A little about myself
I’m a Canadian born Chinese, which means my grasp of the language is not the best. My parents are from Hong Kong and they chose to speak Chinese to my brother and I. We grew up with 2 chinese speaking parents and they also sent us to Chinese school. For those who went to Chinese school, you’ll know that, that doesn’t mean much. LOL. We did more play than actually learning.
Why I chose to teach Chinese to my daughter
Language is connection to a culture and I want my daughter to connect and learn. One of the best gifts my parents gave me was the opportunity to learn a different language. I’m grateful for many things and you really can’t put a price on knowledge. You can definitely learn another language when you are older which I find is almost impossible, doable for some but for others it’s difficult. That’s why I feel it’s my responsibility to pass on my language to the next generation. It would be sad to see the culture and language lost because I thought it was too hard to teach or for my lack of knowledge of the language. I’ll try my best to teach her and perhaps she will be even better than me. We might even learn more together!
Obstacles of teaching Chinese to my daughter
I won’t deny it, it will be difficult to teach my daughter Chinese. If she picks up a few words and retains the knowledge growing up it will be a miracle. My husband is Caucasian, so the only people she can learn Chinese from will be myself and my parents. In addition to that, I myself don’t speak Chinese the best and constantly ask my parents for help reading and understanding words in nursery rhymes.
Anyways, I hope that I will be able to teach Chinese to my daughter and be successful. Only time will tell if we learn anything together.
Mommy Dragon!