Don't ever start with that wrong pronoucation 马迷(mǎ mí).

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General99all

New Member
Hi,
I don't understand why there are plentiful of educated parents who make their kids grow up to do that wrong pronoucation 马迷(mǎ mí) and all that kid's life. It didn't make sense..... if they can't do the correct pronouncation "妈咪(mā mī), then make is simple and right...Mom"(English version) and "妈(mā)"(Mandrian version). Comparing to HongKonger, Taiwanese and China national, I think we did pretty poorly in this and we yet we advertised to invite foreginer student to come and learn Languages. Even in the HongKong and Taiwan drama we saw on TV... they don't make such mistakes like our Singapore Drama. Each time I heard children shouting 马迷(mǎ mí), I felt so ashame especially during my overseas trip. If you are overseas and you heard kids shouting 马迷(mǎ mí), instantly you could pointed out that that family is Singaporean because lots of Singaporean can't have the pronouncation right.

I cherish my daughter's childhood to have quality input and great fun not garbage in garbage out and wasting childhood correct mistakes. They are innocent and if adult treats them like a new PC, load in right softwares etc.. they picked up correct information in their daily life, this would greatly reduced their hardship in studying.

I find myself like 1 fighting against 20(Relatives and Neighbours) to prevent my toddler from picking this wrong pronoucation 马迷(mǎ mí) that would embarras me and her forever. I hope to alert parents from reframing wrong pronouncation and phases to their kids. I hope Singapore could fill with people with good lauguages skills to contribute to children building their language foundation.

Someday if MOE wants to do a give away questions by having this Han Yu Pin Test, bet 90% of the kids will lose these 2 marks for no good reason and this failure is a nation disgrace, then people will start to use their brains.

It is a challenge to pick up and learn grammatically correct English and Chinese and I fought very hard to keep my daughter away from the poverty of language. Having more correct pronoucation in our society also meant that parents saved hardship from correcting the kids when they pick up correct knowledge and skill easily, Life is much more fun and less tiring isn't it. Hope to win more parents into this and help building a better education ground for the innocent children.

Good Luck.
 
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rainbow123

New Member
Mummy :001_302: 马迷(mǎ mí) :001_302::001_302::001_302:

Being teaching her to address me "ma-ma" and daddy as "pa pa"
 
S

stonston

Well-Known Member
Before my son was born, my hubs and I wanted my boy to call us 'die1' and 'niang3'.
After he was born, I taught him to call me 妈妈 but my banana boy only wanted to call me 'mummy'. And thankfully, not 马迷！
 
G

General99all

New Member
Dear parents, thanks for your support.
The fact is, when a parent teaches their children their first mother tongue regardless English or Chinese or their own languages, didn't they tried their best to pronounce words correctly and loudly so that the child followed the lips and pick it up? Since this is the effort been delivered, (some parents checked the dictionary when they are uncertain about certain words before they teach their child) then why not to the these 2 words that your kid will say it at least 20 times a day and 50 yrs down the road. Does it makes senses.

If the person is not a chinese, they have difficuilities... that is no issue.
But if a chinese keep making mistakes on this... what does that means?
Learning chinese for every chinese word is the same concept, the character stroke, the yan yu pin yin and the meaning. Never in Chinese History that this particular word 妈咪(mā mī) should be read as 马迷(mǎ mí) but this is happening in Singapore to most educated household to the streets. Even the English prononucation "Mummy"... the last word "My", majority of kids drag the sound and lift to the 2nd pitch to be (mí) in Han yu pin yu.

It is Ironic that when you watch any China, HongKong and Taiwan drama. None of these 3 countries having greater chinese population having such issue, regardless how strong their cantonese or Honnkien they are. Appreciate if more people could pay more attention to the dialotgue, you could find the children could pronounce these 2 words in correct prononucation and very naturally... it didn't sound weird or funny. not like cat or nightclud mama san.

I know of senior home tutors (8 to 12 yrs experiences) teaching chinese making mistakes in this too. How would you rate this?

There are many parents who pump in $ and effort to secure good pre-school, primary...etc. But if the environment is still filled with educated parents who speaks Singlish or having wrong pronouncatin all the time. The child will be conditioned and influenced by the environment and didn't have the desire outcome. Parents hardship and effort go to vain. We can't stop what other family does but we can't beat the environmnet from turning against us.

So long as every day we earned 1 more parents to come to their awarness or consideration, the environment will improve.

Comparing a pre-school fee of a couple of hundreds to those international pre-school fee of more than a thousand... why does parents willing to do that? Because parents wants to keep wrong pronouncation and singlish from their kids. Do play a apart... it is a chain re-action. Good luck.
 
R

rainbow123

New Member
I agree . This is a vicious cycle . That's why we are stuck in this loop .
The ones teaching us is wrong in the first place. :001_302: . Not to push the blame though . Already out of school .
Going to teach my baby , Father and Mother instead . Since that is what i address my parents too . Better to be right than wrong .. :shyxxx:
 
V

vivienshoshanna

Member
most adults will talk to babies in a baby talking way, but some of my teachers said that it is not advisable for it could affect the way of their speech.
 
G

General99all

New Member
Dear Sweetie,
Thanks for your support. Don’t meant to be rude… just FYI.

The word “Mother” and “Father” describe a relationship, not very appropriate to be used to address someone.
Eg. “Husband” and “Wife”. The Husband address his wife “Jenny”.
Eg. “Grandpa”, the boy shouted to his grandfather.
I understood how hard and challenging for us to pick up right phrases and correct information, that is why it is important to pass this on to friends and more parents to stop this vicious cycle. Let more people realize where we are and start building language foundation.

I didn’t want to cause any unhappiness but today though Singapore(having much more foreigner than before), even professional Chinese Teacher(China National) are now teaching in Child Care, the society is still filled with many educated local with massive mistakes in their speech and they passed it on to their children.

Eg. If the child learnt to ask “ [FONT=&#23435]妈[/FONT][FONT=&#23435]!明天我不用上学,你上不上班? 我想去…”[/FONT] is this consider good or people prefer for “[FONT=&#23435]马迷[/FONT][FONT=&#23435], 我明天没有读书, 你有没有去做工[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']? [/FONT][FONT=&#23435]我要去[/FONT][FONT=&#23435]…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&#23435][/FONT]
When we reflected poorly on our languages skill (locally and overseas), hurt our image and will be very embarrassed. Some parents spent $$$(courses and programmes) to build their kids confident, that is because the environment is turning against us. The quality of material/source contributes to the children confident. If they have been receiving all the correct stuffs, they will not feel ashamed or embarrassed and could act braver. If they didn’t get much chances of using wrong phrases and making wrong pronouncation, they are perfect cut to go abroad or globally when they grow up.

Save all unnecessary embarrassment, start from young and parents played an important role to groom their children. Pass it on, let’s all benefits from our effort.</SPAN>

For a better tomorrow!!!!
 
catherlyn

catherlyn

Member
Do u mean pple say 马咪 instead of 妈咪 for mummy? Or they should not call their mum "mummy" at all? I don't c anything wrong in the call calling their mum mummy ah. I also call my mum mummy, my hub also call his mum mummy. There r so many ways of addressing, 娘，娘亲 etc etc as long as the respect is there I don c that is anything wrong.
 
paull

paull

New Member
ya i agree with cat, it's up to u wat u wanna call ur mum right?
if this means that our english is not up to the standard, den wat abt ang mo who call their gf or wife 'baby'? does this means that they dunno the different between adult and baby?

even if u call ur mum as 'mummy' at hm, when u speak to ur frens, wld u still refer ur mum as 'mummy'? eg 'My mummy say i got to reach hm at 10pm'.

No right? We's still refer her as 'My mum/ mother says i got to reach home at 10pm'

Sorry ar, no hard feelings, cuz i married a Singaporean, not a china man. btw, i dun think calling my mum 'mummy' affect my studies in anyway though, i still got As in my mother tongue =)
 
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General99all

New Member
Dear Readers,
Thank you for your concern. Yah... I agree there is no hard feelings and Just like to clarify certain points.
Earlier, some friends mentioned that they preferred to call their parents, “Mother” and “Father”… There is nothing wrong with it as long as you know the reason.

An American friend was shopping in Carrefour and a boy said “Excuse me. Uncle.” He asked why the boy was calling him “Uncle” when they were perfect strangers. I explained that though Singapore’s first language was English(means we know how to use English correctly), but in Asia, it is a common practice for kids to address older man as “Uncle” and woman as “Anuti” even though they were not related. It is just a form of courtesy. Then, he asked how about relatives and I explained many kids were taught to address their older relatives by their relationship status and position in the family..eg. 3rd Uncle, etc… not having to know their names. He understood right away felt that the kids here are so polite.

Yah.. eg. I know that “Mother” is actually describing our relationship but I didn’t call her “Mum/Mommy/Mummy”……because it is common for us to call by our relationship status.

Children could address their parents in whichever way they like(this applied to grown up and provided they knows) but Toddler were trained with the wrong pronunciation since they start to learn to speak. Many kids(even when grown up) are still unable to change pass it down to the next generation… this is the issue now . The greatest problem is they didn’t know the correct pronunciation at all and for 2 generations. So the adult is the one who contribute to this. This is also a sign that in this society, majority practiced wrong pronunciation to the extent that it is very hard to find the correct one and pick it up. The best example is Toddler here were taught to pronounce [FONT=&#23435]妈咪([/FONT]mā mī) wrongly as [FONT=&#23435]马迷([/FONT]mǎ mí)[FONT=&#23435]. [/FONT]What is the hit rate for the Toddlers to be taught the correct pronunciation for these 2 words? This is a good an exam question for Primary one Chinese and how confident are you that most kids are earning these 2 marks of losing them?

Just in case people don’t know…This word “[FONT=&#23435]妈"[/FONT](mā), when taught to a Toddler for the very first time, is pronuocated as “Mā” and the character is made up of a woman”[FONT=&#23435]女" [/FONT]and a horse "[FONT=&#23435]马". [/FONT]Learning the Chinese language, we could not leave out the "[FONT=&#23435]边"[/FONT].

When people say [FONT=&#23435]马咪[/FONT](mǎ mī), this is must not be Chinese but if someone insisted that this is Chinese, what do you think? Some Chinese teachers would be mad if we use a horse for our mothers. “[FONT=&#23435]妈"([/FONT]mā) Vs "[FONT=&#23435]马"([/FONT]mǎ),“[FONT=&#23435]迷"(mí) Vs [/FONT]“[FONT=&#23435]咪"([/FONT]mī). They are different in pronunciation. When educated parents taught their kids the right pronunciation in their best knowledge, they should be clear to have taught "[FONT=&#23435]妈" [/FONT]or "[FONT=&#23435]妈妈" [/FONT]or "[FONT=&#23435]妈咪"[/FONT] with correct pronunciation. Some people couldn’t agree more but of course there are many people who felt that there is no need to be so correct… roughly there is good already.… This is two different perception

Some parents aren’t educated, they used their dialect pronunciation(Eg. Hokkein) and this is perfect because the kids are clear and could different between dialect and Chinese and knows the correct pin yin in Chinese. There is 3 points delivered here….As long as you are clear and could explain(provided you know where you are coming from), what is the problem?

It is very interesting that when a kid comes home and start saying “I no have”! They will be taught to say “I don’t have it”…. “no have is not correct"…etc. But why is there so much objection for saying the correct version of "[FONT=&#23435]妈咪"[/FONT][FONT=&#23435]? [/FONT]Give a thought.

Do be observant and see how unclear and confusing many parents are and have contributed to the standard of languages skill in this society. It is very painful for the environment to turn against those parents who invested $ and effort to build good language foundation for their children. Pass it on the more parents and friend you know… this is a chain reaction…. As long less people is keen to use correct and teach the correct pronunciation, the mistakes would replicate and to their grandkids.

Good Luck!
 
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General99all

New Member
Thanks to all parents who are accessing the educational material and teaching right things to their children.... our home ten year from now is sure a better place and there is better chances of picking up languages skills even along the streets.
When I was young and I hated Chinese and now I have forgotten the strokes for many chinese words.. hence, I have been learning a few chinese words once every 2 nights. I even bought the Chinese charaters stroke chart and study myself before my daughter found out that I can't write when she gets older. Well, when I went to big bookstore at clementi... there are many charts which I wanted to buy....

i happened to find some free charts online.... hope you enjoy it.

http://chinasprout.com/shop/BLP146

Don't short-change the talent and skills for your kids... start from the parents...
Good Luck!
 
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