January 13, 2009

Hello, b p m f!

Emm went for his first lesson of Conversational Chinese at the Bishan CC yesterday. I felt like a mother waiting to hear all about her kid's first day at school as I sat at Dome to wait for his class to end.

How's the teacher? Is she fun? Boring? What are the classmates like? Is the lesson fun? What did he learn today?

Not unexpectedly, the answer to that last question is the consonants and vowel sounds used in hanyu pinyin. "Hello, again, b p m f!"

That was what I started with too, when he approached me to teach him Chinese, properly, more than twelve months ago.

Actually, as far as I can remember, I was never taught this bopomofodetenele-thingy when I was a kid. Somehow, it came naturally to those of us whose parents speak Mandarin to us, where Mandarin was, in reality, mother tongue. We skipped this consonants+vowels thingy and went straight to recognising chinese characters and the strokes. Nevertheless, I forged a deep acquaintance with this during one of my modules, Aspects of Chinese Linguistics, in university.

Perhaps I should think about teaching conversational Chinese at some CC too. It's, after all, quite amusing to hear other foreign adults try to say Ma1ma ma4 ma3 (i.e. Mother scolds the horse).

Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 11:24