Hello,
I wonder whether somebody is learning with their kids Chinese and Japanese at the same time.
I am asking as I read in different articles in Internet that it is better not to study them at the same time as you will defenitely mix them up and at the end would not lean any of them.
Any experience?
I am teaching my daughter Chinese and Japanese, although we did not start them at the same time. I started teaching Chinese at 10 months and Japanese at 28 months. Currently, she is at very different levels - speaking / reading Chinese at approximately the 1st-2nd grade level and Japanese at the beginner’s level (just learning vocabulary and reading a handful of hiragana characters). So far so good. I think the reason she does not get confused (yet) is because I intentionally avoided introducing kanji (which is written the same as the Chinese characters) and I am only teaching hiragana for now. Incidentally, Japanese children are also taught to read and write in hiragana first and many Japanese children’s books are written in hiragana only so children can read them.
Hope this helps!
Aangeles, thanks a lot for your reply!!! It gave me a lot of confidence to start/try.
I have one question, you mentioned that you are teaching only hiragana at the moment. Are you planning to teach katakana as well or not? I read that katakana is used mostly only for foreign words so not sure whether it should be already taught or not. What do you think?
You’re welcome!
Yes, I am planning to teach her katakana eventually, but not until she knows all her hiragana. I’m using this activity book which she likes: http://www.amazon.com/My-First-Hiragana-Activity-Book/dp/0486413365/ref=pd_sim_b_17 but have not found a similar one for katakana. Also, our progress in Japanese is kind of slow, because we are teaching her 5 other languages as well, and we only get to do Japanese once or twice a week. So I don’t expect we’ll get to katakana anytime soon.
What Japanese learning materials are you using? Any good ones you can recommend?
aangeles, thanks again for your advice and activity book!
We are about to start so now I am searching in Internet trying to find something good and interesting. As soon as I find, I will defenitely let you know.
Do you have your own blog or page to read about your studies?