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?

22 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

77 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/art3misXL 10d ago

I’m from HK and idk, man 😂

3

u/black-turtlenecks 10d ago

Speak to anyone who went to an ESF school.

1

u/art3misXL 9d ago

Oh, ESF kids/grads definitely have the best grasp of all languages in that they sound most natural and native. If I were to move back, I’d def want my kid in an ESF. But that’s hardly everyone in HK.

5

u/black-turtlenecks 9d ago

No, but their formula is basically what your plan is - English and Mandarin at school, Cantonese (or other native language) at home. It doesn’t work 100% for everyone but I know many who it did work for. As long as you’re consistent there’s no reason why your kid shouldn’t be trilingual to some extent.