We are at g, k, h and j, q, x

Kai is pretty good in Hanyu Pinyin and he is doing far better than I am. In fact, he could read out the sound of each of the consonants for me. And teaching him Hanyu Pinyin together with the chinese characters that are of the same sound and different intonations are paying off. He is able to recognise them and read out the words instead of depending on the Hanyu Pinyin.

So far it has been rewarding, he is able to recite quite a bit of children's poems in Chinese. I am waiting for the weather to pick up that we could walk to the photocopy shop to print out some writing practices for Kai to teach him to write chinese characters.

I have compiled a list for each different set of Hanyu Pinyin he is learning and this list helps me in guiding him in pronounication and also at the same time aids him in identifying more chinese characters and reading chinese stories.

d t n l and a e i u ü

We have finally completed the blending of inital consonant with a, o, e, i and u. We started to look at initial consonant of d, t, n and l together with a, e, i, u and ü. Daddy was surprised that Kai actually enjoyed learning it and that he would even go to the extend of practising the intonations and also work on his own on iflash books.


Here's the list that we were looking at,

d t n l
	a	e	i	u	ü
d	da	de	di	du
t	ta	te	ti	tu
n	na	ne	mi	nu	nü
l	la	le	li	lu	lü

And we found another great website to learn to pronounce the intonations. Learn Chinese Hanyu Pinyin.

It looks like it is so much easier for young children to pick up languages and he is enjoying what he is learning even he could asked me to teach him our dialect, Hokkien and some Cantonese. And at the rate that he is going, I am very sure I could start him on learning Japanese soon. So I am sourcing for a self-learning CD for Kai.

I was thinking of getting for him Kidspeak which is selling at Au$50 through online order and he could pick up 6 different languages.

Hanyu Pinyin "bi" and "bu"

We started to look at "bi" and "bu" today. As we started to learn more about the pronounication and blending the initial consonants together with a, o, e, i, u, etc and learning about the chinese characters behind such pronounication, it was fun.

I was telling Kai that Chinese Characters are derived from the drawing and now I regret not shipping over my HanZiGong Series (汉字宫). They are a very good series for learning Chinese and each chapter in a DVD explains the meaning of the word and its usage and also show how each Chinese Character comes about from drawing to the traditional chinese character and then to the simplified character.

Nevertheless, we tried to make good use of the resources we have and maybe I could suggested to the Library here to get it for their DVD collections. And at the meantime asking my friends in Beijing and Hong Kong to help me source books that shows how Chinese Characters derive from drawing to the present Simplified Chinese Characters.

I have gotten for Kai the card for iflashbook and after seeing him getting so interested to learn Chinese, we find went onto the website and use it. (The iflash book cost S$21 from Popular Bookstore in Singapore and it costs S$19.80 if get online. And it has a valid log on period of a year). Kai started to use it and he is enjoying it and asking for more after each session. PanPac iflashbook (我的华文动漫书) is the Singapore Primary School Textbook online and we can listen to the pronounication and read along as well as record one's reading and play back. And each card is valid for a level and for a year period.

By the interest shown by Kai and his willingness to even used it at night after dinner, I thought the money spent is worthwhile. And Daddy also finds it interesting.


Our Chinese for "bi" and "bu"

bi
bī	bí	bǐ	bì	bi
逼	鼻	比	比
屄	荸	笔	币
偪		彼	闭
皀		俾	臂
		吡	毕
		疕	必

bu
bū	bú	bǔ	bù	bu
哺	醭	哺	步
逋		卜	不
晡		补	布
钸		捕	钸
		卟	部

NB:
1. Some words has two intonation depending on which part of the sentence it is used. We used the soft intonation sometimes at the end of a sentence.

2. For repeated words, the second word intonation is soft intonation, such as 爸爸 (bàba).

3. Some chinese characters have more than one intonation and can also be pronounced differently like 卜. 卜 can be pronounced as bo or bǔ. When it is pronounced as bo, it means turnip. When it is pronounced as bǔ, it means foretell or a surname.

As we go about learning more about Hanyu Pinyin and each characters, we find that it is really interesting to find out how each character came about and hope to have the chance to learn more about China and its history.

Hanyu Pinyin "bo"

After learning ba and a couple of different characters that follows each intonation, we are moving into "bo". It was a good learning experience for both Kai and myself and we are enjoying learning the pronounication and looking at the chinese characters.

It is a good way for me to brush up on my rusty chinese as well since I have not touch it for a long time and a great way to learn and look at the characters and its meaning.


Our Chinese for "b0"

bo
bō	bó	bǒ	bò	bo
啵	伯	跛	亳	啵
波	博	簸	檗	卜
玻	脖		擘
播	钹		柏
剥	薄		譒
彂	舶

NB:
1. Some words has two intonation depending on which part of the sentence it is used. We used the soft intonation sometimes at the end of a sentence.

2. For repeated words, the second word intonation is soft intonation, such as 爸爸 (bàba).

As we went to the examples that I used to teach Kai, both of us also learnt the meaning and usage of the Chinese characters. It is not a complete list for "bo" as there are alot more other characters and I was using this list as to show Kai that characters may have the same intonation but they can be different in meaning.

b p m f and a o e i u

After learning the sound of the initial consonants b p m f of Hanyu Pinyin, we moved on to blend them with a o e i u. Kai was trying hard to learn the correct pronounication and we listened to the pronounication a couple of times before sounding them out.

Here's the list that we were looking at,

b p m f
	a	o	e	i	u
b	ba	bo		bi	bu
p	pa	po		pi	pu
m	ma	mo	me	mi	mu
f	fa	fo			fu

We were learning the pronounications of the list when Kai asked me to come up with a Chinese Character lists for each of the sound. He is keen to see the characters that using the sounds. And I told him that we would use a couple of days to go through them and that there are alot of characters for each sound and they have different meaning though they share the same pronounication. I found a new challenge to help Kai recognise more Chinese Characters through the learning of Hanyu Pinyin and I am so delighted that he is so interested to look into the Chinese Characters as I believe that Hanyu Pinyin should go together with Chinese Characters while learning and not separate them up.


Our Chinese for "ba"

ba
bā	bá	bǎ	bà	ba
八	拔	把	爸	爸
疤	茇	钯	罢	罢
吧	軷	靶	覇	吧
叭	跋		耙	叭
芭	魃		霸
岜	馛		欛
笆	胈		弝
巴	叐		坝

NB:
1. Some words has two intonation depending on which part of the sentence it is used. We used the soft intonation sometimes at the end of a sentence.

2. For repeated words, the second word intonation is soft intonation, such as 爸爸 (bàba).

As we went to the examples that I used to teach Kai, both of us also learnt the meaning and usage of the Chinese characters. It is not a complete list for "ba" as there are alot more other characters and I was using this list as to show Kai that characters may have the same intonation but they can be different in meaning.

b p m f ...Hanyu Pinyin

We are still learning our initial consonants and adding it to a, e, o, i, u, etc. It is kind of fun for both of us to learn Hanyu Pinyin together.

Kai had asked me to write some characters that has those Hanyu Pinyin and he can understand that the Hanyu Pinyin is to help him pronounce the chinese characters correctly. We hope to be able to move on to more.

b p m f, initial consonants of Hanyu Pinyin

b p m f, what are these? we were learning the initial consonants of Hanyu Pinyin and it is not easier to differ b and p, this took us a while to get the pronounication right.

To make things easier for me to teach Kai the pronounication of b p m f , I make use of Chinese Characters to present the pronounication and it helps alot. It took us a while to get it right and we will continue to work with this initial consonsant of Hanyu Pinyin.

Getting the pronounication correct...

After a break from Hanyu Pinyin, we returned to look at it again. Before we move on to the new list, Kai was able to read to me the first six sound that we have learnt and he has to keep reminding himself, it is Hanyu Pinyin and not Phonics. I have to say that he is pretty in learning them as we are working on Phonics and Hanyu Pinyin at the same time.



So we moved on to the next 6 sounds, yi, wu, yu, ya, wa and wo. Kai enjoys learning them and have fun using the computer and internet as a learning tool. And after that, we had a little game, where I point to the sound once and he read out and vice versa. I was glad that our agreement to use biligual with Kai since young has worked out fine and he was able to converse in both and read simple books in both languages. And been back to Singapore for a while, he was able to pick up some single dialect that we used at home.













And lately, he has been bugging us again to send him for Japanese Lesson, spoken to a couple of friends who can converse and write in Japanese that we should ground him in English and Mother Tongue first before sending him for Japanese Language classes. We are looking for opportunities for him to pick up the language online or even through an interactive CD or DVD. So for the meantime, Mummy here will have to source around. What are a good program to set him off?

Learn Our Mother Tongue

We started on learning our Mother Tongue, Chinese. Kai is pretty good in conversing in Mandarin and recognising quite a bit of Chinese characters.

We just started on learning Chinese Hanyu Pinyin (similar to phonics in English).

We started our first lesson learning about the first sounds a , o, e, i , u and ü. We are able to learn and listen to the pronounication on Singapore Ministry of Education Website.

Kai and myself are learning these together and we hope to be able to master it. It is not easy considering that we are also learning phonics at the same time.