My first child, L, was born in 2016. I started to speak to him in Mandarin from the earliest days, and his dad has always spoken to him in English. We gave him an English first name and a Chinese middle name, because we wanted him to be raised biculturally. I was fortunate to be able to take a year off from work in order to stay home to care for him, and we hoped that this would give him a strong start in learning Chinese. For many months, I had no idea whether speaking to him in Chinese made an impression. But, when L was about 10 months old, I asked him one day to hand me a ball. He hesitated a little and came over and dropped the ball in front of me. I tried making the same request a few more times, surprised by the fact that all of those months of seemingly talking to myself were coming to some very basic level of fruition.
When my son was 13 months old, I returned to work and he started attending a traditional American daycare. Within the first week, L learned to fall in line with all of the other young toddlers. He could sit at a kids' table to eat (instead of a high chair, like we put him in at home), sit down when the teacher took out a book to read, and lie down and actually stay on a cot during nap time. He learned to verbalize "no" almost immediately. Over time, what few Chinese words he was speaking gave way to a rapidly expanding English vocabulary. It did not make sense for us to send him to a bilingual daycare, because our daycare had amazing teachers and was super affordable (as it was subsidized by a local church). I did not give up on speaking Mandarin to L at home, however. In fact, I doubled my efforts. Whenever we would read a book together, I would translate it into Chinese on the fly. As the books we read to him became more complex, I would first read them bilingually to introduce the Chinese and English equivalence, and then switch over to reading solely in Chinese after a couple of times of reading through the same book. This definitely made a positive impact, because recently I was asked to read in Mandarin to a friend's child who was in a first-grade Mandarin immersion program. Before the video conference session, I chose many books at different reading levels, because I did not know what would be appropriate for that kid's Mandarin comprehension level. In the end, the exchange affirmed for me that L's auditory comprehension has definitely benefitted from my reading to him. He can pretty comfortably follow a story in Mandarin alone, at a complexity on par with his English comprehension, even though his speaking may not always show the same fluency. English dominated L's interactions at school, but as his oral language was budding around age 2 or 2.5, like many kids, he wanted to know that he was being understood. Whenever he would babble something in toddler English that only my husband and I could understand, instead of repeating his words in English, I would enthusiastically state their equivalence in Mandarin to show that I was understanding him. At one point, when L was feeling playful and wanted to show off, I picked up a picture book of 100 introductory words and found that he was able to say most of them in Mandarin. Sometime after L turned 3, we started to work with him on making polite requests in English, because he started to bark orders at us on the daily (honestly, still an issue now at 4). Around the same time, I started to require that he made those requests to me in Mandarin only. At first, it was very simple phrases: 媽媽幫我倒牛奶; 媽媽幫我拿叉子; etc. ("Mama, help me pour the milk. Mama, help me get a fork.") If he needed help formulating the sentence, I would help him with it, piece by piece, but require him to repeat the entire sentence coherently at the end, in order to get what he asked for. He was annoyed at first, but as time went on, the requests came more and more easily. It was like the little bit of Mandarin speaking was unlocking an entire area of his brain. Gradually, his sentences became more accurate and more complex: 媽媽幫我拿一半的bagel,不要考,可是要塗 cream cheese. ("Mama, help me get a half bagel, not toasted, but with cream cheese on it.") He began to take risks in speaking Mandarin. I was ecstatic a few weeks ago when he attempted to make a joke in Mandarin. (Sadly, the moment passed and I can't remember what the joke was. But, more recently he also made a rhyme: 熊很兇! He felt pretty pleased with himself thereafter. I am so glad he is starting to think expressively in Chinese.) The introduction of a second baby, plus COVID shelter-at-home, has also helped my child #1 to acquire more Mandarin confidence. Since March of 2020, he has been staying at home with me instead of going to his beloved daycare. During this time, we do lots of things (that is story for another day), but most of the time I speak and read to him in Mandarin only. A few weeks ago, he started to narrate what he is doing in Mandarin to his little sister. She is not yet talking and probably does not understand much of what he is saying in Mandarin, but I think it is so sweet that 1. He will be a second person, in addition to me, who speaks to her in Mandarin, and 2. He thinks she understands his budding toddler Mandarin. About a month ago, when we were camping, I heard my son reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? to himself in Mandarin, from memory. It is a super simple and formulaic book, but he read it perfectly. After that, I began to challenge him by skipping parts of sentences in many books, and waiting for him to fill in the missing parts in Mandarin. I just wanted to keep him vocalizing and to keep expanding his confidence in his oral vocabulary. I realized recently that L is speaking more and more Mandarin daily. He speaks even when we are outside of the house, even when his dad is around. Now, when he speaks, I no longer do a happy dance every time. It has become part of the new background noise of our chaotic house. I wish it did not take a pandemic for my four-year-old to begin to speak Mandarin. But, I will add his speaking Mandarin to the list of things that bring me gratitude at the end of a day.
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About MeBorn in Asia, I have spent more than a third of my life living outside of the U.S. thus far. I currently reside in the Pacific Northwest with my techie husband and two biracial children. Categories
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