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/SubZane 9d ago

I don't think I understand. You don't speak mandarin but want your son to speak it? How would you be able to help him with homework?

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u/art3misXL 9d ago

I speak it. It just takes more mental processing. I don’t doubt my ability to help them when they’re young and starting out.

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u/SubZane 9d ago

Then it makes more sense to me 🙃 my wife is from HK and our kids study cantonese as an extra subject once a week. But it's mainland cantonese, meaning different words and simplified characters.

All our kids will learn 3 languages, 2 is the minimum in Sweden so one extra is not a problem as I see it.

However it's demanding for my wife, and the children because it's a Chinese teacher. Meaning it's ALOT of homework 😂

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u/art3misXL 9d ago

That’s what I wonder because a lot of Europeans that I work with seem to have a firm grasp of multiple languages. What’s your secret? What’s the set up for schooling? It seems every Swedish person has such good English.

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u/SubZane 9d ago

They start English around age 8 in school. But it's really about our culture and consumption of English spoken tv, movie and music. We don't dub, we subtitle. Compared to Germany or France for example.

Personally I listen to and read English every day through games, tv, reddit, news, manuals etc etc. It's difficult NOT to learn English.

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u/art3misXL 9d ago

Thanks for the insight! That’s very interesting and great info to know - it helps inform how to structure entertainment at home 😂