newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map
| Message 137 of 141 25 May 2014 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
Yes, it was mostly passive. I forgot to mention a big component was watching and listening to Mandarin
music. We did that almost daily from a very young age. I think that was really essential.
My son just turned 5 and my daughter 3. So even though they both started speaking at the same time their
ages are far apart. Part of it is probably because they experience some synergy but also that my daughter
always seemed more interested in Mandarin than my son.
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drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4468 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish
| Message 138 of 141 25 May 2014 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
Thank you, that was very informative :)
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newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map
| Message 139 of 141 26 May 2014 at 4:44am | IP Logged |
rdearman wrote:
Have a question for you, and hopefully it is applicaable to your log. You did your first
post here on 30 June 2007 at 9:44pm. In another 30 days or so it will be 7 years since you started?
So how is your Mandarin? Can you perhaps do a 7 year summary for those of us who might like to follow in
your footsteps?
Great work BTW, and very interesting log. |
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Thanks!
Wow, I definitely don't feel like I have learned enough for it being 7 years.
I am changing my study approach and will write about it when I return from vacation. It is a good suggestion
to summarize what my approach and what my successes and failures have been so I will also include them
as well.
Edited by newyorkeric on 26 May 2014 at 5:07am
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newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map
| Message 140 of 141 26 May 2014 at 4:54am | IP Logged |
drygramul,
The DVDs that we watched are called Fun with Karaoke (Chinese Mandarin Children Songs). There are
four discs that you can find on Amazon. We watched them so much I think we wore them out. The subtitles
are in simplified characters. I actually picked up quite a few characters from watching.
Edited by newyorkeric on 26 May 2014 at 4:59am
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drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4468 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish
| Message 141 of 141 26 May 2014 at 2:51pm | IP Logged |
I don't have yet children, but I'll keep it in mind for myself.
I just wanted to know if it's achievable, as I'm planning to learn mandarin for the next 10 years (and I have yet to start it). I always figured that will be a useful language to teach them, but as opposed to you, I won't be living in an environment with detectable exposure, and I won't learn it soon and good enough to teach someone.
The interest was kinda general. I am myself natively bilingual and I also know English and soon German, and it's hard to judge which one will be useful or absolutely needed at an early stage.
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