Chinglish

A common question from friends, family and random strangers is, “Does she know English yet?” And the answer is, “Yes! Um, no. Well, sorta.” Also complicating the matter is the fact that Mei-Mei is almost entirely silent in public, a striking difference from the wild and screeching hellion that we know and love at home. It can be hard to explain the amount of English, Chinglish and Chinese that we have going on at home without a lengthy dissertation. So, here’s that (semi) lengthy dissertation.

Here are the words that Mei-Mei says by herself in English:

Mama*

Danny

Maisie

Pippin

Sophie

Mine

Hello

Bye-bye**

Please

Thank you

Sorry

No

Potty

All done

Water

Hungry

Gentle

Stop it 

Go

Shoes

Car***

Choo-choo***

Thomas [the Tank Engine]

Train [anyone picking up on a theme here?]

Carrier

Pew-pew

*Mama is the same in Chinese and English.

**Bye-bye is essentially the same in Chinese and English.

***Car means vehicle. Choo-choo means a toy car or a toy train.

A lot of adoptive families use Baby Sign in their first months at home, so that they can communicate effectively from the beginning. Since we learned some Chinese, we didn’t do Baby Sign, but there have been a couple of gestures that we’ve made up and are part of our family pidgin.

Moving the hand, palm side down, over a plate of food – all done

Pointing at an empty spot on the plate – I want more of what I just ate

A buckling motion at the waist – the Tula carrier

Using both hands to push inwards along Mama’s shoulders – I want to stay in the carrier

Maintaining eye contact and opening the mouth wide (optional sticking out of the tongue) - Snapchat

Before going to China, I did lessons 1-15 with the Pimsleur Mandarin course. I highly recommend Pimsleur for people who don’t have a lot of study time per se because it is all CDs. I borrowed them from the library and kept them in the car and learned Chinese while driving around town. We have also made COPIOUS use of Google Translate, which has been a lifesaver. (If you’re heading to China, though, remember that Google doesn’t work in China unless you have a VPN.) These are the words that ‘Stache and I  know in  Chinese and use regularly:

Baba – Daddy

Gege – Brother

Mei-mei – Sister

Wo (men) – I (we)

Ni (men) – You (y’all)

Ni hao – Hello

Bu – No/not

Shi – Is/am

Haishi – Or

Keshi - But 

Ma – word that ends a yes or no question

Yao – Want

Chu – Go

Guolai – Come here

Zheli* – Here  

Nali* – There

Zai nali* – Where is

Fenxiang – Share

Xiang – Would like

Shanghai – Hurt

Peng – Touch

Hui huilai – Will come back  

Mingbai – Understand

Chi – Eat

Hue – Drink

Shuijiao – Sleep

Chin chin – Kiss

Baozhe – Hold

Ai – Love

Xianzai – Now

Guo yihuier - After a while

Niao niao – Pee

Shema – What  

Yi dian* – Little

Hao – Good

Hen – Very  

 Piaoliang – Pretty

Yi, er, san, sz, wo – One, two, three, four, five   

Shui – Water

Cha – Tea

Kafei – Coffee

Tian – Sweet

Jige – This/that
Maozi – Hat 

Wawa – Doll 

*The Pimsleur course uses speakers with Beijing  accents so I learned to pronounce these  “djar,” “nar,” “tzai nar” and “eediar.” Also, any words that end in "shi" I pronounce more like "shir."

The ideal would probably be to say a sentence in Chinese and then repeat it in English: “Ni yao shuijiao ma? Do you want to go to sleep?” (Three guesses what the answer is and the first two don’t count.) In practice, we rarely do this. It’s oddly difficult to switch gears between languages. What isn’t hard at all (for reasons I don’t know) is to mix the two languages. “Ni yao yogurt haishi ni yao orange juice?” “Xianzai ni brush your teeth, then shuijiao.” (Any linguists out there who have insights into this phenomenon, feel free to chime in!)

It’s very clear that Mei-Mei is understanding more English than she speaks (or is just brilliant at deducing from tone and context, which is also possible). We’ll say things like “We only eat in the kitchen; come back in here” or “Do you want to be in the pack ‘n’ play or go play with your geges” and she’ll respond appropriately.

The plan (the hope) is for Mei-Mei to learn English, probably taking about a year to become fluent, and for me to hang on to my Chinese, learn more, and teach the boys once they start kindergarten. Whether Mei-Mei will lose her Chinese and then relearn it again in kindergarten or whether she’ll retain it, we don’t know. Generally three-year-olds don’t hang onto their Chinese by themselves, so either way it will take a bit of effort, but we think it’s worth it.   

I'm exhausted just thinkin' about it.

Edited to add: At the time of this post, Mei-Mei was 3 and a half years old and had been home exactly two months.