How Chinese and Western mothers teach their kids

[zozzen]

Inspired by this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFYcmZEOvW4 ), I'm really amazed to find that the world is so flat that the mother words are almost the same in the west and east.

Is the word in the video really used in united states?

- Your iPod's my iPod if you don't listen up

my mother always did that in. The word she used is "confiscate".

- Saying thank you, please, excuse me

- You'll appreciate my wisdom someday when you're older and you're grown

- Can't wait 'til you have a couple little children of your own

- You'll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly, but right now I thank you NOT to roll your eyes at me

- You're grounded until your 36

- And if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?

Hong Kong version is :

if your friends jumped off the building, would you jump too?

if your friends went to hell, would you go too?

if your friends took heroin, would you take that too?

- If I've said it once, I've said at least a thousand times before

- you're too old to act this way. It must be your father's DNA

That's pretty amazing. I never thought that western mothers also have such phrases. Cantonese version is : 你係咪溝亂種呀? 人生仔我生仔, 生著你個衰仔.

- Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about

- Because I said so. I'm the Mom.

- I love you

[muyongshi]

For some reason it doesn't surprise me...

[Luobot]

I also gave Mom a standing ovation. I’ve heard that the word “ma” is usually the first word out of a baby’s mouth and is virtually universal, east and west. The theoretical reason is not a common trunk in the language tree, but rather that the word “ma” is hard-wired into the brain. So perhaps Mom’s words, the universal ones, are also hard-wired into moms the world over.

[Lu]

My mom did say: if your friends jump into the canal, will you jump too? and a few of the others, but I don't recall her ever using those:

'you're too old to act this way. It must be your father's DNA' wow, this is bad. Way for respecting dad, loving the husband, and the two parents being consistent with each other!

'Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about' my parents were more along the line of: your knee hurts? Here's a kiss on your knee. See, now it's better.

'You'll appreciate my wisdom someday when you're older and you're grown'

'Can't wait 'til you have a couple little children of your own'

'You'll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly, but right now I thank you NOT to roll your eyes at me'

'You're grounded until your 36'

[imron]

I’ve heard that the word “ma” is usually the first word out of a baby’s mouth and is virtually universal, east and west. The theoretical reason is not a common trunk in the language tree, but rather that the word “ma” is hard-wired into the brain.

One exception to this is Finnish, which uses the word Äiti for Mum.

[liuzhou]

But Finnish kids still say 'Ma' before anything else. Even deaf kids do it.

It is nothing to do with 'hard wiring' It is simply that bilabial sounds are the easiest to make and therefore the first that all children gain control over.

[zozzen]

In movie about ancient Chinese, "ma" is seldom used, "liang" is more common. Not sure if that really happened in ancient china.

[zozzen]

I don't know if "ma" is really the first word. In this blog (http://blog.yam.com/enjoy_joy/ ) the mother said her 16-month kid started to speak a few words, such as "ba-ba", "ma", "uh-oh", "nay-nay".

[fireball9261]

In movie about ancient Chinese, "ma" is seldom used, "liang" is more common. Not sure if that really happened in ancient china.

Actually, it was "niang2" 娘. Yes, it was actually used in ancient time. However, in different dialects, the term for mother are different also, not necessarily all called mother "niang2" 娘.

There were also "a mu4" (阿母), "mu3 ma" (姆媽) and other regional terms. Then, there is the very formal, "母親大人" -- usually showed up in old style of letter writings to one's mother, or, in modern days, when a son or daughter did something wrong and needed to apease his/her mother or wanting something from her by jokingly calling her this formal term before telling her the mess he/she was in or the stuff he/she wants to spend large sum of money on.

[anforever]

WOW...