https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:13:00 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-285888 Fri, 07 Sep 2012 09:35:03 +0000 Alivoo01 285888@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Lantern: I miss watching all the "peen japs" on TVB, especially the ones with Raymond. ha! I know I can get "fay choy toy" to get TVB, but I don't want to pay for that. Wish there was a better way to access them!</p> <p>@PurplePumps: Looks like I need to visit Boston to get my fill of Chinese! haha! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284448 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:19:46 +0000 Mrs. Lantern 284448@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Alivoo01: Oh TVB! I loved watching it...and always had a crush on Jacky Cheung lol. As a kid, I went to canto chinese school for 10 years and learned traditional chinese writing. Wish I had the reading/writing skills I had back then!</p> <p>@BoogieBea: Samers here...moved away from HK when I was 4. I went back to work there for a year after graduation. It has crossed my mind to go there for a few months during mat leave (canadian mat leave is a year) but I'll have to look into that some more :) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284315 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:16:11 +0000 PurplePumps 284315@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@sunny: I'm in Boston and it seems like the majority here, at least the ones I know, are Cantonese speakers.</p> <p>@Alivoo01: I went to Canto Chinese school when I was younger! They taught traditional Chinese writing too. But that was maybe 20 years ago... not sure what they have available now. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284279 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:52:02 +0000 BoogieBea 284279@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I grew up speaking cantonese. My husband is Taiwanese but his mandarin is worse than LOs english. I'm starting to speak more Cantonese with our kids and my parents speak to them in Cantonese when we Skype once a week. LO also just started preschool at a language immersion school that teaches entirely in mandarin. I hope husband and I can improve in our mandarin through his learning.</p> <p>@Mrs. Lantern: I was born in hk too. But came to the states very young. I've always wanted to live there. Maybe one day, but husband finds it too densely populated which is true. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284190 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:02:13 +0000 sunny 284190@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Alivoo01: its offered in Toronto, but I now live in Seattle. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284076 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:45:00 +0000 Alivoo01 284076@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@autumnlove: Yay for another Canto speaker!</p> <p>@Mrs. Lantern: That's so cool that you were born in Hong Kong!! When I was younger, I wanted to be a TVB actress. Ha!</p> <p>@sunny: I don't think I've ever heard of Canto school, but have heard plenty of Mandarin ones. Mandarain school is how I learned to speak, read, and write. Where are you located? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284027 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:07:25 +0000 Mrs. Lantern 284027@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Alivoo01: I'm pleasantly surprised too! I'm in Vancouver and it is canto dominant, but most other places are mandarin dominant. I was actually born in Hong Kong :) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-284022 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:05:19 +0000 sunny 284022@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Wow I am really surprised there are so many Cantonese speakers! I only know a few in my city. We have a huge mandarin speaking population here instead. There are no Cantonese schools here, just mandarin, so maybe baby and I should learn together!</p> <p>I'm trying to convince DH he should speak one of the 3 other languages he knows with baby, but hes not 100% sold yet. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283799 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 09:34:26 +0000 Andrea 283799@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Alivoo01: wow, you're right, so many Bees speak Canto. All my IRL friends are Mandarin! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283732 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 08:56:32 +0000 autumnlove 283732@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Alivoo01: I speak Cantonese too! :-) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283727 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 08:51:09 +0000 Alivoo01 283727@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No LO yet, but I plan on speaking Cantonese to him/her, and I'm sure hubby will speak Khmer. I understand some Khmer and use what I do know on a regular basis now so there might be a mixture of Khmer and Cantonese. Ha! I want our future LO to also speak/understand Mandarin so I will send thm to school for that. I also speak Mandarin, but not sure how I'll incorporate it. I don't want to overwhelm/confuse them. </p> <p>@Mrs. Lantern: @PurplePumps: @Andrea: @regberadaisy: I totally got giddy when I saw how many Bees spoke Canto!! It's rare for me to find someone that does. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283661 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:49:20 +0000 mrsjyw 283661@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I speak Korean fluently and my mom will be our primary care after I go back to work; so we're hoping to teach LO. DH is Caucasian and is looking into Rosetta Stone to keep up as well :) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283592 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:02:23 +0000 SugarplumsMom 283592@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I've heard that bilingual kids are usually delayed early on, but then they explode and catch up pretty quick. I knew a woman with a bilingual baby that was a little late in speaking. The daycare provider reassured her that it's nothing to worry about and she was right. So even if being bilingual will delay my LO in the beginning, if or us it'll be well worth it. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283589 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 03:17:18 +0000 mynoahbear 283589@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We speak to LO in English but since we are in tokyo, she hears and is spoken to in Japanese everyday. Most everyone LO interacts with, speaks Japanese. My mom also speaks to her in Japanese when we FaceTime. Once we leave Japan, I'd like for her to continue learning Japanese, both by having me speak to her in Japanese and also going to classes. </p> <p>Since our next move is to Beijing and LO is only 8 months old, I'm sure she will pick up some mandarin as well. I am slightly concerned as to how this will affect her speaking. Whether it will confuse her and delay her speech but I guess we can only wait and see. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283584 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:54:54 +0000 looch 283584@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@hilsy85: Go for it, you will learn just because they are speaking, I see my German getting better because of my husband speaking to our son. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283583 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:53:10 +0000 looch 283583@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I speak English to our son and my husband speaks German. Our son is 20 months and has some German words, like closed and more, but he has other words in English, like key and cocoa.</p> <p>My feeling is that at this point, children don't know it is 2 languages, it is just more words for the same thing. There are some people that think adding a second language causes delays in speech and I am still on the fence about it. I don't think it's so much about the number of words a child has at any point, it's more about how many words they add in a week or a month. Having said that, we're getting our son evaluated because I am not comfortable with his rate of adding words. Comprehension is clearly not his problem, because we can tell him in English or German to throw something away in the kitchen garbage and he does it every time.</p> <p>When he's older, he will go to German school to learn to read and write. I didn't learn how to do this in Italian and it is one of my biggest regrets. My son may hate it, but it will benefit him later one. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283582 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:48:42 +0000 banana 283582@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>same as @chopsuey. we speak English and korean but 75-80% of his vocab is korean. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283402 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:46:39 +0000 Mrs. Sunglasses 283402@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We've been speaking french/english to both kids since birth. Mavrick (now 26 months) understands both, talks a little of both but it's still gibberish at this point. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283359 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:03:31 +0000 wheres_c 283359@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I'm going to speak English to LO and so is going to speak Spanish. At around 4 or 5 I hope to also add French to the mix. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283325 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:26:25 +0000 spaniellove 283325@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@oliviaoblivia: I've heard of families where each parent is associated with a different language, and if you're going to do multiple languages that's a good arrangement. You'll probably both pick up enough of each other's languages as time goes on, too! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283273 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:40:01 +0000 chopsuey 283273@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I speak Korean and English to my Lo. About 80% of her vocabulary is Korean. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283250 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:46:26 +0000 oliviaoblivia 283250@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My plan is for hubs to teach her Mandarin and for me to teach her Spanish....I'm not sure how it'll work out seeing as he doesn't speak Spanish nor I Mandarin. It'll probably be easier to just do English, but I really want her to have fluency in multiple languages. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283248 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:43:23 +0000 regberadaisy 283248@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I want M to speak Cantonese so she can communicate with my mom. Off and on I speak Cantonese to her at home. Unfortunately my mom first live near by so I'm the only speaker on a routine basis.<br /> When she's older I do want her to learn mandarin as well.</p> <p>Children are like sponges! My niece speaks Cantonese quite fluently and can understand 2 other dialects. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283240 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:38:02 +0000 tequiero21 283240@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Parents and il speak Korean... We speak English. Will send them to Korean school when they r older... </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283222 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:10:41 +0000 Cole 283222@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I have toyed with speaking French at least part of the time with our future lo but I am not a native speaker and I am kind of on the fence. That being said, there have been studies showing that if you teach a child two languages at a young age even if they never hear that language again (once they have a good grasp) that later in life they will more readily learn a foreign language because of the way the language pathways in the brain are laid. So, I guess non native French might be better than just English! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283221 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:09:56 +0000 Andrea 283221@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My Cantonese isn't that great either but I want DD to learn Mandarin, not Cantonese anyway, so we are sending her to Mandarin school starting in a few weeks. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283217 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:03:54 +0000 Foodnerd81 283217@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I'd love our kids to learn another language from a very early age, but neither of us, or our families, speak anythign but English. Does a British accent count? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283215 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:59:12 +0000 PurplePumps 283215@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We dont have a LO yet , but I definitely plan on speaking Cantonese to him/her and hopefully have my parents a lot so that LO will hear conversations also instead of me just talking to him/her. My husband doesn't speak though so LO will get all the English he/she needs too. </p> <p>I saw a very interesting talk about infants and learning a while back.... It basically talks about how the study showed that infants are like a sponge and pick up on sounds and learn to distinguish and recognize them between 6 and 9 months, and after that, the ability to recognize different sounds drops a lot. I cant find the video, but the text version can be found here: <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/9096.long" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/9096.long</a> </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283212 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:56:20 +0000 Mrs. Lantern 283212@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DH and I plan to speak 75% cantonese/25% english to LO when they are young. I figured they'll quickly pick up english when they get to school! </p> <p>Now for DH and I to build the vocabulary to speak 75% cantonese is going to be the real challenge... LOL </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/second-languages#post-283204 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:40:55 +0000 hilsy85 283204@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We are trying to figure this out...DH wants LO to learn Russian, but I don't know if I feel comfortable with him only speaking Russian all the time to the baby, since I don't speak/understand Russian. </p>