讲华语

One of the things we were most worried about when we moved back to Singapore was Sophie's (in)ability to pick up Chinese. Jude and I speak the language well enough I suppose but it doesn't come naturally to us, which means between just talking to Sophie in English and having to first translate whatever we want to say in Chinese in our heads before then saying it to her, we've always taken the easy way out. Also, people say your mother tongue is the language in which you dream and my dreams have never been in any other language but English (can you subtitle a dream? Freud? Christopher Nolan?).

But thankfully, Sophie's preschool has an excellent Chinese language programme (into which they're constantly researching and re-evaluating, which makes the education geek in me so happy). She also has great Chinese teachers who have been the paragon of patience when it comes to exposing Sophie to the language. They understand that she had almost zero exposure to the language before her third birthday and are taking things slow with her; but they also practice the principle that the only way to learn a language *is* to be saturated in it and so they speak to her almost exclusively in Chinese, necessitating that she learns to understand what they're saying to her.

Sophie's been a quick learner of the sounds of the language-- she can repeat phrases and even complete songs almost pitch perfectly. But for a long time, she had no idea what they mean. A month ago though, she started asking me what certain words in Chinese mean, words she hears often in school or that appear in stories that are read to her- 蝴蝶 (butterfly), 一起 (together), 朋友 (friend), for example and I was more than happy to translate them for her and then ask her again the next day to see if she remembers. Sometimes she does, often she doesn't, but the fact is that she's interested and that's more than we can ask for.

Then last week, her Chinese teacher tells me that they're starting to teach the kids how to recognize Chinese characters and sent home a little game for us to play with Sophie (her first homework assignment!!). She didn't yet have to be able to identify each word but the objective was just to familiarize her with them. Basically, we were supposed to place four Chinese characters on a grid and systematically take one away in turn, and see if Sophie can identify the one that's missing. The four words were:
口 (mouth)
人 (people)
小 (small)
大 (big)

Since Chinese characters are fundamentally pictograms, I told Sophie to look at the words and pretend that they're pictures-- the character for "mouth" looks like a mouth open wide, "people" is a person walking, "small" is like a small, skinny person standing straight, and "big" is a bigger person standing with his/her arms and legs stretched open. And it went BRILLIANTLY. I almost couldn't believe it. In 10 minutes, our child who until 6 months ago heard no word of Chinese (except on Ni-Hao Kai Lan on Nick Jr.) could not only pick out the right word when prompted, she could also produce the sound when I asked. I thought my heart would burst from sheer pride.



Jude and I take hope from this NYT article which we talk about all the time to our friends in similar situations, with children learning what is essentially for Sophie, a foreign language. It talks about how a foreign correspondent for the NYT basically transplanted his entire family from Brooklyn, NY to Moscow and enrolled his children in a Russian-only elementary school. The kids had to learn everything in Russian, a language they had never heard before. It was pure torture. But after five years in Moscow, the children not only spoke fluent, flawless Russian, but also developed a deep love and appreciation for the Russian life and culture. We can only hope the same for Sophie...

When I...

Sometime in June last year, Sophie and I had actually started planning a book project together. For some reason, we were talking a lot about our emotions then-- mostly to do with starting preschool and moving to Singapore-- and I asked if maybe she wanted to "write" a book on the emotions she felt. She got really excited and we took a series of photos as a start. But before we could do much more with it, the huge move loomed large and we had to put the project on hold.

Even when we arrived in Singapore, the last few months have been consumed by settling in, new jobs, new school, new schedule, the holidays, etc. And it wasn't until last week when we found any time to go back to the book project.

The "When I..." idea is mine but everything else (especially the purple) is all Sophie. Her experiences with these emotions are pretty typical of a three-year-old I guess: a combination of things that happen to her/us on a daily basis (fighting to read one more book before bedtime), things that are constantly on her mind (hating the idea of an injection at the doctor's), things that have recently become quite the preoccupation (visiting Ann Arbor), and things from favorite books (the part when the boat getting tossed about in the ocean in Oliver Jeffers' Lost and Found).

I used FlipSnack to make it into an online flip book but I'm looking into the different options of printing it as an actual book we can hold and read before bed. It was a fun experience for both Sophie and I and I'm already thinking of ideas for the sequel- a trilogy perhaps? :)

[click to read book]

Sophie snaps

For Christmas this year, instead of getting Sophie one big present-- mostly because we didn't want to clutter the house with another big toy-- we bought her several smaller ones instead-- a pile of books, furniture for her dollhouse, a pair of sparkly TOMS that she's worn practically everyday since, and a fully functioning digital camera. Honestly, it was the best $40 spent on a Christmas present. Sophie's gotten really used to us schelpping our camera everywhere and we use our phone camera in front of her all the time so she's pretty much grown up understanding the concept of capturing memories through photography. In fact, lately, she's been using our phones to randomly take pictures of things around her-- though not always in focus and we've gotten our fair share of photos of her fingers...

So the kid digital camera was something she really appreciated and we've taken it out with us everywhere since Christmas. It's as simple as they come-- turn on, aim, shoot, and scroll buttons to go through your pictures. The resolution isn't great but for $40, you're not expecting Ansel Adams quality photographs. And Sophie doesn't care so much how the photos look like but more the fact that she's the one who took them, with her very own camera.

Last weekend, when our friends Melanie and Jonas came into town for a visit, we took them to the Esplanade/ Marina Bay Sands area for a jaunt and took the opportunity for Sophie to go to town with her camera. We told her to look for things she found interesting and to take as many pictures as she wanted. Here are some shots that she took:

[click for more]

1. Cab driver, 2. Dada side profile, 3. Mama's toes, 4. Art installation at the Esplanade