Learning Chinese to adopt a child

[Lu]

In the end it's up to your daughter whether she's interested enough to keep up her Chinese. With modern technology, she could keep in touch with friends she has in China (and keep using her Chinese), and if she has some books or tv shows that she likes, she can keep reading/watching those, which might keep her interested. It would take some energy on her part to keep it up, but it could be extremely useful, whether she uses it when travelling back to China or later on in a job.

If you find a teacher, you already have someone on hand who can help your daughter maintain her Chinese.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I guess it's probably emotional reasons then, among others, if children of that age lose their first language?

I'm not sure but I have the impression that Asians meet with a lot of rejection in the West, not so open but in subtle ways. So knowing the language (to some degree) could be like backing her up, in an emotional way. If she ever gets teased in school, she might just take it more lightly when she knows Chinese is cool enough for her Mom? But that's just how I feel about it.

Anyway, if it's the time spent that worries you - you really do not have to worry about Mandarin being labourious. Once you got used to the pronounciation, and if you focus on conversational language, you'll see it is a breeze* compared to Japanese! You can make insane progress in short time.

(*of course, we are bound to say that, in a forum of this name! But it's true! )

[li3wei1]

If she ever gets teased in school, she might just take it more lightly when she knows Chinese is cool enough for her Mom?

Judging from my experience, something that your mom thinks is cool is more likely to be rejected. At least for a while. But I know nothing about late adoptions.

I knew someone who left Czechoslovakia when she was five, with her parents. She could speak Czech, but took a course at university to improve it. Her little brother (I don't remember how much younger he was, he may have been born in the US), could understand it, but couldn't or wouldn't speak it. Of course this was with both parents speaking it fluently at home.

[trisha2766]

sorry it took me so long to get back here.

My daughter is almost 5, she was 2 when we adopted her. I still wish my chinese was better because I really don't want her to completely lose it or end up monolingual in general.

Yes, most kids do lose their first language, its really sad. An 11 year old, maybe not so much so. I read one article interviewing a girl adopted from a Russian speaking country, now as an adult. She was adopted as an older child, not a baby. She lost her Russian really fast and couldn't pick up English fast enough. She said for a while she felt like she was going crazy because she could no longer think in any language. If you are not familiar with the term 'subtractive bilingualism', you might want to look that up.

For me its been very important that my daughter learns, or relearns, Mandarin for a number of reasons. 1) its good to know more than one language. 2) She might find some of her birth family someday - parents, siblings, etc. - it would be really sad if she couldn't talk to them directly and had to have someone translate. 3) To explore her roots she might someday want to live, work or go to school in China and it would be much easier if she already knows the language.

One book I read by a linguist discussed both first language and additional language acquisition and said that if a child knows a language well at 10, and especially if they can read and write in the language, they aren't likely to completely lose it. With some work as an adult they could get the language back. So that's good.

It seems you need 2 things overall:

1) to learn at least some basic Chinese so you can communicate with her especially when you first meet to help make the transition more easy

2) to help her maintain her first language.

For the both of those there are a lot of videos on YouTube that you can watch and learn some Chinese and you can find bits and pieces of Chinese TV shows too and that's all free.

For the first one if you can spend a little bit of money you might want to order 'Kids Stuff Chinese', as far as I know Amazon is the only place to get it: http://www.amazon.com/Kids-Stuff-Chinese-Phrases-English/dp/0978915216/It (It looks like the link isn't displaying right, I can send it to you in a PM Admin note: Fixed) It has lots of phrases and sentences that you would use with a kid on a daily basis. I found it a bit difficult to just straight out memorize what's in the book and use it though, but that was me. And with a 2 year old. (But I'll never forget when we were in China and I needed her to stand up and told her to in Chinese - as I learned in that book - and she immediately stood up! I was so surprised, I thought for sure my accent would be too bad for her to understand or something.) It would be easier to use if you already know some basic Chinese, since it doesn't really teach the language, just things you might say to a kid. Its uses pinyin and simplified characters and includes the English translations. You might even be able to use it by finding what you want to say in English and showing it to her and she could read the Chinese and figure out what you are trying to say that way. It's too bad amazon doesn't have a 'look inside this book' for it. It's not stuff you would find in a typical text book for adults, or even kids. Its not too big either, so won't take up too much room in your suitcase. (always an issue when adopting - but at least you don't have to leave room for diapers and that kind of stuff!)

A tutor might be helpful for just a few sessions to make sure you have basic pronunciation right, but finding a good one is hard. Especially one that doesn't get too picky about your accent being perfect, etc. At least that was my experience.

Most typical textbooks aren't going to teach you the kinds of things you would say to a 10-11 year old at home. But they could give you a basic introduction to the language. Although there should be plenty of free resources on the internet where you could learn the same things.

To help her maintain the language there are a number of things I would suggest. When you are in China, once you have her try and get to a book store and let her pick out some books to buy. They are pretty cheap there. That would help her maintain her reading skills. Dvd's of TV shows or movies would be good too. You might need to buy a region free DVD player but they aren't too expensive. That might help a bit with home sickness too, to be able to watch something familiar. Do you know if she likes Xi YangYang? I don't know if its still popular there or not. Cd's of bands or singers or whatever she likes might be good for her too.

If you live someplace where there is a weekend Chinese school that would help. She would most likely be ahead of kids her age and would get bored with a class with kids her age in it. But - it might help boost her confidence while suddenly living in a country where she doesn't understand what anyone is saying. And even if she wasn't a particularly good student in China (I've heard some public schools don't treat kids in orphanages very well) she'll still be way ahead of the Chinese-Americans kids her age at a weekend school. It would also help her to be around people who look like her and whose culture she understands. The school here has many dance and other classes too.

I've heard some adopted kids immediately don't want to have anything to do with anything Chinese. But I think that is unhealthy, she can't really run away from her past or who she is. And you want to her to be proud of her background and heritage.

Another thing if you can afford it is to find a sort of tutor for her. Not necessarily a real one, but an older teenage girl who is Chinese to hang out with her and speak to her in a way she can understand and can explain differences in the culture, etc. She could help with translating too. If there is no Chinese school near you and she wants to continue to develop her reading and writings skills, a tutor would be good for that too.

Please feel free to send me a PM about anything. I'm guessing she is SN since most adoptions from China are now, unless its just her age. And have you found the Yahoo group for her orphanage yet? I did that as soon as we were matched and found out all sorts of stuff about where she was living. Its great to be able to talk with parents whose kids lived in the same place too.

[imron]

Thanks for the writeup

With regards to PMs, so long as it's not too personal, I would encourage people to continue discussing things and asking questions out here in the forums, because that way it will also benefit future readers who come looking for the same information.

[winterpromise31]

Trisha - Sorry it took me so long to reply to you. My computer crashed and we spent a few panicked days trying to get things saved off of it. Then we've had some forward motion on the adoption, which seems to always accompany another stack of paperwork!

I’ve heard of subtractive bilingualism, though not that term specifically. I’m really hoping that my daughter wants to retain her Chinese and thus makes an effort to use it regularly. But I am also prepared, based on what I’ve read, to deal with the fact that most adopted kids don’t want to retain their first language and then end up fluent in none for a time.

Thank you so much for that book recommendation! I will definitely order it once we’ve saved up the major adoption costs. The book sounds fantastic and something that would be well worth the cost. I’ve been using a couple of free resources online, but am running into the issue of “typical” language learning vocabulary – schools, transportation, hotel vocabulary. Most of that will not be very useful to us! I’ve just resigned myself to using the traditional resources to learn grammar and some basic vocab and then use a dictionary to look up vocabulary that I expect will be really useful.

We have access to a huge Asian bookstore here so should be able to find some things that are familiar to her. We definitely plan to go shopping in Taiwan and bring home a few things. At first we weren’t sure if she speaks Taiwanese or Mandarin but the social worker in Taiwan let us know she speaks Mandarin. That’s when we decided to take the plunge and try to learn some before she comes home.

Thanks again for all of your insight!