Our Cantonese journey
Jan 17, 2021 22:36:33 GMT 9
Post by Rachel O on Jan 17, 2021 22:36:33 GMT 9
Hi everyone. It's been a while since I introduced myself, and my son has just turned 2 years old recently. He had been "talking" since around 18 months, I think it's probably just his personality as he likes to express himself since he was a baby, and with that it helped him to progress pretty fast, even with 3 languages.
My initial worry was that one of our ml, Cantonese, will not get enough exposure because he gets the input only from me and I don't even read or write in it. I wanted also to keep to OPOL at home; I speak Cantonese and my husband German to our son.
We have since changed our strategy a little to fit our family. I noticed it wasn't working with speaking Cantonese to my son when Papa is around as he doesn't understand, so we decided that English will be our family language. Since 18 months we also noticed that his German (ML) vocabulary is expanding really quickly due to the exposure in the daycare, so I convinced my husband to kick ML out of the house. Now he speaks English to him, together we speak English, and between my son and I, Cantonese.
For reading, my husband still reads German to him and I read English to him. I know this seems complicated, but I grew up bilingual, reading English books and singing English nursery rhymes, so it is natural for me. No need to explain about my German husband.
My son loves to sing, so I even picked up some German children's songs from him, and we all just sing in both languages really.
Trilingual wise, my son seems to already grasp the different languages, and that not everyone understands everything. Once we are getting ready to go out, my son keeps saying "hang lou" meaning "walking", because he wants to walk (instead of stroller or bike or etc), and my husband asked "what is hang lou?". My son answered "laufen" which means walking in German. It was so funny, but that sums up our daily interactions now. ML presence is still strong in our house even if we parents don't use it.
I kind of calculated my son's exposures to the 3 languages and the percentages are German 40%, English 40% and Cantonese 20%. So for this year, I want to add on some challenges or strategies for me/us to increase our Cantonese exposure:
1. Learn more Cantonese children's songs, and sing together with my son. Since he learns so well with music, this will be a good chance! I am gathering resources now like lyrics in Jyutping (romanisation system for Cantonese), and children songs in Spotify or Youtube.
2. Print out some flashcards or posters of Cantonese words to do activities with my son. Like learning words, or matching items to printed. We have been doing some of these activities in English (somehow naturally as my English vocabulary is much wider than my Cantonese), so my aim is to increase the Cantonese part by printing them out in Jyutping to aid me!
3. He gets minimal screen time now, and he gets to watch one episode of Peppa Pig in Cantonese once a while. It is not frequent as I do not want him to expose to screen so much as of yet, but it is definitely something we can do more as he grows older.
4. Do more video calls with Grandma and Grandpa and remind them to speak Cantonese. I know this is funny, but my sis speaks English to her children, so my parents are used to speaking English to their grandchildren. Hence, every time they talk to my son, they will use English automatically. I had to always remind them to please revert to Cantonese. It is definitely a work in progress, so maybe more call sessions are needed. Also, I think it is important for my son to see and feel that Cantonese is a part of his heritage, and he can use it to communicate to others besides just me! Maybe I should also call my friends who speak Cantonese to help out.
That is what I can think of for now, trying to keep it simple and possible to implement. Any tips or feedback here are most appreciated. It is heartening to read so much success and ongoing efforts around here.
My initial worry was that one of our ml, Cantonese, will not get enough exposure because he gets the input only from me and I don't even read or write in it. I wanted also to keep to OPOL at home; I speak Cantonese and my husband German to our son.
We have since changed our strategy a little to fit our family. I noticed it wasn't working with speaking Cantonese to my son when Papa is around as he doesn't understand, so we decided that English will be our family language. Since 18 months we also noticed that his German (ML) vocabulary is expanding really quickly due to the exposure in the daycare, so I convinced my husband to kick ML out of the house. Now he speaks English to him, together we speak English, and between my son and I, Cantonese.
For reading, my husband still reads German to him and I read English to him. I know this seems complicated, but I grew up bilingual, reading English books and singing English nursery rhymes, so it is natural for me. No need to explain about my German husband.
My son loves to sing, so I even picked up some German children's songs from him, and we all just sing in both languages really. Trilingual wise, my son seems to already grasp the different languages, and that not everyone understands everything. Once we are getting ready to go out, my son keeps saying "hang lou" meaning "walking", because he wants to walk (instead of stroller or bike or etc), and my husband asked "what is hang lou?". My son answered "laufen" which means walking in German. It was so funny, but that sums up our daily interactions now. ML presence is still strong in our house even if we parents don't use it.
I kind of calculated my son's exposures to the 3 languages and the percentages are German 40%, English 40% and Cantonese 20%. So for this year, I want to add on some challenges or strategies for me/us to increase our Cantonese exposure:
1. Learn more Cantonese children's songs, and sing together with my son. Since he learns so well with music, this will be a good chance! I am gathering resources now like lyrics in Jyutping (romanisation system for Cantonese), and children songs in Spotify or Youtube.
2. Print out some flashcards or posters of Cantonese words to do activities with my son. Like learning words, or matching items to printed. We have been doing some of these activities in English (somehow naturally as my English vocabulary is much wider than my Cantonese), so my aim is to increase the Cantonese part by printing them out in Jyutping to aid me!
3. He gets minimal screen time now, and he gets to watch one episode of Peppa Pig in Cantonese once a while. It is not frequent as I do not want him to expose to screen so much as of yet, but it is definitely something we can do more as he grows older.
4. Do more video calls with Grandma and Grandpa and remind them to speak Cantonese. I know this is funny, but my sis speaks English to her children, so my parents are used to speaking English to their grandchildren. Hence, every time they talk to my son, they will use English automatically. I had to always remind them to please revert to Cantonese. It is definitely a work in progress, so maybe more call sessions are needed. Also, I think it is important for my son to see and feel that Cantonese is a part of his heritage, and he can use it to communicate to others besides just me! Maybe I should also call my friends who speak Cantonese to help out.
That is what I can think of for now, trying to keep it simple and possible to implement. Any tips or feedback here are most appreciated. It is heartening to read so much success and ongoing efforts around here.
