In a bid to get Clarissa to speak Chinese more often, I started a little game with her a few weeks ago.
The rules are simple.
Pick any day of the week and for that particular day, we can only converse in Chinese.
She picked Sunday, and eventually we added another day – Wednesday.
So far it’s been going well.
There are times when we forget and slip into English, and times when she struggles to find the right words or to structure her sentences in Chinese.
I’d ask her to say it in English and then translate it for her. That way she can gradually pick up new vocabulary and hopefully the correct sentence structure too.
Now she remembers things like “coach” = “教练” and “share” = “分享” (although the hubs tried to tell her it’s “公私” 😂😂) .
She still directly translates her sentences from English to Chinese, for example, “我要去刷牙现在” – “I’m going to brush my teeth now”.
I think it’d take more practice and usage to get it right. I try to make it fun and encouraging for her, and I’m enjoying the process too.
It was “Chinese Wednesday” yesterday.
For the past few days since I got back from the hospital, we’d changed our sleeping arrangement.
Our helper slept in Allie’s room while Clarissa slept with me in my room. The hubs slept in Clarissa’s room.
It occurred to us that Clarissa could also be sleeping in her own room, with the hubs in the adjacent bed.
He jokingly suggested it to her on Tuesday, saying he’s so sad to sleep alone.. And she actually agreed to sleep in her room with him.
But last night she backed out when we asked her again.
“因为爸爸你会喊，所以我不可以睡。” She tried to explain.
“喊?” (Shout?) Daddy was confused. “我哪里会喊?”
“你会喊很大，这样… HOR-SIU, HOR-SIU!” She started mimicking the hubs’.. snoring.
😂😂😂
Ah, I’d taught her that “snoring” = “打鼾” in Chinese but I guess she only remembered one of the two words, in a different intonation.
So it became shouting instead. 😅
We reminded her what the right term for snoring is in Chinese.
At bedtime, her Daddy tried to guilt-trip her again by reminding her that she was sleeping on his spot, so she asked him to sleep in the room with us. 😆
“No lah, it’s ok! I’ll snore leh,” Daddy wanted to go out of the room but she insisted that he stayed.
We turned off the lights and after some ten seconds of silence, Clarissa spoke:
“爸爸你可以打鼾，我可以睡的!”
(Daddy, you can snore. I can still sleep!”)
When her Daddy refused to snore, she insisted:
“爸爸你为什么没有打鼾，你快点打鼾，我可以睡的!”
LOL.
How endearing. 😊😚
Because Daddy has told her before, about how she sometimes manages to sleep through his snoring.
I guess she decided she could do it again last night.
#lovebirds
weeirdism 