Chinese/dialect boy

I recall that when Cayen was 3 years old, he was quite comfortable with Chinese and in fact was quite ahead of his peers in class as we speak Chinese and English interchangeably at home and we have been reading both English and Chinese books since young. However, think as he grew older, and perhaps there were just a few months we read more English books than Chinese books, and his new classmates in new school spoke predominantly English, his interest in Chinese dwindled rapidly. In fact now he's dreading Chinese.

As such, we decided to up the intensity of teaching Chinese at home. Previously I have never used flash cards but thought perhaps I can make some games with some Chinese word flash cards.  

That day, I was teaching him the word 皂 as in 肥皂. He promptly asked, "is it running ?" 

I laughed out loud. "Zao" is run in Hokkien, and not quite soap in Chinese. 

Yesterday, he was peeking at the stock prices I'm seeing on my iPhone. He saw the word "Ulta" and he wondered out loud, "Ulta .. is it chao da ? (Burnt in Hokkien)" 

Again, I rolled over in laughter. 

Cayson is also quite good at understanding Hokkien now. When Ah Po says "tao", he will know it's referring to head. 







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