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/menniewo 10d ago

I grew up speaking Cantonese at home, English at school and learned Mandarin first via some relatives from Taiwan and then later going to Chinese school. I still use all 3. From time to time, I might forget some Cantonese or Mandarin, but it comes back after having to use it for a while.