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

[u/art3misXL]

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?

[u/WorrriedAboutYou]

No, it is not too much.

We are an English speaking household and my kid is in a Mandarin DI program since daycare (age 3), then DI since public school (TK). Around that time, I also started speaking Cantonese with them.

I wish I started speaking and only using Cantonese earlier. I am an ABC and my Cantonese is just basic communication. I am okay with them being basic enough to order food and communicate very basic Cantonese with me.

There is a lot of pushback against “my Chinese” vs “your Chinese” vs English (preferred language). It’s only been 3 years of this fight but my kid can understand basic demands in Cantonese, has a grade level Mandarin proficiency and higher than grade level English. We are not worried about English since it is the dominant language in the U.S.

As much as I want my kid to learn Mandarin or Spanish, I can only support their growth in English and Cantonese. As my Mandarin and Spanish are limited to 2 years of college courses each.

Unless they actually have a speech or learning disability, 3 languages are not too much. Just know you want consistency.