our little panda beside a real panda in Guangzhou wearing her panda necklace
Two of the most common questions we have gotten over the months is whether Jen knows any English and how do we plan to deal with the language barrier. Both of these questions are also intertwined with the decisions we have made about her schooling. Here are some things that we have learned so far...
Jen was in the middle of the 3rd grade in China when we met in December. According to her age, she would most likely be in the 5th grade in the States. We have heard that the elementary system is roughly equivalent in China regarding the ages they begin school so we don't know why she was in 3rd grade. We have been told that the orphanage may start the children in school at a later age for various reasons. We can only speculate at this point.
As for English, Jen has been exposed to some but how much is an open question. Her 2nd grade school records said she was taking English but we were told that they do not begin English until the 3rd grade. When we met, she spoke no English and appeared to only understand a word here and there. She recognized parts of the alphabet (the Chinese pin-yin system for transliterating Mandarin uses most of the English alphabet but the letters have different sounds). She could count to 10 in English and knew just a few stock phrases like "How are you?"..."I am fine". The phrases popped out along the way at unexpected times...we didn't know she knew them.
And before we get on to the big questions, I should say that Jen's first language is Cantonese. The children are taught Mandarin (the national language) and she understands it and speaks it as well. Cantonese and Mandarin sound amazingly different to the Western ear. The shopkeepers in Guangzhou who were from other provinces told us that Cantonese was difficult to pick up even for the Chinese. So Jen's language of the heart is Cantonese and is evidently her preference.
So how does one communicate with a 10 year old from another culture when the language barriers are so great? We had to make decisions about this months before we met Jen and those decisions have shaped both our experience and her transition thus far. This is one of those issues where you have to choose and wait to see how it all pans out. We've had mixed results so far and sometimes I end up scratching my head because the issues are complicated.
Okay, at 10 years old we assumed that Jen would have a great grip on Mandarin and we wanted to do everything we could to help her hang on to her language. Unlike a toddler who has lots of years left to grow up in the American culture, Jen's time until adulthood is basically cut in half. We wanted to help her maintain her Mandarin as a part of her Chinese identity and heritage. Given the growing importance of China on the world stage, the benefits of knowing Mandarin are numerous. I thought that she might want to return to China someday and we felt a responsibility to keep the language going for her future. As for Cantonese, it was a lost cause for us. Although there are millions of Cantonese speakers in the United States, trying to keep it up as well would be nearly impossible unless we submerged ourselves in the Chinese American culture. That is very disappointing to me as a parent -- denying my child the opportunity to use her mother tongue. It was one of the sacrifices of coming to America. We can give her Cantonese videos and expose her to Cantonese culture in the States somewhat but the Cantonese will drift away into her memories like a sweet childhood lullaby. Unfortunately, and to my regret, she'll stand with us one day in Cantonese speaking China and will not be able to speak it any longer. I feel that loss for her. As her parents, we bear the responsibility for that.
Well back to Mandarin and English... we made the decision that we were going to learn some Mandarin so that we could speak with Jen from the very first. Had Jen been younger, we would not have made the effort. But at 10, we wanted to communicate and so we hired a Chinese tutor about 7 months before we went to China. We sputtered along and didn't get serious about it until September which left us about 3 months or 12 to 13 lessons to learn some basic phrases and key words. Before we left, we were able to say simple phrases with only one purpose -- to communicate with Jen. They were targeted specifically for a child and her daily needs. Except for "ni hao" and a few other things, we couldn't say anything to an adult. As it turned out, the phrases we learned were exactly what we needed. On the very first night in the hotel room, I asked Jen in my best broken Mandarin if she needed to use the bathroom. She nodded her head and off she went. Since then we have used our limited (and I mean extremely limited) Mandarin almost every moment with her.
Now this all begs the question....this little girl is in America now...she needs to be speaking and learning English, doesn't she?? Yes, of course she does. Where it gets complicated is this...do we want to communicate with Jen or do we want to speak English only and let her and us struggle along? This goes back to our whole decision of learning some Mandarin. She knows that we understand some basic things so that is what she uses. Or should I say she is now speaking "Mandar-ish". That means she is just as likely to answer in Mandarin as she is English and mixes the two constantly. We, and especially me, speak "Engli-rin" which is basically English with Mandarin thrown in. Here are a few examples:
Each night, Jen says to me...." mingtian qu shang ban " which essentially means "are you going to work tomorrow?" I can answer back "yes" which she understands or I can say "I am going to work tomorrow" which she doesn't understand at all. So, in broken Chinese, I say the entire phrase to her and then we are communicating more fully. When I speak in Chinese, she understands and I make sure that she does because I ask and she will say yes I do or no I do not.
And since Jen knows that we understand some basic things, she is more inclined to sticking with Mandarin rather than trying to learn the English for certain things. She knows "brush your teeth" and will sing it over and over when she is getting ready to brush but we can't get her to say "I want to go to the bathroom". She always uses the Mandarin for that and maybe because it is a longer phrase. She does like to say "Good morning" and "thank you"..."your welcome" a lot but I would say that in any given minute she'll say it in Mandarin then in English and then in Mandarin again. Maybe what we are seeing is the emergence of a bilingual child which of course would be wonderful. And due to the crazy Mandarish-Englirin thing we have going, it is sort of our own private gibberish that would make Americans scratch their heads and cause a Chinese person to say, "that is some really bad Mandarin you got going there".
We are quite certain that this is all causing a delay in Jen's acquisition of English. And so there you go...we made a choice that really helps in our communication now but it is delaying her ability to communicate with others in English. We are on a horse in midstream and we like the horse honestly but it is not the path for everyone and maybe not the one we would even recommend. Some of our Chinese friends who immigrated here have the reverse concern...they speak Mandarin at home but their children prefer English and are not that interested in speaking Mandarin even though they understand it.
We could have gone cold turkey on the Mandarin from day one and that would have forced Jen to learn English faster...the ol' sink or swim thing. It was a choice we made to ease her transition and ours. How can you know what is best for a child when you haven't met them and you have to make that kind of language choice months in advance?
We have other friends who have chosen the English only route and we are eager to see how it works for their same age children. We suspect that their children will be farther along with English then Jen over the same amount of time. As I said, we are on the horse now and backing up is no longer an option. Language acquisition is not easy and the paths to fluency are many. We have used flash cards, TV, talking, reading, web sites for learning English...you name it.
In the end, it just takes time. We are learning every moment and hopefully she is too.
I am going to talk about our schooling options in the next post since this has gotten wordy.
When Jen is an adult, my goal is that is she fluent in English with no accent and that she can still speak and understand Mandarin. We don't know how much she will be able to read of it by then. Keeping and building on that skill is more difficult. Cantonese will be the language of her childhood and it would take a miracle for her to hold onto it. We have one trick up our sleeve on that one, however. All the girls from the orphanage who are coming to the US this spring speak Cantonese. Who knows if they will stay in touch and if so, maybe they can keep their Cantonese going over the phone. That would be a blessing for Jen.
We are making a little Chinese-American here and aren't sure of all the ingredients yet.....but were are certainly enjoying the process.
By the way, did you know that steakhouses and Mexican restaurants don't provide chopsticks?
We had to break the bad news to our little Cantonese, chop stick loving sweetheart. When in Rome as they say.....
Two of the most common questions we have gotten over the months is whether Jen knows any English and how do we plan to deal with the language barrier. Both of these questions are also intertwined with the decisions we have made about her schooling. Here are some things that we have learned so far...
Jen was in the middle of the 3rd grade in China when we met in December. According to her age, she would most likely be in the 5th grade in the States. We have heard that the elementary system is roughly equivalent in China regarding the ages they begin school so we don't know why she was in 3rd grade. We have been told that the orphanage may start the children in school at a later age for various reasons. We can only speculate at this point.
As for English, Jen has been exposed to some but how much is an open question. Her 2nd grade school records said she was taking English but we were told that they do not begin English until the 3rd grade. When we met, she spoke no English and appeared to only understand a word here and there. She recognized parts of the alphabet (the Chinese pin-yin system for transliterating Mandarin uses most of the English alphabet but the letters have different sounds). She could count to 10 in English and knew just a few stock phrases like "How are you?"..."I am fine". The phrases popped out along the way at unexpected times...we didn't know she knew them.
And before we get on to the big questions, I should say that Jen's first language is Cantonese. The children are taught Mandarin (the national language) and she understands it and speaks it as well. Cantonese and Mandarin sound amazingly different to the Western ear. The shopkeepers in Guangzhou who were from other provinces told us that Cantonese was difficult to pick up even for the Chinese. So Jen's language of the heart is Cantonese and is evidently her preference.
So how does one communicate with a 10 year old from another culture when the language barriers are so great? We had to make decisions about this months before we met Jen and those decisions have shaped both our experience and her transition thus far. This is one of those issues where you have to choose and wait to see how it all pans out. We've had mixed results so far and sometimes I end up scratching my head because the issues are complicated.
Okay, at 10 years old we assumed that Jen would have a great grip on Mandarin and we wanted to do everything we could to help her hang on to her language. Unlike a toddler who has lots of years left to grow up in the American culture, Jen's time until adulthood is basically cut in half. We wanted to help her maintain her Mandarin as a part of her Chinese identity and heritage. Given the growing importance of China on the world stage, the benefits of knowing Mandarin are numerous. I thought that she might want to return to China someday and we felt a responsibility to keep the language going for her future. As for Cantonese, it was a lost cause for us. Although there are millions of Cantonese speakers in the United States, trying to keep it up as well would be nearly impossible unless we submerged ourselves in the Chinese American culture. That is very disappointing to me as a parent -- denying my child the opportunity to use her mother tongue. It was one of the sacrifices of coming to America. We can give her Cantonese videos and expose her to Cantonese culture in the States somewhat but the Cantonese will drift away into her memories like a sweet childhood lullaby. Unfortunately, and to my regret, she'll stand with us one day in Cantonese speaking China and will not be able to speak it any longer. I feel that loss for her. As her parents, we bear the responsibility for that.
Well back to Mandarin and English... we made the decision that we were going to learn some Mandarin so that we could speak with Jen from the very first. Had Jen been younger, we would not have made the effort. But at 10, we wanted to communicate and so we hired a Chinese tutor about 7 months before we went to China. We sputtered along and didn't get serious about it until September which left us about 3 months or 12 to 13 lessons to learn some basic phrases and key words. Before we left, we were able to say simple phrases with only one purpose -- to communicate with Jen. They were targeted specifically for a child and her daily needs. Except for "ni hao" and a few other things, we couldn't say anything to an adult. As it turned out, the phrases we learned were exactly what we needed. On the very first night in the hotel room, I asked Jen in my best broken Mandarin if she needed to use the bathroom. She nodded her head and off she went. Since then we have used our limited (and I mean extremely limited) Mandarin almost every moment with her.
Now this all begs the question....this little girl is in America now...she needs to be speaking and learning English, doesn't she?? Yes, of course she does. Where it gets complicated is this...do we want to communicate with Jen or do we want to speak English only and let her and us struggle along? This goes back to our whole decision of learning some Mandarin. She knows that we understand some basic things so that is what she uses. Or should I say she is now speaking "Mandar-ish". That means she is just as likely to answer in Mandarin as she is English and mixes the two constantly. We, and especially me, speak "Engli-rin" which is basically English with Mandarin thrown in. Here are a few examples:
Each night, Jen says to me...." mingtian qu shang ban " which essentially means "are you going to work tomorrow?" I can answer back "yes" which she understands or I can say "I am going to work tomorrow" which she doesn't understand at all. So, in broken Chinese, I say the entire phrase to her and then we are communicating more fully. When I speak in Chinese, she understands and I make sure that she does because I ask and she will say yes I do or no I do not.
And since Jen knows that we understand some basic things, she is more inclined to sticking with Mandarin rather than trying to learn the English for certain things. She knows "brush your teeth" and will sing it over and over when she is getting ready to brush but we can't get her to say "I want to go to the bathroom". She always uses the Mandarin for that and maybe because it is a longer phrase. She does like to say "Good morning" and "thank you"..."your welcome" a lot but I would say that in any given minute she'll say it in Mandarin then in English and then in Mandarin again. Maybe what we are seeing is the emergence of a bilingual child which of course would be wonderful. And due to the crazy Mandarish-Englirin thing we have going, it is sort of our own private gibberish that would make Americans scratch their heads and cause a Chinese person to say, "that is some really bad Mandarin you got going there".
We are quite certain that this is all causing a delay in Jen's acquisition of English. And so there you go...we made a choice that really helps in our communication now but it is delaying her ability to communicate with others in English. We are on a horse in midstream and we like the horse honestly but it is not the path for everyone and maybe not the one we would even recommend. Some of our Chinese friends who immigrated here have the reverse concern...they speak Mandarin at home but their children prefer English and are not that interested in speaking Mandarin even though they understand it.
We could have gone cold turkey on the Mandarin from day one and that would have forced Jen to learn English faster...the ol' sink or swim thing. It was a choice we made to ease her transition and ours. How can you know what is best for a child when you haven't met them and you have to make that kind of language choice months in advance?
We have other friends who have chosen the English only route and we are eager to see how it works for their same age children. We suspect that their children will be farther along with English then Jen over the same amount of time. As I said, we are on the horse now and backing up is no longer an option. Language acquisition is not easy and the paths to fluency are many. We have used flash cards, TV, talking, reading, web sites for learning English...you name it.
In the end, it just takes time. We are learning every moment and hopefully she is too.
I am going to talk about our schooling options in the next post since this has gotten wordy.
When Jen is an adult, my goal is that is she fluent in English with no accent and that she can still speak and understand Mandarin. We don't know how much she will be able to read of it by then. Keeping and building on that skill is more difficult. Cantonese will be the language of her childhood and it would take a miracle for her to hold onto it. We have one trick up our sleeve on that one, however. All the girls from the orphanage who are coming to the US this spring speak Cantonese. Who knows if they will stay in touch and if so, maybe they can keep their Cantonese going over the phone. That would be a blessing for Jen.
We are making a little Chinese-American here and aren't sure of all the ingredients yet.....but were are certainly enjoying the process.
By the way, did you know that steakhouses and Mexican restaurants don't provide chopsticks?
We had to break the bad news to our little Cantonese, chop stick loving sweetheart. When in Rome as they say.....
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