One of Charlotte's favorite Baby Einstein is Baby Da Vinci. She knows how to point and say it to us correctly when we ask her where is her head, shoulder, knees, toes...I tried to teach her the same in Mandarin too but it has been awhile. I remembered she used to get herself confused with "头" (tóu, which is head in Mandarin) and "Toes". I believe she still is but I have not test it on her for quite some time now.
Last night, we went dinner with my parents and she was with me on the front seat on our way there and on our way back home too. I had this short conversation with her...
me: mommy needs to speak in Chinese with you already, if not you cannot understand KongKong and MaMa.
Charlotte: (looked at me, blanked)
me: In Chinese "吃饭" means "eat rice" (well more like have a meal). Charlotte say 吃饭 (chī fàn)
Charlotte: (pause for awhile) Sit front! (this is what she says every time she asks to be seated on the front seat)
me: What? 吃饭 become sit front? *slap head*
Charlotte: (pretend to laugh too. Believe me, she is good at that)
Then she saw the moon and pointed to me
Charlotte: moon!
me: Yes, that's the moon. Moon is "月亮". Charlotte say 月亮 (yuè liàng)
Charlotte: (pause for awhile too) Yang Yang................KoKo (she was referring to her cousin Isaiah, his Chinese name is Lee Yang, she calls him Yang Yang)
*double slap head*
me: Do you want to go to KoKo's house tomorrow?
Charlotte: (nodded her head)
me: When I ask you "do you want" that is 要不要 (yào bù yào)
Charlotte: ...
me: Charlotte 要不要睡觉? 睡觉 is sleep
Charlotte: NO!
me: Oh, this one you understand? 要不要睡觉?
Charlotte: no!
me: say 不要 (bù yào)
Charlotte:...
Looks like I really need to start to communicate with her in Mandarin. Good luck to me :)
Never mind Charlotte... can join same banana club as Aunty Joyce :)
ReplyDeletehaha...i have the same problem with Bryan on English. What i do is say the whole sentence in English, then if he looks blur, repeat in Mandarin.
ReplyDeleteAnd u can get her some vcds in Mandarin as well, to let her become familiar with the language
you can start to speak ALL Mandarin to her..indirectly, you are 'teaching' her what is what through your action..:-)
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, kids learn fast...
I usually mix English together with Mandarin when talking or teach Vernon. Believe me, they will eventually say & understand the words.
ReplyDeleteYou may need to avoid using those words that pronouce similar sound in english and mandarin. I taught my son "Bye Bye" then later I taught him to "pray" and i said 拜拜.So as the result, he gets confused and whenever he want to pray, he said "bye bye". So now i am confused, not sure he is talking in english or mandarin with me! haha!
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