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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP,

DCUM is not the right place to have this discussion. Most posters never force their kids to do anything, and have an unhealthy fixation on sports.

[b]Being proficient[/b] in Mandarin Chinese will be an asset for our children's generation. It will be easier if they learn as kids, and not as adults. Please do this for your children. When they're teens, they will understand the gift they've been given. Young kids never do, and yes, you will need to drag them to weekend school kicking and screaming. Too bad. There is a payoff at the end, and it's major. Even for college admissions, they will have an advantage.

We're not of Chinese ancestry, but I dragged my kids kicking and screaming to their native language school for years. As teens, they went willingly. They picked a different language at school, which meant that for college admissions, they had to all intents and purposes, two foreign languages, studied to AP level (one native, one non-native).

Our world is becoming more and more connected and China is the next Superpower. It's a no-brainer.

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My kids have been attending heritage language school since pre-k and I know the effort and the sacrifice that goes into it. I also know the heritage school on its own is nowhere enough without reading books, watching movies, speaking, and visiting home country for “immersion experience”.

Given what op mentioned in her post, OP’s kids will not become proficient simply because they won’t have chance to practice the language. Not even at home, which is already minimal given they spend at least 40 hours at school.

There are other options, like doing Duolingo or taking it in highschool, that will end up with same result for op given op’s specific circumstances.

The only benefit I see for op, is for kids to get to know their community, but there maybe other options for that for mandarin speakers outside of heritage language school.[/quote]

I entirely disagree that weekend language schools offer the equivalent of Duolingo or taking it in high school! That's a blatant lie. I am surrounded by families who attend their weekend native language schools (Mandarin, Japanese, French, German, Spanish) and even the kids who don't speak much at home are way ahead of those whose parents native speakers but who do not receive formal instruction. You cannot beat formal instruction in a language, PP. My kids go to the French school. They have better fluency, and a stronger vocabulary and grammar than a French family we know who never sent their kids to that school, but speak French at home and send their children to France in the summer. We speak Frenglish at home, and have never sent our kids to France in the summer.

Please don't spread disinformation like this.

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Don't take this the wrong way because I love French, but it is a very different language compared to Chinese. French is a language where you need to spend hours formally memorizing grammer conjugations. Chinese is not (there is no verb conjugation). French lends itself more easily to learning a couple hours on weekends both because of its similarity to English and its strong phonetic basis. Chinese is not at all phonics based. I really think Chinese takes much more dedication to get even the foundations compared to any romance-based language for English speakers. [/quote]

PP you replied to. Oh I entirely agree! But just because it’s harder doesn’t mean OP’s family shouldn’t try. The Japanese language school goes on all day, not just for half the day, for this reason. We have good Japanese, Korean and Chinese friends who invest in their heritage language. This is what OP should do. It’s worth it. The only families who regret something are the ones who didn’t try! We all have kids in college or high school, so I can give OP the perspective on the tail end of the school years. My college kid was well placed to take a 3000 level French class freshman year, which in turn gave him a leg up for a selective study abroad program at Sciences Po Paris, in French. I hear and understand that it takes more effort for Mandarin, but please… try. Persistence pays off. You think you’re starting from a position of relative weakness, but with persistence, your kid might run rings around the more bicultural speakers.

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