Reply to Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?

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Reply to " Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In regard to the comments regarding people needing to lie to compliment YY kids on their Chinese, don't people do this in every language? I frequently hear people complimenting others who are obviously learning English on how well they are doing. I take another language that I started as an adult, and I have received very undeserved compliments from speakers of that language.

I think it is common for speakers of any language to complement others who are learning that language, both to be polite and encouraging. This not at all something that is unique to Chinese speakers in talking to kids from YY.
[/quote]

A lot of native speakers are pleasantly surprised when they see a child that they expect to be a non-native speaker of that language speaking with a great accent and pretty good grammar in their own language. Often, kids sound really good in more basic language because they can pick up a native accent so easily when they start young. Usually, they have very limited vocabulary, though, in the language they are acquiring. So some people may be genuinely impressed. Others are trying to be nice.

We are at LAMB. DC learns Spanish from his mother and I support by speaking to his mother in Spanish too. As a non-native but fluent speaker, I am often pretty impressed by how well a lot of the English speaking LAMB kids speak Spanish - my wife complements these kids all the time. At the same time, I know that DC is head and shoulders above his close monolingual friends in Spanish (and a smidge behind in English) due to the constant chatting and learning new words from his mother.

I do think that it is easier to support Spanish for a whole host of reasons than Chinese. More people in the street speak Spanish so you have relevance. Many kids start learning Spanish at birth from nannies or in daycares. Tons of kids have at least one Spanish speaking parent. Relatives visiting from Spanish speaking countries. Aftercare is full Spanish immersion. Tons of books available in Spanish. Indeed, in DC's lower elementary class, about 70% of the class started out Spanish dominant. By 1st grade, it seems like most of the LAMB kids speak well enough to engage pretty well in the classroom with their teacher (and the Sp dominant kids are raising the level all the time). There is just no way to compare this level of language exposure to what you would get in a Yu Ying type setting.

I always wonder why people pretend there are not tradeoffs in every educational setting. The tradeoff of more Spanish dominant kids is that some kids have harder life circumstances and aren't as advanced in schoolwork. For Chinese, the tradeoff of learning a language that is so different from your own is that it is harder to learn -- but also more valuable. The tradeoff of [i]not [/i]learning Chinese (or Spanish) at a young age is that you will never be able to achieve a native Speaker accent. The tradeoff of spending time learning a language at a young age is that you may not understand some of your core subjects completely (those in the target language). The tradeoff of your child being truly bilingual in another language (w/ at least one parent speaking it) is that their English will be slightly delayed.

You can't have it all. [/quote]

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