About Me

A Singaporean born Mummy living in the UK who is trying to raise my children trilingual. We speak Cantonese at home, and I have only just started introducing Mandarin to my 3 year old.

Our language aims

English - to be able to speak, read and write at Native/Higher levels
Mandarin - to be able to speak conversationally and read simple Mandarin books 
Cantonese - to be able to converse fluently with Natives

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Starting a new language at 3 years old? Is it possible?

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Hi there, And welcome to my blog! I've recently decided to start teaching my 3 year old a whole new language, Mandarin, and I'm not sure what the journey will be like. Many people have expressed doubt at what I'll be able to achieve, but I just want to give it a go and see how far we can go.  A little background - we have a 3 year old who is very fluent in English. We've been speaking to her a mix of English and Cantonese at home since birth. She understands both well, but most definitely prefers speaking English. She can be made to reply in Cantonese, but it does sound pretty accented and sentences are constructed simply.  Over the last one year, I have been teaching her to read English at home. It has been a really rewarding journey and she is improving so quickly that I think she might be getting a little too far ahead. So I decided to try teaching her Chinese words.  However, I can't read in Cantonese, and don't know Traditional Chinese, so am in a position ...
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