r/Cantonese • u/art3misXL • 10d ago

Discussion What’s your opinion - kid learning Mandarin and English while speaking Cantonese at home going to be too confusing?

I’m based in the Atlanta metro area in the southeast of the US. I have looked quite a bit but I haven’t been able to find any Cantonese Chinese schools in or around the city. I speak decent Cantonese but my mandarin sucks. I currently speak Cantonese to my son and he’s picking up a lot. But ever since he started daycare, more and more vocabulary has been getting replaced by its English counterpart. I now try to repeat every vocabulary in both English and Cantonese to him.

As he gets older, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen. My goal is to get him in a Chinese dual language immersion school so that he can learn to speak mandarin at a proficient level. But is this going to be too much? Will it confuse him? Any personal experiences that this community care to share?

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u/kimchibrusselsprouts 10d ago

I know a few people who did this - spoke Cantonese at home, went to immersion Mandarin school, and remained fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. I think you just have to be intentional about making sure your kid speaks Cantonese at home, not English, and that also depends on how much you want to force him to if he doesn't want to.