I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a native Chinese speaker and not fluent in the language. I can barely read or write it, but I’ve decided to teach my daughter Chinese. When my daughter was born I chose to speak to her immediately in Chinese and continuously do despite comments I get about her not understanding English when she goes to daycare. Babies learning early is a great start to help them boost their cognitive skills and problem solving skills and also gives them a better chance at learning the language and other languages. Earlier the better! and it’s never too late to start.
I was thinking for a few days on how to start this post because it’s just the basics of how I and my parents started teaching Chinese to my daughter. I used to take piano lessons and learning music is like learning another language too. Similarities from learning music and Chinese or another language can be created.
How I Started Teaching Chinese to My Daughter
I don’t know if you took any music lessons maybe in music class in school but by the end of the class we all learn the basics of all the notes and then string notes together. Same with learning Chinese we start with the basics and the core octave between middle c for the right hand and left hand. My parents chose few words that were in the environment around us that we could repeat to my daughter and she would pick up easily and link that this word meant that object or person.
Core Chinese Words Taught to my Daughter
The core first Chinese words we taught to my daughter were her family were:
- Her Chinese name
- Parents
- Grandparents (mom’s side)
- Grandparents (dad’s side)
- Great-Grandparents
- Pets – Dog/Cat (if any)
- Brothers (if any)
- Sisters (if any)
These words in Chinese were constantly repeated to her throughout her first months after she was born. If you noticed I only picked 8 – 8 notes in an octave. Ok I’m being lame haha but these are good words to start off your child to learn Chinese. Maybe I should create a Youtube video to repeat say these words too, but I’m kind of shy. So we will see if that comes to fruition. Anyways, these are the first few words that my parents and I repeated over and over and pointed so my daughter could associate the word to the person and understand that if you make this sound it would mean you are calling this person. At 1 month the baby is definitely not going to repeat these words back to you but in their brain they are already making correlations and trying to figure out the world around them. As the months go on and you keep repeating these words, you yourself will learn these words and/or partner if you only have one parents in the family that is bilingual. This is just the start. As the month’s go on, you add on to the basics and learn more as you go, but this is how I started teaching my daughter Chinese. I’m not a teacher or any type of professional educator. Please learn and/or teach at your own pace. Your child may learn quicker or slower, it does not matter. Life is all about learning, never stop.
Mommy Dragon