My parents sent my siblings to English missionary schools for 12 years (except my youngest sister who went to Chinese primary school and later moved on to missionary school), where as I went to Chinese primary school and then Chinese Independent school for secondary education.
I spent most of my schooling days speaking Cantonese (thanks to TVB and KL culture), and then when I started work, it was almost English all the way. For the last 6- 7 years I'm conversing more in Mandarin since I have to work with Taiwanese and mainland Chinese, speak to the girls' school teachers.
The first thing that gauge what is the language that you are strong in would be what language do your brain think in? Mine? English, Mandarin and Cantonese. Even when I pray, I use more than one language in my conversation with God.
So there, I seem to have an advantage over my siblings, and some co-workers who don't speak Chinese, or mothers who can't help their Chinese school going children with homework because they never learnt Chinese. But... I find there are some disadvantages too. Here is what I think are the Pros and Cons of being bilingual.
Pros
1. I have a wider range of books to read and reference. For someone who likes to read, cook and bake, this is really great!
2. I can guide the girls in their school work.
3. My Chinese speaking colleagues warm up to me faster, and tell me things that they won't tell the English speaking colleagues (at least not until they warm up to them).
4. I can read Chinese menus, Chinese sign boards in restaurants, it helps even locally.
5. I have no problem reading Chinese notice from school, or communicating to teachers in the girls' school.
6. I can google in Chinese. When it's related to Chinese herbs, Chinese places, Chinese recipe
Cons
1. I'm never very proficient in either language. Sometimes knowing how to say something in English but not Chinese, and vice versa.
2. Because of 1, it sometimes takes a moment longer for me to form a sentence in either language, occasionally even having to use Google or Phone Apps to help.
3. I'm never as eloquent as a native speaker. Even Zara speaks better English than me now, she use words more efficiently and effectively. I'm always in awe of those who can say/write something so well or beautifully, while I may sound so crude and unpolished.
4. I have the feeling that people are less tolerant of your Grammatical mistakes or mispronunciation of words ("Neh, she's from Chinese school, that's why.")
For those of you who are bilingual, do you feel the same?
I spent most of my schooling days speaking Cantonese (thanks to TVB and KL culture), and then when I started work, it was almost English all the way. For the last 6- 7 years I'm conversing more in Mandarin since I have to work with Taiwanese and mainland Chinese, speak to the girls' school teachers.
The first thing that gauge what is the language that you are strong in would be what language do your brain think in? Mine? English, Mandarin and Cantonese. Even when I pray, I use more than one language in my conversation with God.
So there, I seem to have an advantage over my siblings, and some co-workers who don't speak Chinese, or mothers who can't help their Chinese school going children with homework because they never learnt Chinese. But... I find there are some disadvantages too. Here is what I think are the Pros and Cons of being bilingual.
Pros
1. I have a wider range of books to read and reference. For someone who likes to read, cook and bake, this is really great!
2. I can guide the girls in their school work.
3. My Chinese speaking colleagues warm up to me faster, and tell me things that they won't tell the English speaking colleagues (at least not until they warm up to them).
4. I can read Chinese menus, Chinese sign boards in restaurants, it helps even locally.
5. I have no problem reading Chinese notice from school, or communicating to teachers in the girls' school.
6. I can google in Chinese. When it's related to Chinese herbs, Chinese places, Chinese recipe
Cons
1. I'm never very proficient in either language. Sometimes knowing how to say something in English but not Chinese, and vice versa.
2. Because of 1, it sometimes takes a moment longer for me to form a sentence in either language, occasionally even having to use Google or Phone Apps to help.
3. I'm never as eloquent as a native speaker. Even Zara speaks better English than me now, she use words more efficiently and effectively. I'm always in awe of those who can say/write something so well or beautifully, while I may sound so crude and unpolished.
4. I have the feeling that people are less tolerant of your Grammatical mistakes or mispronunciation of words ("Neh, she's from Chinese school, that's why.")
For those of you who are bilingual, do you feel the same?
Your case is still considered ok. I come from a family that speaks our mother tongue (kelabit) , bahasa malaysia, bahasa sarawak and english at home. Thats 4 language! Just like you, sometimes we dont knw how to say certain word in our mother tongue, we say it either in english or bahasa sarawak or malaysia, whichever is comfortable first. Everything is like rojak now. But because of my fiance, we speak english majority. So my brain speaks english. But we do have situations where we mix it with bahasa sarawak. My fiance speaks english, his mother tongue (kayan), bahasa sarawak, bahasa malaysia and mandarin (5 language!). Now we need to decide how many language we want our future children to speak! Oh man.
ReplyDeletetrue...so i m master of none to the 3 languages.
ReplyDeleteAlways love being able to speak more languages!! My friends from mainland n Korea are always so envious at Malaysians becos we r able to speak so many languages!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Grace, actually i think u should try to communicate with your children as much languages as u can, cuz i'm kinda jealous my friend who can speak really fluently Hokkien or some other dialects. For me, i'm 20 now, i only can understand Hokkien but couldnt speak. This is a practice i think, as my parents used to speak Chinese to me, but my grandma speaks Hokkien to my parents or us(sometimes). Besides, i went to Chinese primary, and kebangsaan secondary (but mostly Chinese student, like 90 per cent) which kinda caused i speak very typical Malaysian Chinese and English (Manglish) where i learn from Internet. That's why i'm not good in every languages. And u're really lucky to know all these languages and u should try to teach your children! So that they can keep this tradition. :) Hopefully this doesn't annoy you. Thank you and have a nice day.
ReplyDeleteoh no. I understand where you are coming and i totally understand too when you encourage me to speak as many language i could to my children next time because i totally agree with you :)
ReplyDeleteMy fiance and I are totally proud that we could speak our mother tongues well and our bahasa kebangsaan too. We are definitely going to pass down our mother tongues to our children. We dont want them to forget their roots either. :)