Mandarin learning resources

ghag17

New member
Our son is 2 months old and I’m trying to teach him Chinese. It’s very awkward to talk in Chinese right now (my husband speaks English but understands some Chinese) but I’m trying a bit everyday. I usually say something very simple and sometimes describe what I’m doing. I also have a few books that I read to him. I found books are super helpful because it gives me some material to work with, so I can also chat with him using the pictures in the book.

I want to get more books, but I couldn’t find many on Amazon (I’m based in the US). I also tried to download apps. But most of them require payment, and they all have the type that read the book and only show one line at a time. Not sure if it’s helpful at all if I simply play the book audio, since I read that interaction is the most important for language acquisition.

Do you have any material that you recommend for Chinese learning? Apps, YouTube, books are all welcome. Also I’d love to hear what you can do with a newborn. I find that there is only very limited time when he’s awake, alert and chill. Should I even bother talking or reading to him while breastfeeding? He’s mostly half asleep.
 
@ghag17 2 months old is still pretty young though at this, point, you can read very simple board books. There's a lot of baby books out there.

What you're doing sounds fine completely.

I wouldn't bother with YouTube or apps. They're too young for screen time. Books is really all you need right now.

Just keep speaking Mandarin and only Mandarin as much as you can and it'll get more natural and that's really the best kind of exposure you can give your child. Don't switch to English when your husband's around. If he already knows a little, listening more will help him learn. My husband has learned a lot by listening to my son and I.

Amazon is USELESS. Don't bother.

Check this blog - https://chalkacademy.com/how-to-teach-kids-chinese/

This is based in the US and you should find plenty of resources there.

Couple more

https://www.mamababymandarin.com/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/lahlahbanana.com/2020/09/28/raising-multilingual-children-chinese/

As for books, check out www.books.com.tw.

They ship to US (and many countries) and very quick. Hurts your wallet though.

I would definitely check your local library. You might be surprised that they may stock Chinese children's books.

I would also check out "cultural offices". I'm from Taiwan and there are a lot of Taiwanese "文教中心” across the globe. The one in Sydney has a small library where I can borrow children's books all in Chinese.

I'd imagine mainland China has the same as well so have a look around (if your family is from mainland China).

Check this FB group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/197052471072971/

There's way more other FB groups directed at parents passing on Mandarin to their kids so have a search.

This publisher is pretty good:
https://shopping.windmill.com.tw/

Here's a few recommendations for babies

These nursery rhymes books are the best:

https://shopping.windmill.com.tw/product.php?product_num=1010100111

And here's a few other lists I've compiled:

https://search.books.com.tw/search/query/key/艾瑞 卡爾 eric carle/cat/all

https://search.books.com.tw/search/query/key/艾瑞克.希爾/adv_author/1/

And list for 0-3 years books

https://www.books.com.tw/web/books_bmidm_1418/?loc=M_0105_2_001

https://www.google.com/amp/s/woman.udn.com/woman/amp/story/123164/7079243

Links that shared where to buy Chinese books in the US

https://chalkacademy.com/online-chinese-bookstores-children-books/

https://www.guavarama.com/2021/07/10/where-to-buy-chinese-books-in-the-us/

Happy for you to DM me. My son's turning 4 soon so I've been on this journey for a while. I live in Australia though. My resources are generally mostly in traditional Chinese though.
 
@aldredian Thanks so much for sharing all the resources!

Re switch to English - I still do that unfortunately because it’s more natural to talk that way with my husband. But I know I need to get over it and just talk in Chinese…

Great reminder of checking out local libraries. And I really like the blogs you shared. I’ll gradually go through them in depth later.

For books - I can read traditional characters but I prefer simplified. Maybe i should just ask my mom to buy in China and ship them. Last time I asked her, she said the shipping cost is outrageous. But I guess there's no way around it…
 
@ghag17
Re switch to English - I still do that unfortunately because it’s more natural to talk that way with my husband. But I know I need to get over it and just talk in Chinese…

Yep, I did that too in the beginning. I caught myself doing it and I basically actively reminded myself to switch back to Mandarin whenever I'm speaking to my son.

It took roughly 1 to 2 weeks of constant self reminding to become second nature and automatic.

My son also automatically switches to Mandarin to me and my parents. Even in his sleep. His sleep talking can be quite hilarious as he switches between languages.

"Daddy! I don't want that! 我不要!我不要!” 😂

Maybe i should just ask my mom to buy in China and ship them.

Yeah, do that. Unfortunately, nothing you can do with shipping. So I'd go library route first if you can but definitely go through some of the links I have. I've linked at least 2 links where it tells you where to buy in the US and shipping should be cheaper in that case. I also saw that AliExpress sells giant children book series. Check those out and see if shipping is cheaper there.

Also, search for Ace Chinese Books app. It's a Chinese children's reading app in simplified Chinese. It reads the book out loud and will also highlight characters as it goes. Pretty good and has heaps of books in it.
 
@aldredian I had some time to browse the websites that sell books in the US and LOVED what I saw. The Jo Jo learning site has very curated books and the quality is super high. The price is not bad either. Some of the equivalent books on Amazon are more expensive. The shipping within US is free which is great. 😊
 
@ghag17 The Bao Bao learns Chinese books are quite good. The quality is really good, and they include half translations of English songs and half Chinese songs (all in Chinese) with characters, pinyin, and a rough English translation. We have all three and my 3yo can sing a few songs (we live in the US and speak Spanish at home but I want to expose him to some Chinese, which is my 3rd language)
 
@drobe008 Thank you! I’ll check it out. I’m curious when did you start exposing Chinese to your son. Do you speak Chinese to him or only use other resources? My third language is Japanese. I’m not fluent anymore but I do enjoy Japanese music, books and anime. It would be fun to teach him Japanese too but I’m not sure when is a good time to start. Right now I think I need to focus on Chinese since it’s more important to me.
 
@ghag17 I have basically just read the few kids books we have to him. Spanish is my priority, unfortunately - but I'm hoping it's enough to give him a bit of an ear and the ability to pronounce some of the more different sounds. And someday I hope he'll express interest and we could learn some characters, talk about what the words in the songs mean, watch shows, etc. Every now and then he is curious (only recently since he's been 3, I would say) and has asked what the characters mean because they're so visual. I think the only word he could say on its own is pengyou = friend.
 
@drobe008 It’s nice that your son is interested in Chinese! I like the idea of reading and maybe I will sing some Japanese songs to him. It’s definitely a low priority and I might start it when he’s older.
 
@ghag17 in addition to the Bao Bao books, I bought a few translations years ago when I lived in China (the very hungry caterpillar, etc.) and a few fairy tales in Chinese (from the supermarket; those are nice because they have pinyin)
 
@ghag17 I started reading some Japanese books to my son around 2. He caught on surprisingly fast.

I think there's no harm to read a few books here and there for some exposure but as you've said, it's priorities. Any time is fine.

I've since pretty much dropped Japanese as I've pivoted my focus into relearning my family dialect (Hokkien) and will probably devote more effort and time on that. We're not Japanese, so it's not really high up on our priority list.

I'll probably do what my parents did. They hired a Japanese tutor when I was 6 and it was low pressure and fun. Aside from teaching me to read in Japanese, they basically just played with me in Japanese. Beyond that, my exposure was just through manga and anime. So I'll probably do that when my son's older and then guage his interest.

But yeah - start whenever you feel like.
 
@aldredian I like your parents approach! It’s low pressure and sounds fun. I do think some early exposure could be nice but kids can learn things very fast.

To speak of tutor, do you hire one for your son to learn Chinese? Are you using any Chinese immersion daycare or weekend classes? I heard that kids would stop using minority language when they go to school/daycare. All the good daycares near us do not teach Chinese (they do teach Spanish), so I’m not sure if what I do at home is enough.
 
@ghag17
To speak of tutor, do you hire one for your son to learn Chinese?

No. He's a bit young at this point (turning 4).

I always say, I'm not teaching my son Chinese. I'm establishing a relationship with my son using Chinese. I mean, my parents just spoke to me in Mandarin and that's how I learned it. It's just part of everyday life for me so I'm doing the same with my son by making it everyday life for him.

I have a few months ago, trialed a Sunday Chinese school but unfortunately, I don't think it's going to work. I trialled what they call their preschool class e.g. 3.5years and up yet when I went there, all the kids were at least 5 years old, only speak English and the teachers are teaching them as they would 5 year olds. Totally not the best way to teach a 3.5yo.

So I'm waiting for him to be a bit older and can actually take formal lessons and then I'll see if I can find someone who can teach him to read. Having said that, I'm already teaching him to read so .... I don't know. Maybe I won't in the end.

I think definitely, by the time he's at school, I'll hire a tutor to follow Taiwan's Chinese subject curriculum and try my best to have him keep up with English.

Having said that, even I didn't end up doing that. My parents initially taught me themselves following Taiwan's curriculum (my mum brought grade books from Taiwan over to Australia) and then when I was in year 5, sent me to Sunday Taiwanese Chinese school. She ultimately pulled me out by year 9. I think at that point, I was like, halfway through year 6 curriculum. Their progress was so slow. I was bored out of my wits. My mum taught me to read in Chinese by the time I was 4 and then just stocked a whole heap of books at home which I would read at my leisure. By the time she sent me to Chinese school, I was already reading mangas without ZhuYin. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could read Chinese newspapers by then as well. So Chinese school was pretty useless in my eyes because students were all conversing in English anyway.

So I think my bare minimum goal for my son is his Chinese needs to be on par to mine. If I can get it to be better, awesome but I'll try and be as realistic as possible.

I think in a way, surprisingly, my parents weren't super pushy with Chinese EXCEPT that we have to speak it with family no matter what and that we have to know how to read. Beyond that, my parents let me buy and read all the mangas in the world and that was a major motivation for me to keep using it because back then, many mangas aren't getting published in English.

Are you using any Chinese immersion daycare or weekend classes?

I wish. I live in one the most well known Chinese suburb in Sydney and yet. YET. There's ZERO Chinese immersion daycares. Honestly shocking. Having said that, most daycares will at least have one Mandarin speaking educator but it's still not the same. My son actually attends a German bilingual daycare. I have no trouble finding German, French, Spanish and Japanese ones. Just no Chinese. Though I will say some daycares have 1 hour Mandarin class per day as part of their curriculum but I doubt it's useful. I have one friend who is a native Chinese speaker (1st gen immigrant - migrated here at uni) and has sent his children to these daycares offering Mandarin classes but because he lets the kids speak English at home, neither of his kids can speak Mandarin. Honestly ironic that my son who is 2nd gen, with one parent who can't even speak Mandarin, is fluent whereas their kids with both native speaking parents AND grandparents at home, don't even speak it. It really comes down to parent's determination.

There's at least 2 other programs near my area offering immersion programs but they're both tailored towards kids learning Mandarin as a second language. I heard it's good but I've trialled one of them and again, it wasn't useful for us. It's useful if you don't speak Mandarin at home but when you're practically raising your children as native speakers, it wasn't all that helpful.

Or I've found a family day care where the educator only speaks Mandarin, teaches them how to read in Chinese but they're super religious which is a deal breaker for us.

It's been super frustrating.

I heard that kids would stop using minority language when they go to school/daycare.

This really comes down to how you respond when your kids come home speaking English.

So my son started daycare at 2.5yo. He's still speaking Mandarin to me. There was this one time he tested whether he could get away with speaking English to me and I just responded with, "Why are you speaking to me in English?" And he immediately switched back.

Where I have seen English completely taking over is because parents started responding back IN ENGLISH. That's when it all falls apart. Or allowing their children to only speak English.

The trick really is to shut it down immediately. When I started trying to speak English to my parents ,they immediately shut it down. My dad just straight up ignored me (cruel actually - won't recommend that) and even told my brother to not respond unless I speak Mandarin. They did this immediately so it was very easy for me to switch back to Mandarin because my parents never allowed me to even get used to speaking to them in English.

So I kind of use that as my guide and am doing the same with my son (not the ignoring part. Just being consistent and gently shutting down any attempt of speaking English to me).

The other observation I've made is this seems to be more of a problem if
  1. Child goes to daycare before they've started talking e.g. at 1 and
  2. One parent doesn't speak Mandarin.
This combination really comes down to lack of exposure. With just 1, it's actually still fine if it's heritage language at home. There's enough exposure. But having a community language speaking spouse at home does create extra challenges. You want at least around 30% exposure in your child's waking hours for it to stick.

When my son started daycare, in less than 6 months, English overtook Mandarin when previously, I'd say Mandarin was slightly ahead because he was being looked after by my mum and myself.

So I purposely never went back to full-time work. My son's at daycare 4 days a week and I purposely leave 1 full day a week where I'm with him and we're using Mandarin 100%.

Once I did that, the balance was better. His English is still way ahead due to exposure but he's still speaking to me in Mandarin 100% of the time. The amazing thing is, if he doesn't know a term in Chinese, he'd describe it or find other ways to explain himself. I think reading to him every night is a big factor because it meant his vocabulary range, across both languages, is way ahead of his age.

All I can do is to keep up his exposure.

So
  • only Mandarin media at home
  • reading every night in Mandarin
  • weekly Mandarin play dates
  • trying to see my parents once a week or fortnightly at least
Another thing I fully recommend is ONLY speak Mandarin even if you're speaking to your husband in English. I ALWAYS switch back to Mandarin. If you let family time become English, then exposure drops further.

Anyways, it's just exposure, exposure, exposure and don't give up.

I'm planning to take my son back to Taiwan once a year as well for better immersion. If your mum's in China, I'd recommend video calling her every day and have your child interact with her. Another great exposure and great way to get your child to bond with your mum.

But I'd say the best thing you could do is find like-minded parents and create a play group with their kids. Having peers to play with is a big motivator.

The play date we have is a uni friend and their daughter is just a month younger than my son and they've been playing with each other since birth in Mandarin so they're very used to playing together in Mandarin.

Through daycare and FB as well, I have found other like minded parents and we're just arranging as many play dates as we can to keep it up.

But yeah. I feel like it's playing whack a mole a bit with community exposure 🤣

I'm trying to speak to my husband more in Mandarin as well to get him to understand more as I'm contemplating switching to Mandarin at home only once my son's at school. If my husband could at least understand by then (he understands a lot already), then we could do it and it'll keep the exposure up.

Anyways, sorry for the word vomit.
 
@aldredian Definitely not word vomit! Actually there’s so many good points in the reply that I had to read through it a few times to get all the points. I also forced my husband to read it and I think I’ll take some notes later lol

I definitely think the “shut down” method is the way to go. I have a friend whose mom is French, dad is from the Philippines, and they lived in Canada. He mastered all three languages especially French, because his mom would not respond him if he talks in English. It’s good to know about “soft shut down” because I’m not sure if I can ignore him completely when he starts to speak English.

Re daycare - we are in NYC and actually lives very close to Chinatown. But it’s super surprising that there’s very little Chinese daycares and the few ones are poorly reviewed. We have neighbors from Taiwan and they never considered Chinese daycare / preschool, because the English or other bilingual ones provide better care / education. They also ended up choosing not to teach their children Chinese. For me I also think the care quality is more important so I wouldn’t choose the Chinese daycare.

Right now my husband has paternity leave and I’m returning part time work. Very soon both of us will return to work (from home), and we will have a part time nanny for care. Unfortunately she only speaks English. I hired a confinement ayi for a month after labor, and I really liked her. She has early child education certificates and she constantly spoke Chinese to the baby. I want to keep hiring her but she has returned to China and won’t be back until next year (by the time my son will turn 1 year old). I’m tempted to hire her again so we will get some solid hours in for Chinese education (then send him to daycare at 2 or 2.5). My husband is on the defense because he liked the daycare we visited and not sure if we want to spend so much more for at-home care. I’ll wait and see but I definitely lean towards to having someone else at home to speak Chinese to him early on. And meanwhile, I’ll try my best to talk and read in Chinese to him so he can get used to the sounds.

I think it would be really helpful if I can set up play dates for him to practice Chinese. Unfortunately my friends are mostly 2nd gen and doesn’t really teach their kids Chinese. I think when he’s a bit bigger I’ll just try meetups using FB groups or start taking to Chinese parents in the nearby park lol

Re talk to my mom daily - I don’t think I can even tolerate it everyday lol we do chat weekly and I would love to have my son to talk to her. And I will try my best to travel back to China every year when he’s older, for a more immersion environment. (Internet is shit there so it’s hard to get my work done…)

At the end of the day, I really don’t want to force it too much that none of us is enjoying it or having fun. But I really would love him to be able to talk to my parents and family. None of them speak English and I do not have family in the US, so that family connection has to be built with the language. I’ll try my best but we shall see.
 
@ghag17 RE the shut down part.

When they're still learning to speak e.g. around 1 and up to age 2 (basically, before language explosion), when they say a word to you in English, you can acknowledge and repeat the word in Chinese.

My son's first words were 50/50 in both languages.

So he'd say to me "up" and I'll say, "你要抱抱嗎?" He'd nod. I then go, "好。抱抱。" slowly and let him be able to see my mouth. Early stages, they're not likely to repeat after you just yet.

It's the same with the reverse. He'd say to my husband, "蛋" and my husband would go, "Oh, you want eggs? Here you go."

It's to acknowledge that they've said the right thing but you're just reinforcing again which language each parent speak while telling them the equivalent in your language. Acknowledging is positive reinforcement so that they'll keep speaking as at this stage, you want them to keep trying to speak as much as possible.

Once they start repeating after you, which is more age 2 and onwards (after language explosion) and they can string short sentences, then you could do something like this.

"I want milk"
"你要牛奶是嗎?"
"嗯"
"跟我說說看。我要牛奶。"

If they repeat, great. If not, let it go. Pushing it too much could backfire.

Getting the balance right here is a bit tricky.

I remember at one point, I just feigned ignorance. As in, he said something to me in English and I go, “你說什麼?”

Sometimes it is genuine I didn't get what he said because early on, kids still have pronunciation issues so I think even that reinforced the point that he speaks Mandarin to me.

Yeah, good quality daycare trumps all.

With the nanny, maybe keep looking and see if you can find a nanny who can speak Chinese. I think well worth asking that ayi whether she's interested in coming back early to babysit your child. It doesn't have to be daycare or nothing. You can definitely do a mixture. In the meantime, have a read of this: https://bilingualmonkeys.com/how-many-hours-per-week-is-your-child-exposed-to-the-minority-language/

This article has a lot of great tips when it's the non primary caregiver passing on the minority language. If you're going back to work and it's the nanny looking after bub, then it's almost the same situation where the nanny is exposing mostly English to your child so you need to find ways to combat that. Have a read. It's a great article. I bought a Bao Bao Chinese nursery rhymes books for my friend in the UK and she told me her daughter LOVES IT and will play it at all hours. So much so their nanny, who is Portuguese, ended up knowing all the songs as well and will sing with her. So yeah. You can definitely supplement and ask the nanny to provide more exposure with nursery rhymes books. On YouTube, there's actually A LOT of videos of people reading kids Chinese books while flipping the page so you could ask your nanny to show some of that as book reading time.

RE mums - haha! I hear you! Do what's tolerable for you!

Anyways, good luck! And happy to help and to trade tips.
 
@aldredian Sorry for the late reply and thanks for the detailed explanations on the soft shut down method. It makes a lot of sense and I also shared it with my husband. Obviously I can’t test this until the baby starts to talk, but I’m using some of the mindset to have one sided conversation with him now.

After one week of being conscious about talking in Chinese in front of my husband, I’m slowly improving but I still use English here and there especially when he talked to me. But I’m getting a bit awkward talking Chinese in front of him.

I think I’ll just need to try harder and maybe I can find a good Chinese nanny. I’ll be in touch to share my experience and ideas for sure 🙏
 
@ghag17 When I was taking Mandarin in high school and later university, I knew odds were not in my favour that I'd find a partner who could speak Mandarin, so if I wanted to "keep" my Mandarin, I'd have to find a way to do so. (I did end up with a hubby who is fantastic, but alas, monolingual.) That put me on a fairly wide search over the years; buying textbooks for myself in China and in Canada as well as Mandarin or bilingual children's books, and so on.

It helped when I became a certified English as a second/additional language teacher (my native language) and taught for over a decade, because that informed how I approached self-study. I found that not a lot of materials out there had the features I wanted - simple changes that could increase my enjoyment of the materials and the pace at which I was learning from them. So I eventually got to the point, years later, where I was able to produce what I had in my mind, not just in terms of storybooks but also study materials and a vocabulary practice method that I love.

Another reason I wanted to create materials with these specific features was that the differences -and similarities- between Mandarin and English were (and are) fascinating to me and I wanted to make Mandarin and English feel more accessible to speakers and students of each language. So when I read that your husband is able to try a little Chinese, maybe my Text Scaffolding feature is exactly what a couple such as you two would love. My bilingual children's books don't have the two languages separated on each page (Text Scaffolding presents the text differently), meaning there is more potential for you to read the same book, at the same time, as a family in such a way that no one gets lost. I have a Youtube video that explains Text Scaffolding, which might be handy to you
. That, or my website littlecrabpress.ca (We are on Amazon but it's a jungle out there, lol. Also I don't really understand how Amazon sets its categories especially as they should pertain to children's Mandarin books. It's not like I haven't tried to understand and follow the changes, but the bottom line is I don't think all possible relevant items make it into lots of search results. There isn't even really a proper category for bilingual kids' books. We are forced into more "textbook" type categories. It's a wonder we've ever been found via Amazon search, really.). Oh! Another option is to go on instagram @littlecrabpress and then follow all the Mandarin book authors I follow...that will get you some advance info on what books are coming out, where, when, by whom and what they are about through a more enjoyable experience (people's fun reels and stories) than scrolling Amazon is anyway!

As for the "should I bother talking or reading to my newborn while he's dozing etc." All I can say is I knew I wasn't going to have the resources to teach my first born Mandarin, but I think, as my high school Mandarin teacher's poster on her wall said, "Monolingualism can be cured." and therefore, I spoke Mandarin at times to him until he was old enough to get into French immersion, which I did have the resources for. I think singing and speaking to him in Mandarin, teaching him to count in a pretty perfect accent for a little kid, helped prepare him to just be open-minded about new languages and new sound information. So I say you absolutely cannot go wrong with immersing your child in your voice speaking or singing Mandarin. Even if they grow up to be fluent in....well...anything else instead, you probably are paving the way for them to be "cured of monolingualism"! [The most important thing - allow yourself some grace if you are just not up for it on some days! You are not a robot. :) ]
 
@ghag17 In addition to what's already been posted, other resources to help you locate local resources:

-other Chinese-speaking parents at playgrounds/events (I've gotten home daycare recommendations, nanny information)

-Chinese forums/message boards

-Facebook, Reddit, social media

We live in the San Francisco Bay Area and we found a private foundation located 10min away from us with a library full of Chinese kid's books. For $50 annual membership we could check ten books out at a time for three weeks. The quality is fantastic.

Re: awkwardness, you'll get over it very quickly. The main thing is getting your husband on board with the importance of bilingual upbringing (if it is indeed important to you). I speak Mandarin exclusively to my son, and my husband speaks exclusively Russian. We speak English to each other. We respond to whatever language he speaks at the moment in our respective language, as MikiRei said. Honestly I forget how confusing this much appear to outsiders, because it's now so natural to us. At the moment we don't feel that there's a communication barrier among the three of us at all.

Our son is 19mo and his vocabulary is now around 70-100 words; I'd say a good 80% of that is in Mandarin or Russian. He's quite expressive for his age, and even picking up Spanish from some of his daycare teachers.
 
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