A 2-year-old learning Chinese and Finnish
When our daughter started speaking she spoke mostly Cantonese as she was home with a nanny a lot. But now Mandarin had completely replaced it and Finnish is a good second. At home I speak Finnish with Anna and my husband speaks Mandarin. She goes to daycare where she hears both Mandarin and Japanese. Cantonese she hears once a week at the grand parents house and English occasionally when we meet friends. Anna has now clearly entered a phase of rapid language learning. She is starting to form sentences like 佩奇睡觉 Peppa is sleeping and 佩奇哪里啊 Where is Peppa. Yes, Peppa Pig is hugely popular at our household. In Finnish…
So how easy is it for foreigners to study in China?
Recently Lena from Lenaaround shared an interesting article on Facebook: White Privilege as a Western Student in China. The article shares the experiences of foreign students and what privileges they felt they got during their studies, just because they were foreigners. I’ve done my university education in China first as an exchange student, then as a bachelor and master’s degree student. Did I get privileges as a white foreigner? As an exchange student Back in 2009-2010 it was easy to come to Guangzhou as an exchange student. My university in Finland had cooperation with Guangzhou University, but no one wanted to come. Officially you could stay for 1 semester with…
First day at Japanese Daycare in Guangzhou
Today was our daughter’s first day at daycare in Guangzhou, a big day for all of us. The past year she has been at home with a full time nanny, but now it was time to join the kindergarten. Why Japanese daycare then? In Guangzhou, perhaps China in general, finding a good daycare isn’t easy. First of all you need to consider if it’s safe, unfortunately violent punishments might still happen in some daycares. On the other spectrum there are paradise like kindergartens that cost 1000 euros per month! For us this daycare combines safe environment, nice teachers, good location and in our budget. We also had a strong recommendation…
Choosing a Chinese teacher
Choosing the right Chinese teacher isn’t always easy. I recently found an interesting article on the issue on fluentinmandarin.com. They created a checklist of things to look for when looking for a good Chinese teacher.Here is how I’m striving to be the best teacher on their 8 criteria. 1. Somebody who really knows their stuff I’ve been learning Chinese since 2008, I have the highest certificate in Chinese (for foreigners) which is HSK6 and I have a Master’s Degree in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. More than that, I’ve made countless of mistakes during the years and learned from them. You don’t need to make the same mistakes. 2.…
