often.
Another way for them to learn Cantonese is when they join me watching TVB series. They will ask me what the meaning of this and that is. It gets annoying when the exciting parts come on and they asked questions. Sorry I am only human.
I really hope they picked up more Cantonese and Mandarin. Oh now Timothy picked up a bad habit, he likes to say “kek say” meaning make me angry or as popeye put it “blow me down”. I have no idea where he picked it up. Daddy asked him, he said it is from me. I asked him, he said it is from daddy. :think: Oh well, at least it is not a bad word.
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haha, yeah at least its not a bad word. its good that ur kids can pick up many languages. a good time for them to learn as well.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:48 ami wish my girls can speak hakka one day. but none of us speak hakka in the house. :(
January 29th, 2008 at 1:44 pmI also hope my children can pick up Hakka and Hokkien from my parents and PILs. But they kept using Mandarin instead. :( I thought these dialects are hard to learn from school, should be learnt in family!
January 29th, 2008 at 1:58 pmOur next generation is speaking lesser n lesser of their own dialects. And it’s so sad. They shld learn that too, apart from the main languages (Eng, Mandarin n BM).
January 29th, 2008 at 3:42 pmCute, Timothy! Clever too as he can speak and understand so many languages! :P
January 29th, 2008 at 4:53 pmi wish my kids can speak dialect too.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pmi can imagine Tim said “kek say”- haha. so funny!
my girl is picking up cause i’m speaking to her on and off
January 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pmYup, for Isaac, he is really good..when he is with nanny, automatic switch to Mandarin, see me, English back…kah,kah…so funny, to see kids know to whom they should speak what languages…..
January 30th, 2008 at 11:57 amgood that they know their mother tongue. i also speak english to my son only….must change that soon since my hubby is a yellow banana!
January 31st, 2008 at 4:03 pmqiqi could now say something very funny too…they really grown !
January 31st, 2008 at 9:42 pm