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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op here. I and DH do speak Mandarin Chinese if one do not judge our pronunciation and tone. Native chinese can tell that our Mandarin Chinese is not our first language, but it is good enough that they understand what we speak.

My parents, my in-laws and DH all expect me to be the one teaching our kids Mandarin Chinese because I am the mom and I can read and write even though my pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese is worse than my DH. It is a lot of work on me. I have tried to teach my kids simple chinese vocabularies, they forgot. I have tried to speak to them in Mandarin Chinese, they completely ignore me because they do not understand. My kids seem quite stupid when it comes to forenign language learning part. I do not have any strategies to teach them at home unless someone can share. They do not have the passion to learn it, so the only way is me pushing and forcing them to learn it. [/quote]

A couple of thoughts:

-If your pronunciation and intonation is not good, it's not particularly helpful for them to hear you speak. It could even hurt. My parents spoke to me in their native (European) language as a child. I unfortunately did not retain it, but one thing I have is excellent pronunciation, I can roll my Rs and don't say things the American way, because I was exposed to the correct way as a child. It would probably be more helpful to your kids to just listen to movies and songs where people are speaking the language correctly.

-How did you learn Mandarin? Did your parents teach you? I am guessing not since they don't speak it, so how can they expect you to teach it to your kids? You're not a native speaker, but even if you were, you're not a language teacher either. It's ok to push back on an unreasonable request. Speaking to kids once in a while in your 3rd or 4th language that you don't pronounce properly or can't read and write in (your husband) is not realistic.

-Please don't call your kids stupid. This is counterintuitive. A lot of people (like me) have anxiety about speaking foreign languages. I cannot get the words out because I am second guessing what I'm saying, if I've conjugated the words correctly, if there's some grammatical exception I forgot, etc. As a result my speaking is very slow and stilted, and that makes me want to speak less and less. I realize Mandarin is different but I imagine psychologically it's the same. If you make your kids feel stupid, they will not utter one word because they don't want to be judged. They may understand more than you think, but they would rather just shut down and not participate.

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