A Multilingual Muddle

Now that he is talking nineteen to the dozen, we have been enjoying a lot of laughs from what he says. Besides being incredibly innocent and downright accurate, his language patterns are hilarious because they are a mix of English, Hokkien (known as minnanhua) and Mandarin Chinese!

Back home, my mother (his Grandma) would speak with him only in Hokkien (the Southern, KL dialect) because the rest of us speak to him in English. I used to speak with him in Hokkien too until we moved to China…

Here are some strange sentence patterns that has the Minnan folks here doing a double take sometimes:

When he calls me to join him on the sofa etc

“Mummy, come! Let’s sit two langs (Hokkien=people) together here…”

When he sees a crowd

“Many langs there…”

When he’s having trouble with a toy etc

“Mahmeeeeee! Help me…help me. Something happened.”

Exasperated, I’ll ask, “Can’t you do it yourself?”

“Not. Lucas cannot ghia (Hokkien=take). Boey ghia (Hokkien=can’t take) or boey hiau (Hokkien=I don’t know how to do it). Stuck!”

I think Grandma and my Ahma will be proud to know his pronunciation is accurate!

His Chinese is coming along nicely especially as he insists on watching almost all his kiddy shows in Chinese (where available). I think he REALLY wants to learn Chinese because he’s even trying to sing/speak along the shows/ads on TV.

The funniest is CCTV’s promotional ad on Hangzhou – he’ll blab on whatever the voice-over says in English and ends with “Hangzhou” EXACTLY in the way the narrator does it!

He’s also piping up with “ni hao” (hello), “xie xie” (thank you), zai jian (bye bye), “bu yao” (no!), “mei you” (none), “kuai dian” (hurry up), “hou mian” (back/behind), “jia you” (come on, you can do it!), “xiao lao shu” (little mouse), ping guo (apple) and counting numbers 1-6.

The only Chinese songs I know are: “Liang Zhi Lao Hu” (2 Little Tigers to the tune of “Are You Sleeping”), which he perks up and joins in. When I sing “Ke Ren Lai” and “Yue Liang Yuan”, he tells me to stop!

He’s also picking up on flipping the V sign for photographs, ugh!

Now that he’s picking up Chinese, I try to speak only English with him. However, his English is a bit funny because he pronounces “here” in the uppity British way that sounds like “hiah”. “Blue” sounds very much like the French “bleu”!

When we meet new friends, I realize that I didn’t teach him social skills Thankfully, now he can

1. Shake hands
2. Answer to questions like “What’s your name?”, “How are you?” (I am fine, thank you – learned in school) and “How old are you?” (3 – holding up 3 fingers)

He can say “caterpillar”, “watermelon” and “strawberry” but he’ll say “bana-” (banana) and “-tato” (potato). Words like “stop” or “spoon” are pronounced without the first syllables.

The only language he doesn’t know is Bahasa Malaysia – it’s a “secret” language Hubby and I use when we discuss toddler-taboo topics We’ll be in trouble when it’s time to enter Standard 1…

Since I’m on his speech development, here are some funny stuff he says:

1. We were walking around the Forbidden City and he kept asking me to carry him. I told him I thought he’s a big boy already and could walk by himself. He replied:

“Lucas small boy. Lucas so tired. Mummy carry, carry, carry!”

2. One day, I was quite fed up scrabbling through his VCDs for MY DVDs and I kept asking, “Where’s Mummy’s CD? Ha, Lucas, did you see Mummy’s CD? See how messy your CDs are…”. I was also grumbling and grumbling.

The poor *stressed* toddler finally blurted out,

“I don’t know!”

Amused, I stopped and smiled asking him, “Wah, you know how to say ‘I don’t know’?” I think I caused total confusion in my change of moods LOL

3. His sneakers are worn out and the Velcro straps keep coming off that they’d stop him in his tracks frequently. However, he refused to wear the new pair I bought him one morning while we got ready for school.

In a hurry, I tried to move things along by explaining that he should wear the new pair since the old ones stopped him from running, he simply replied,

“Don’t run, walk!”

Grr…!

I wish that I can record his chit chat when he’s playing fireman, trains or whatever takes his fancy. It sounds really cute as he describes what’s going on but the minute I take out the camera, he’ll want to take photos himself sigh…

I tried cajoling him to sing the “Do Re Mi” song from the Sond of Music while I capture it on video but he does not co-operate! He’ll do all sorts of cheeky stunts but the minute the camera’s off, he’ll sing it so nicely!

That’s why you’re not seeing any videos or photos lately…he’s TOO NAUGHTY for the camera. I’ve even given up taking any photos of him during our trips here and there because there are just too many shots of him with his head turned to the back. Aargh, this little fella drives me nuts!!!

Hehehe, guess I’ve just done his 31-34 month updates here

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