Although my hubby and I speak English and Cantonese to each other, we only speak English with Ashley. I remember her paed told me that it is best that we speak only 1 language to her during this learning stage. Guess we’ll speak Cantonese to her when she’s older ;D Sometimes, Ashley likes to repeat after us and she sounded real funny speaking words in Cantonese.
Just the other day, when my hubby’s mobile phone rang, Ashley suddenly said, “Tin Wah“, which means telephone in Cantonese. LOL. She must have heard us using this word many times and wanted to inform us that the phone is ringing 😀
Very smart indeed..!
That is strange….on the contrary, bilingual experts say that from birth, if you want your child to excel in several languages, for each parent to speak to them only in a particular language all the time. For example, Daddy only speaks to Baby in Cantonese and Mummy only speaks to Baby in English and Daddy and Mummy can speak to each other in Mandarin or whatever language. I’ve seen this is practice and by the time the kid is two, they are already bilingual or multi-lingual. The problem comes when it is not practised consistently. As in when Mummy is supposed to speak to Baby only in English….but sometimes she also speaks to Baby in another language. Then this will make it slower for the child to start talking.