School selection?

autumn82

Well-Known Member
Haha! Not stressed talking to my wife lah....My english not TAT bad ok... my sis also teaches english in private sch... TELL me abt it....
later I go ask her abt "wednesday"....
Only thing is my gal's english is better than her chinese... I'm supposed to be teaching her chinese at home... but then... my wife's chinese also better than mine... she reads the chinese papers... I don't! HAHA!
Hmm... Just leave the teaching to ur DW. U concentrate on playing with DD then. :tlaugh:
 
daddy D : yeah, u're lucky man... can just play with ur baby and need not worry about the teaching part lah...

my hubby's chinese is better than mine, cos I can't recognise most of the characters liao...but the downside is...he is better at using traditional characters! hahaha...so back to square one... i think my baby boy will speak mandarin, but in a way illiterate by school's standards!
hahahha
 

Daddy D

Alpha Male
We speak mandarin most time at home. Don't know how to teach English also.
I think it's has to be balanced out.... at home, I speak to my gal in Chinese... my wife speaks to her in English.... but if the parent not good in either language, better dun try... else hard to undo the bad language later.

My gal dun like my story-telling in Chinese... so too bad lor... I get to idle... my DW does all the story-telling... most in English... sometimes in Chinese.

Then my mum speaks to my gal.... fish in chinese... "HEE"... instead of "YU".... fire in chinese.... "FUO"... instead of "HUO".... SIBEI FUNNY :)
 
language development is rather fun actually...

i want my mom to speak to baby in dialect in future... cos i think dialect does come in useful
 

Daddy D

Alpha Male
language development is rather fun actually...

i want my mom to speak to baby in dialect in future... cos i think dialect does come in useful
Ya... my mum speaks dialect to my gal sometimes... she repeats at times..... quite cute... e.g. wet = DAM DAM in hokkien....

Sometimes I say SHIT.... she also repeats... shucks! :p
 

Funz

Member
We speak mainly English at home even with their granparents. So much so that my kids keep insisting that they are English and not Chinese. Dh & I had an understanding previously. I will coach my kids English and he Chinese. My Chinese really half baked. I can speak but reading and writing a bit poor.

Recently, DD asked DH is left or right cos her teacher asked her to trace her左手. DH wrote the characters 左右 out but proceeded to teach her the opposite!!! We ended up arguing cos he said he is very sure that he is right. In the end I told him to go check on the web. He came out and quietly say yah u r right. But I was taught the other way mah. Then he went to tell DD and DD told him nevermind oredi daddy, I trace both hands. Tmrw I give laoshi both then she can pick the correct one herself.

There were a few more such incidents. He tried using mainly mandarin with DD but when he went like "me(4)" instead of "ma(1)" when he wanted dd to wipe the table and "xue(2)" instead of "xie(2)" when referring to shoes, I decided to put a stop to him speaking mandarin to my kids.

Now I enrol them in Tien Hsia to expose them to more Chinese since our home environment is limited where Chinese is concerned.
 

Daddy D

Alpha Male
Dun be so hard on your hubby lah... just need to correct each other...

I also cannot get my NorthSouthEastWest and DongNanXiBei correct at times... dunno y they not in the same clockwise sequence??!! Very confusing esp when playing mahjong! HAHA!

I have a bad impression on Chinese speaking Natives.... call me racist lah... They just speaks their mother tongue, but does tat make them good teachers? Dun think I want my kid to pick up their Native slang.
I think I read too many articles on Li Jiawei... and the China gal waiting for Edison at the airport.... DUH
 

VroomVroomBoys

Alpha Male
obscurestloh said:
in phonetics, flower got /au/ sound...so if the "W" is being exaggerated, it is very awkward and yeah...wrong...but i think if u don't overdo it, and people understand u, it is alright..

how do you pronounce water?

i have heard "wah ter"...that one, super "wah piang"!

oh yeah, i must add on, and emphasize, i am using phonetics hor...not phonics ah!
different !
Actually, I think the focus on correct pronunciation as good English is over-rated, if not erroneous in the first place.
Pronunciation differs, depending on whether you are in the UK or the US ... for that matter, even when in different parts of the UK or the US respectively.

More importantly, parents should focus on differentiating between nouns vs verbs when speaking English to their children ... for example: advice vs advise, bath vs bathe, breath vs breathe, etc.
For the child to pick up the correct stuff, you just really have to concentrate on "saying what you really mean & meaning what you really say".

In conclusion, jumping on your wagon, parents like us should be teaching the child to say "Would you like to have a drink?", instead of "You wanna drink wah ter or not?"
:wink: :wink:
 
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VroomVroomBoys

Alpha Male
Daddy D said:
I also cannot get my NorthSouthEastWest and DongNanXiBei correct at times... dunno y they not in the same clockwise sequence??!! Very confusing esp when playing mahjong! HAHA!
Then, all the more you should get the extra practices on the mahjong table lor. :rofl: :rofl:
But since you asked ... the angmos set NorthSouthEastWest based on the magnetic field while our ancestors set 东南西北 based on the direction of sunrise.
So, it's all a question of cultural differences ... if everything can be unified so simply, then we also dun hafta re-adapt between left-hand-drive & right-hand-drive lor. :rofl: :rofl:

Daddy D said:
I have a bad impression on Chinese speaking Natives.... call me racist lah... They just speaks their mother tongue, but does tat make them good teachers? Dun think I want my kid to pick up their Native slang.
I think I read too many articles on Li Jiawei... and the China gal waiting for Edison at the airport.... DUH
Wun call you a racist ... but in all honesty, I think WE are actually the more laughable lot. Come on, our own mother tongue also cannot master ... otherwise, also dun need foreign talent liao lor. :rofl: :rofl:
 

peanuts

Member
Frankly speaking i also feel Singapore children speaks Singlish i/o correct English.My nephew once says "bo leg" after a while then i realise he is trying to say brake

Here children always say sentences like "dun wan la"..."ok lor"...

Btw, Vroom Vroom boy when i first see your post your English impress me...for a moment i thought u are an "ang mo" heehee i wrote Singlish or if your occupation is a British council teacher.
 
vroom vroom....u know what the prob is when i go "whens day".... i have like act smart parents trying to correct me "oh u mean "where nurse day" ah teacher?"

and can see that they must be thinking...this china looking teacher dare to teach my children english ah...:shyxxx:
 

VroomVroomBoys

Alpha Male
peanuts said:
Btw, Vroom Vroom boy when i first see your post your English impress me...for a moment i thought u are an "ang mo" heehee i wrote Singlish or if your occupation is a British council teacher.
Hahaha ... if I had posted in Chinese, you'd be wondering if I was one of those PRC whom Daddy_D cannot stand. :rofl: :rofl:
Actually, I just love languages (including dialects) ... fortunate enough to learn from the right teachers in school to have the right foundations in English & Chinese ... then, was offered Japanese in secondary school ... then, had the opportunity to be trained 3 years in Germany & picked up the language as well.
Vocationally, I'm globally recognised as a qualified translator ... I'm still freelancing but in the current climate, quite 赚无吃 lor.

peanuts said:
Frankly speaking i also feel Singapore children speaks Singlish i/o correct English.My nephew once says "bo leg" after a while then i realise he is trying to say brake

Here children always say sentences like "dun wan la"..."ok lor"...
If your nephew do that, it's becoz people (maybe even adults) around him do that ... similarly, children say "dun wan la" becoz many adults around them also do so. To the children, they see whatever the adults do as being "endorsed".
In that sense, it's really our own responsibilities to keep reminding ourselves to do (& thus impart) the correct things to them.
But before anybody think otherwise, I must say I am no angel.
Where academic stuff is concerned, I strive to impart them with the convention ... ie, the absolute correct answers. Where life skills are concerned, I'm more extreme ... as I strive to teach them to street smart: for example, you wun find me telling them to offer the left cheek when they get slapped on the right cheek. :biggrin: :biggrin:


obscurestloh said:
vroom vroom....u know what the prob is when i go "whens day".... i have like act smart parents trying to correct me "oh u mean "where nurse day" ah teacher?"
I would say you should persist ... just remember this: Einstein, van Gogh, Mozart ... all of them were never appreciated by the majority of their peers but we all know what geniuses they are today. :laugh: :laugh:

obscurestloh said:
and can see that they must be thinking...this china looking teacher dare to teach my children english ah...:shyxxx:
Lots of Sillyporeans think too highly of themselves ... so why bother to lose sleep over what they think?
More importantly, do what you deem is right. :wink: :wink:
 
hmmm i think it's all about the environment they are in... not so on the teachers.... because teachers will have to speak properly.... cant be broken english... they do need to have a certain standard in order to pass their diploma to teach don't they?

but with the kind of sch mates, it will determine the way ur kid will speak......

last time my son don't speak singlish.... now he does...... sigh~~ but i think that's the way he can blend in with the rest.....
 

VroomVroomBoys

Alpha Male
Wayne's Mama said:
but with the kind of sch mates, it will determine the way ur kid will speak......

last time my son don't speak singlish.... now he does...... sigh~~ but i think that's the way he can blend in with the rest.....
Kids are like sponge ... they just soak up everything.
To them, there's no differentiation between English & Singlish ...

Still gonna repeat what I said previously ... we, as parents, have to make sure we try our best to speak correct English & Mandarin. As long as that happens, I see no problems with our kids picking up Singlish. In contrast, it will be a problem if Singlish is the only language the kid ever knows.
:wink: :wink:
 
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