So You Want Your Kid to Learn Chinese

by Virginia Duan

The established method of teaching our children Chinese is woefully outdated. Now, there is a better way.

This book is for every parent who wants their kid to learn Chinese and is willing to supplement and provide the necessary support that their child will need.

Full of practical advice, detailed applications, and heavy amounts of snark, "So You Want Your Kid to Learn Chinese" is a must-have for any parent serious about their child's Chinese language acquisition.

In addition to exclusive new chapters, this book updates many of Virginia Duan's most popular and helpful Mandarin Mama posts on teaching children Chinese. It also includes a comprehensive Action Plan written in collaboration with blogger, Guavarama, that tells you exactly what to do for the level of Chinese you wish for your child.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

238 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 28, 2017

About the author

Virginia Duan is an Asian American author who writes K-pop inspired women's fiction books full of rage and grief with biting humor and glimpses of grace. Her new cozy fantasy novella series, The Witches’ Council, follows several small love stories in a world where magic is real, marriage is a job, consummation rituals are mandatory, and love is with whom they least expect: their spouse!

She is also the creator of the ongoing Her Multiverse series, where the novels explore how Asian American singer Katie Wu’s choices in love, friends, and family impact her journey of self-discovery, healing from trauma, and choosing the life she wants for herself. Peek behind the glamour of the K-pop industry and discover how Katie learns to love herself and a different band member of global K-pop sensation DOYEN in every timeline.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Virginia lives with her husband and five children. (Yes, five.) She spends most of her days plotting her next book or article, shuttling her children about, participating in more group chats than humanly possible, and daydreaming about BTS a totally normal amount.

Join Virginia's mailing list to receive sneak peeks, bonuses, and updates on her latest stories at https://virginiaduan.com.

Reviews

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic! Of course, I'm a bit biased since I wrote it. ;) If you're thinking about teaching your kids Chinese but are at a loss of how to go about it, my book breaks it down and addresses a lot of common questions and concerns folks have. I even include an action plan as well as a lot of advice that most people find helpful.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a bit flabbergasted that this book does not have more reviews/ratings here. However, I suppose I am pretty much the perfect audience for this book (parents are native Chinese speakers, grew up in the U.S. speaking Chinese at home, attended weekend Chinese school for years, decent accent/daily life comprehension with some character recognition but definitely not literate, raising mixed race child that I want to learn Chinese but spouse does not speak Chinese).

I've been reading the author's blog for awhile and joined the big groups on Facebook about raising kids to learn Chinese in places where Chinese is not the majority language, so I'd had some exposure to the general ideas. It was still really helpful to have it all in one place. I also take really well to the "tell it like it is"/"don't sugarcoat how hard this is"/"it's not morally better to have this as a goal over any other priorities you might have for your kids" approach, but you may want to check out her blog first to see if that's something you gel with before diving into the book.

Key takeaways:
1. Pretty much no matter what, this is going to take consistent effort (time/money/opportunity cost) from you as the parent to make it happen.
2. Weekend Chinese school attendance and learning characters by copying them 50x is not an effective learning strategy. Even Chinese immersion schools are unlikely to success in achieving literacy.
3. Chinese literacy acquisition strategies have to be different than, say, Romance languages, because written Chinese is not phonetic.
4. I should brush up on/re-learn zhuyin.
5. If I want to keep my goals around Chinese comprehension/speaking for my kids, I really need to figure out more ways to get more Chinese exposure into our lives on a regular basis.

The other thing is that after finishing this book, because it is so...brutally realistic about how much work it is for your kids to learn Chinese as a minority language, I would probably direct folks to read some posts from the CHALK Academy blog about how she started when her daughter was already 2 and did not have much of a background herself as a Chinese speaker. It's a little easier to gloss over the work involved there and just be inspired, because I think a sprinkle of slightly delusional optimism/hope is helpful at times.

[R.L.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good reality check, with lots of common sense.

Yeah, I should be talking to my kids in Chinese more (especially the younger two). And working on my own language skills (There's very little excuse for my continued illiteracy).

And I should remember that language learning is hard work, and I should moderate my expectations to the amount of work I'm willing to put into it.

And, yeah, I should stay consistent.

And I should remember that as a white-person working on learning a non-white language, I need to be sensitive. And humble. Not that we're learning/using Chinese for the bragging rights in this house, but still, it's a useful reminder.

[☆ Katie ☆]

I've been following the Mandarin Mama for many years as a valuable resource for raising a half-Chinese, half-Caucasian child and implementing strategies to further his bilingual abilities. Duan is a talented writer, and this book deftly demonstrates her expansive knowledge and commitment to multilingual parenting. Our backgrounds are very similar, and there is a lot I can learn from her

The writing is clear, concise, humorous, and easy to follow. Some of the lengths she has taken to teach her children Chinese in an English-dominant environment are extreme, but the goal of this book is not for the reader to emulate her actions. She has gleaned an abundance of knowledge from personal experience and has a trove of strategies and tools that she has at her disposal. She is aware of people's differing goals and abilities and addresses the various ways learning Chinese can look.

The obstacles to teaching Chinese in America are extensive and require hard work, consistency, and commitment from immediate and extended family. My goal was never for my son to achieve true fluency, since I don't have that myself, and much of the language I retained was due to specific circumstances rather than intention. Any bit of Mandarin that he retains and is able to help him later on in life is a win in my eyes.

This is an amazing resource for families looking to teach their children Chinese. It is readable, straightforward, and very comprehensive in the information included. Although some of the material is repetitive, and the format is very list-heavy, the insight contained is extremely helpful.

Because attaining Chinese fluency is not a priority for me right now, I DNFed this book at 41% but plan to keep it as a resource.

[Christi-June Chiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really gets into the nitty gritty of what you need to do for your child to not only learn Chinese but to reach fluency. *Spoiler alert* it is not easy. Virginia Duan breaks it down for you and even goes so far as to say "If you decide this is not what you want to do for your family, that is OKAY." and admits that she even advised her friend to drop Chinese altogether because it wasn't a priority for her family. There is a lot of good information like creating a CLE (Chinese Language Environment) for your children and at the end of the book there is a sort of questionairre on how well you would like your child to know different aspects of Chinese (reading, speaking etc.) and then she breaks down what has to be done to get to that level. After that, you can reassess what level you would like your child to be in each area.
I knocked one star off of my rating though I thought of taking off two just for the snarky tone of the book. Virginia admits she is not perfect and even goes as far to say she gets lazy... but the entire tone of the book is like being advised by a brutally honest (almost mean) friend with a dash of "it's okay though..." thrown in case of offense. I had to read it in small portions because just opening it up gave me anxiety. Maybe I'm just too sensitive, I don't know. But I am glad for the information it gave me and I now have a lot to think about.