How it's going - Month 3-4

 Hi,

I know it's been a while since I've updated, but life has just completely swept us off our feet. Lots of life changes like moving house and getting used to a new job! Not to mention an ever more mobile toddler who needs constant supervision and chasing around.

On the Mandarin front things are taking off even better than I imagined. This is despite us really not able to do learning every day of the week. We're coming to the end of Book 2 of the Sagebook Set 1, which puts us at a whopping 38 characters learnt so far ;') honestly further along than I ever thought possible. 

The Sagebook series is becoming the essential piece to our learning than I previously anticipated. Basically all our learning comes from this book series. It's so systematic in teaching one word at a time, and the sentences do such a great job at repetition; it's the one book that we do every lesson. Yan I think is also getting used to it, it's never a great effort to gently push her through a lesson as it's so short (5 sentences long). Every time we open the book I make sure we finish one lesson, but if she's interested and on a roll then we can do more, and stop once she gets tired or disinterested. Each time we teach we usually only get about one lesson a day (about 5-10 minutes long), and I think we average about 3 lessons a week.

One thing I've found helpful is including my husband in lessons. He takes the kids one day a week, so it's been so helpful, on days I'm swamped, for him to take a class. I found we were getting through the book so much quicker with him helping.

After the Sagebook reading, we usually pick a story or two. We alternate between Little Lamb, Disney I can read or Peppa Pig books. I've been loving the Little Lamb series most of all. The lines are so simple and feels more in line with the level we are at with Sagebooks. We take turns reading the characters out loud, Yan with the words that she knows and me with the rest. With Little Lamb she knows a lot of the characters, and has picked up a few words from me reading (which in turn has helped with some Sagebook lessons). She gets really excited when she knows a word or if they form a pattern.

I've been correcting her tone every time she says a word, and this I think has resulted in her sounding pretty legit when she reads. She has an amazing memory though, and sometimes when I listen to her I'm just in awe of how far we have come (reading sentences!).

I do still try and speak Mandarin to the children, although I do switch to English or Cantonese for more complex instructions. I do feel like my Mandarin vocabulary is so limited when I talk to them, and I have to really make an effort to speak Mandarin to them. I think I speak to them in Mandarin about 50-60% of the time, and most consistently when I'm on my own with them. With my husband around we do default to Cantonese - which I don't particularly mind as we want them to learn to speak this fluently too. But when my parents call (and of course it's always on my days off) we basically use English with them. 

I have also been trying to work on my own language skills on the side this last month. One major change is that I've changed the language setting on the one game I play regularly on my phone! It's a story-based game, and the language is definitely at a higher level than what I'm usually capable of. Although if I go slowly I can generally understand what's being said and can follow along :p 

I've also started listening to Mandarin podcasts in the car on my drive to work. The one I've enjoyed the most so far is the Da Shu podcast - their topics are genuine and funny and it's not hard for me to understand what they are saying. I've also downloaded two apps, one is a dictionary (Pleco) which lets you write out the word you're trying to read and a reading app (Maayot) which generates passages for you to read at your current level. I'm currently at an Intermediate 2 reading level, which sounds about right as I can probably speak better than I read. Although I am getting a lot of practice with reading thanks to all the Peppa Pig books in our house!

YM