Parents from SE Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei etc)

[KatsuQueen]

Hi, just wondered if there were any parents from SE Asia around? I am Chinese from Brunei and lately have been thinking thay it would be nice to make contact with other similar parents.

I'm really interested in what you are doing with your kids regarding language. Minikatsu speaks English 100% of the time but lately has been showing interest in speaking Chinese, after a visit home earlier this year. My Mandarin is utterly rubbish, as is my Cantonese and at home we were brought up speaking a mish-mash of English, Hokkien, Cantonese and Malay. My Malay (written and spoken) is actually much much better than my Chinese!

My husband and I lived with my parents for a few years so he is quite used to this, but language-wise it's all a bit of a mess. Would appreciate any thoughts?

[KatsuQueen]

And just to add another complication, I am actually Hakka but we never spoke Hakka at home because my mother (cantonese) can't speak Hakka!

[vch]

Hey there,

I'm originally from Singapore, but spent the last 20 years in the US. My husband and I are both Chinese and we have a newborn who speaks the universal language of "waaaah" right now. No idea what language we're going to teach the little tyke as we mainly speak English (one with a British accent and the other with a California one) to each other at home, but speak in Cantonese when with our parents. I suspect whatever Chinese our kids end up learning will be the kind they learn at school, if they're interested.

If your strength is Malay, why not teach them Malay?

[Sunlover00]

We have a bi lingual (kind of) household too. I try to speak a little Cantonese to the little one but English tends to dominate. I've been looking for Cantonese / Hakka playgroups to try and increase exposure to this language. Maybe if there's interest we can arrange a play date so babies can pick up some stuff from us collectively??