However, I have to level with you. This article isn’t actually about Chinese picture books. If you’re living outside of China you might find it hard to get a hold of actual Chinese picture books, and they might also be expensive. What’s more many of these books are designed with Chinese children in mind. The average non-Chinese child who picks up a Chinese picture book will likely struggle with it a lot more than one who has grown up with even just basic Chinese vocabulary.

Because of these reasons, I instead recommend that you find Chinese translations of your children’s favorite English picture books! These books are common in China, so many Chinese children will also read them. Even if there might be a vocabulary issue in certain places of the book, both you and your child can have an English translation as a reference to help you.

Give this a try by searching for free online resources of Chinese children’s books. With a few Google searches, you should be able to find some online books in Powerpoint for free! Though some of these might be more advanced for a beginning learner, you will surely be able to find files that are perfect for you and your child.

Lastly, there are some Chinese children’s songs on YouTube available for free which can also be a great resource. These songs will often have pinyin, and even if your child cannot understand all the lines, they can be a fun way to practice Chinese. If you take the time to study the lyrics, it will surely help improve their vocabulary. Some great examples of these are: “Monkeys Scoop up the Moon”, “The Story of the 12 Zodiacs”, and “Sima Guang Smashed the Vat”. These are all Chinese children’s stories you can access on YouTube for free! Most Chinese parents will use resources like these to share stories with their kids. After you check these out, you should be able to find more quite easily!

司马光砸缸 Sima Guang Smashed the Vat

12生肖的故事 The Story of 12 Zodiacs    

猴子捞月 Monkeys Scoop up the Moon

As always, be creative and keep your kids engaged! Learning Chinese can be fun and easy, but it takes work from you, the parent, to ensure this. Find what works best for your kids and proceed from there!

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1. A good learning environment matters

First off, ensure that the core learning environment is a good, positive, and resourceful one. It’s important that your children feel comfortable so that they enjoy the learning process. Nothing can kill learning faster than hating what you are learning, and that is true for anyone, adult or child. It is important, however, that they are challenged and enthusiastic about the process. If it is too easy or too difficult, they may lose interest and not retain interest.

One-on-one classes can be a good way to ensure that your child will feel comfortable while being challenged. Either online or in person, this can be a valuable supplement to their main class; or the one-on-one class can also be their core class in entirety.

2. Add learning materials

Adding other materials in order to make learning for children more enjoyable and fun is key. These other resources enables them to use and practice their language skills naturally, which enhances retention. Learning a language is something that needs to be exercised, and if there is no method to apply it outside of class, they’re less likely to retain what has been studied.

To do this, you can try several things until you find which fits your children’s liking and learning style. One way is to listen to Chinese children’s songs. The words are easy to pick up, fun, and often catchy. You might find yourself singing along! Another way is to read Chinese children’s storybooks; and a third way is to watch educational Chinese children’s videos.

3. Use Chinese picture books

Just like English picture books, Chinese picture books have simple vocabulary along with fun and interesting pictures that can be entertaining for your child. If you take the time to read them along with your children, it could even replace some English children’s books as your child’s favorite!

Some kids will prefer a more active approach. Drawing pictures of what they have learned in class is a good method to help them remember their vocabulary. They can practice the characters they learn by writing the characters in combination with drawing matching pictures. Also, to simply draw something they like and look up the name in Chinese is an effective way of learning new words while provoking associations and enjoying creative learning.

All these methods work in combination. Your child can learn a word in a book and then draw a picture depicting the word from their imagination or experience. For instance, if you see a tiger in a book, you can look up the word and how to say it. Then, together with your child, draw the tiger! You could even go as far to find songs about tigers online!

There are many ways to go about this multilayered style of learning, but the core idea is to find methods that make your children’s learning entertaining, adventurous, and rewarding. In the same way that they have learned their native language, make Chinese just as fun and as interesting for them, and soon they’ll be speaking more Chinese than you!

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So why don’t many people in the U.S. seem to care if their children learn a foreign language or not?

Whenever I go back to visit friends and family and talk about my own Chinese language learning and encourage people to do the same, I get a very similar response from many of them: “Cool, but what good would it do me? Everyone else learns English.” While the U.S. education system does incorporate foreign language learning, compared to most other countries, it is quite minimal, and only a small number of students will come out of it with a communicable second language skill. Most of the time, this language is Spanish, which has led to a certain oversaturation of Spanish in the U.S. market. “High priority” languages like Chinese, Russian, and Arabic are often ignored.

To an extent, this attitude of English centralism is understandable. If more of the rest of the world speaks English, why bother learning Chinese or some other second language? My response is always this: building up an understanding of other cultures, creation of opportunities, and deeper self-improvement.

Culturally speaking, there is no better way to understand and connect with another culture than to learn its language. Sure, most of the world might be learning English, but that also means that while they might be able to learn and take advantage of business, trade, and other opportunities with English speaking countries, it also means that it can be more difficult for the reverse to take place. From a purely economic perspective, this is a major failing. You will be unable to connect with a culture, which then makes business difficult and limits how you interact with the camp of the one who has learned your language and your way of communication. The other person will have the advantage, not you.

This ties into the opportunities that will be made available to you. If you want yourself or your child to get ahead, learning a foreign language opens many doors. When I see that parents are willing and dedicated to put money into their children’s second language skill, I know that they’re making a solid investment in the future. If, from a cultural and business perspective, language can open doors, the more you invest in these opportunities from an early age, the better it can be for you individually, and the more the U.S. education system would improve as a result.

Finally, from a self-improvement angle, learning a second language like Chinese opens your brain to many more ways of thinking and seeing the world. It not only can grant health benefits in brain development, but it also can expand one’s perspective of others. Since language is tied to culture, this angle helps one to see the world from totally different culture’s vision and point-of-view.

Unfortunately, many of my friends often still see things through a mono-language filter and don’t always listen to these points I have made. If more people did, however, our own growth would be like China’s, and business and job opportunities might greatly improve, not to mention the educational system. Hopefully, as time goes by, this will change for the better, as who doesn’t want the best for our children’s future?

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Many say that learning Chinese as an adult takes about 10 years. However, I agree with others who say that it only takes just a few years to learn the basics, but after that, the learning never stops. It takes a lifetime. I plan to continue studying Chinese and keep growing my skills, but I believe the challenges I have faced as an adult is common among second language learners.

While some might find that with intense study, a couple of years of learning a language like French or Spanish—if English is your native language, that is—is sufficient to become fluent, with Chinese, it’s a different matter altogether. Chinese may not seem as complex, but in essence, it still has no similarities to western languages. It is the language equivalent of jumping into the deep end of the pool, if you will, with no understanding at all of how to swim. This is why I would recommend to others to start learning a second language, especially Chinese, from an early age.

Growing up in the U.S. with a white family that honestly didn’t think much about second language education, I never was given the chance to learn anything other than English during the formative years of my life. I will always feel this to be a huge missed opportunity. Children’s acquisition and understanding of a second language is vastly superior to that of an adult. According to Wilder Penfield’s “critical period hypothesis”, it is easiest for a child to learn a second language as their neurons are still forming. However, at around age 12, there is a sharp cut off in their ability to grasp a language as quickly and effectively as before (Source: http://wp.me/p8K1ST-20). A child who is able to learn Chinese from 5 years old or even younger, will be much more fluent at around the same length of time it took me to reach my current level.

A good example of these kinds of kids would be the American Born Chinese (the so-called A.B.C.’s) who learn Chinese as they grow up through their parents and other relatives. These kids have the benefit of learning two mother tongues.

Sometimes, they only learn one to a limited extent, such as Chinese, because the parents don’t invest as much time into their education. This, I believe, is quite a shame, as it wastes this critical learning period. However, in the end, these children who have even just a partial level of Chinese language exposure from a young age, will always show a better grasp and understanding of the language than those like myself who had to learn from scratch later in life. This is because the exposure not just to formal learning, but also to the use of language in everyday situations (even if they are just passively listening), helps ingrain the basic language rules into the child’s mind.  I have several friends who grew up in the U.S. and the U.K. and who are Chinese by heritage, but who only partially learned the language growing up. However, they now speak more fluently than myself even after all my time studying, even if I might have more skill in certain technical areas or in writing, aspects which are often ignored by A.B.C. families.

Kids like these are good case studies in how even with a limited second language education at an early age, the skill level and capability to understand, even as an adult, will be vastly increased. On top of that, it will give the child a strong foundation in language learning that they can rely on later in life, if they so desire to relearn that language. Because of the inherent benefits of language learning at a young age, I would recommend to anyone with children to learn a second language from an early age. While it’s certainly possible to learn later in life as an adult—and I’m a good example of one—learning while you’re young is an opportunity you can never get back.

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