I was home today shaving when my wife called from work. My son answered the phone, chatted with Mom for a bit. She asked for me, in Chinese. He said,“Mom wants to talk to you” in English to me. I said, “Tell her I’m shaving right now.” He told her immediately, in Chinese.
I thought this was wonderful. His translation is dead on and fast.
On a side note, he also said, when we got into the car:
“Door.
Lock.
Please.”
Does your kid talk like you post??
My kid spontaneously imitates hexuan’s accent and speaking style. He also spontaneously mimics Dofu’s coughing and choking sounds made after he drinks water… and he mimics Dofu’s snorting sounds.
He does a mean imitation of A-bien, too. Spontaneously, of course.
LOL! Beautiful! Something for we young 'uns to look forward to.
[quote=“jdsmith”]I was home today shaving when my wife called from work. My son answered the phone, chatted with Mom for a bit. She asked for me, in Chinese. He said,“Mom wants to talk to you” in English to me. I said, “Tell her I’m shaving right now.” He told her immediately, in Chinese.
I thought this was wonderful. His translation is dead on and fast.
[/quote]
Yes, my kid does that too, it’s fascinating isn’t it?
Have you ever noticed Chinese interfering with your kids’ English? This happens on occasion - things like ‘open the light’. I usually correct by repeating what he said as a question, as in ‘You mean you want me to turn on the light?’
And what about mixing? My son does this with his mum when speaking English and Chinese, throwing in words from the other language. It completely baffles the monoglot grandparents !
[quote=“jdsmith”]I was home today shaving when my wife called from work. My son answered the phone, chatted with Mom for a bit. She asked for me, in Chinese. He said,“Mom wants to talk to you” in English to me. I said, “Tell her I’m shaving right now.” He told her immediately, in Chinese.
I thought this was wonderful. His translation is dead on and fast.
On a side note, he also said, when we got into the car:
“Door.
Lock.
Please.”
Does your kid talk like you post??[/quote]
yep! mine does too! kids are highly adaptable…
and everynight…I would be told to…
“change into PJ,
brush teeth,
wash face,
and sleep with me!” it’s almost an order! 
I think that’s the best approach, because I do it too. 
And I usually make him say it again the right way. Vicious bastard I am.
I think that’s the best approach, because I do it too.
And I usually make him say it again the right way. Vicious bastard I am.[/quote][/quote]
My daughter does the full-on translation thing, and sometimes even forgets that I speak Chinese, sort of half-consciously giving me the English version of what someone else is saying.
I’m the same as JD, moreso as she gets bigger and it becomes more important.
But she keeps her languages completely separate, unless she has an unknown vocabulary.
It’s a bit of a struggle, sometimes, since her Chinese construction of english words can be unbearably cute…
One that’s REAL tough to break her of is when she asks about an English word she doesn’t know:
"Dad, what’s call election fraud?
Too cute.
Or maybe just for me.
My little one can spontaneously urinate.
Richard, we’re talking about our children, stay on topic please.
What JD said…and yes, my daughter can spontaneously translate “urinate”…and likes to pee like a boy to crack her Ma and me up…but I guess that’s a different kind of trans-lation…
My boy translates…
Why? “No reason” becomes, “No why”
That’s actually a good thing.
I met an American father in Taichung whose elementary-school-aged daughters only spoke Chinese to him because they knew he could understand Chinese. They rarely spoke English because they didn’t want to and didn’t need to. Their dad spoke English to them and they only replied in Chinese.
All trans-urination issues aside, when we were expecting, a very good friend who’s in the (legitimate) ESL publishing game told me about this established learning model, the name of which I’ve since long forgotten.
The model proscribes, for at least the first 4 or 5 years or so, each parent communicating with the child in only their native language (This may seem like common sense, but you might be surprised at how often it requires a conscious effort).
The model claims that strict adherence to this pattern is the most effective way to ingrain both languages into the child’s speech capabilities.
We have certainly found this to be true, there’s no question that the chieflette has two equally functional native languages, and never even showed any awareness of the difference between the two until she was like 4 1/2 or so.
I believe it’s called OPOL in the literature: one parent one langiuage. In fact, there are many language learning models for kids in bilingual families. They all have pros and cons. The con with the OPOL model is that in many families Daddy is at work for most of the day and so the child actually gets relatively little exposure to that language.
We did English only at home for the first 5 years…Worked well for us. 
My kid is now making his Chinese into plural form by adding “s” to everything in Chinese. Yes, I know, we don’t do that in Chinese. He doesn’t know that yet.
juice, this is too right.
The burden on me was increased, and I had to make a lot more conscious effort to maximise my English input time with the keed.
Interesting subject. At 18 months, my girl’s only starting to create two word sentences, so I haven’t experienced yet what you’re all talking about, but I look forward to it.
It does require serious effort. Although I’ve been here 6 years, my Chinese is extremely basic, but I’ll often speak to my girl in Chinese, rather than English, despite my wife telling me to use English. It may be partly because I’ve grown accustomed to hearing certain words (bottle, sleep, dog, bath, don’t want, etc) in Chinese rather than English and because, even before she was born I tried to use my lousy Chinese as much as possible in order to improve it. Maybe I should try harder to use English only, but I find it very difficult. But somehow I don’t think I will cause irreparable harm.
Really??? What does that mean? Does she pee standing up? Is that possible for a girl (without it running down her legs)?
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Interesting subject. At 18 months, my girl’s only starting to create two word sentences, so I haven’t experienced yet what you’re all talking about, but I look forward to it.
It does require serious effort. Although I’ve been here 6 years, my Chinese is extremely basic, but I’ll often speak to my girl in Chinese, rather than English, despite my wife telling me to use English. It may be partly because I’ve grown accustomed to hearing certain words (bottle, sleep, dog, bath, don’t want, etc) in Chinese rather than English and because, even before she was born I tried to use my lousy Chinese as much as possible in order to improve it. Maybe I should try harder to use English only, but I find it very difficult. But somehow I don’t think I will cause irreparable harm.
Really??? What does that mean? Does she pee standing up? Is that possible for a girl (without it running down her legs)?[/quote]
I don’t think you’ll do any harm, but my question is why not? We spoke English and Chinese to our son. After a while, when he started speaking, it was about even. Then he spoke much more Chinese. Then I wigged out and worried that he wouldn’t be able to communicate with me very well in English. But he caught up and now has little things that trip him up, like “Close the light” but no big deals.
The main thing is this really. READ to your daughter every day for as long as she will allow. Talk about everything under the sun with her, everything you do. There shouldn’t be a problem. This is particularly useful if you have to be away from home a lot when she’s little.
peace