Standard of English

gatochat

Hi all,
My friend recently spent an afternoon with my son and told me that he is using broken English (i.e., English with Chinese grammar) while playing with her daughter (who's not Chinese).  She has also noticed that his English was fine when he spoke to my friend, i.e, an adult.  I suspect he might have picked up broken English from school friends, as not all are from English speaking families.  


My son speaks English with me and I have noticed that he's picked up some typical local grammar, i.e., 'I want some biscuit *also', which I try and correct him at home.  His English is fine otherwise and I haven't noticed his broken English myself.  

My question is, should I be worried about it?  It is just phase that will hopefully pass as he gets older?

oooray

How old is your son?

FattyDaddy

gatochat 發表於 15-6-22 23:30
My friend recently spent an afternoon with my son and told me that he is using broken English  (i.e., English with Chinese grammar) ...

This happens often and I suspect is unavoidable unless your child only use English and don't learn Chinese at all. For multilingual people it is common for one of their languages to seep into another but it should not be anything serious, e.g. "I want some biscuits also" vs "I also want some biscuits", not really that "broken" is it.

紅紅

如果只是有時，特別係同輩當中，似是講“BB話”，係'BB話vs大人話，而不是中文grammar vs 英文grammar …… 講中文的小朋友都會咁，我覺得問題不大，除非小朋友是高年級，就要紏正吓。

gatochat

回覆 oooray 的帖子

He is five and a half, one of the youngest in his year.

964000

係咪bb話，我同工人講英文有時都自轉了菲式broken english

gatochat

Thx everyone for your inputs.  

I'm not particularly worried about it really, it's just something my friend noticed and I am just a little curious how this has happened.  If he is using proper English when conversing with me, I know he has good English inside him and I'm ok with it.  I'll keep an eye on him to find out whether this is happening on regular bases.

Living in HK and being exposed to both  Chinese and English on a regular bases has its advantages and disadvantages I guess.  My friend who is a native speaker was also surprised to see my son speaking like that with her daughter.  Maybe it's just like baby talk and hopefully he will out grown it eventually.  

FattyDaddy

sllam2013 發表於 15-6-23 20:53
我認識不少讀國際學校的香港小朋友並没有你所說的現象。除非是那些並非英語流利的父母，經常用非正統英語 ...

Linguistic studies have shown that the phenomenon does occur among multilingual people, especially children who have not fully developed their languages. Academically it is called "code mixing", but the effect could be slight and may go unnoticed. Judging from the example given by the original poster, i.e. "I want some biscuits also", it is nothing serious and in fact not many people would consider that "broken" :)

FattyDaddy

sllam2013 發表於 15-6-24 09:46
請問那裡可看到相關的研究？我很有興趣知道那些研究的方法與結果是否正確及合理。原因是與我的認知有點出 ...

That would be beyond the scope of this forum, but if you are really interested all you need to do is to search for "code mixing" in Google and you'll find tons of stuff on it :)

https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&biw=1045&bih=522&q=%22code+mixing%22&oq=%22code+mixing%22&gs_l=serp.3..0l10.3531.6037.0.6367.13.13.0.0.0.0.80.821.13.13.0.ckpsrh...0...1.1.64.serp..1.12.765.lsUKs9J6D1Y

misscheerful

Do you have a filippino maid at home? using "also" at the end of a sentence is very typical among them. your son might have picked it up from the maid

gatochat

回覆 FattyDaddy 的帖子

yes FattyDaddy, I'll look into code mixing.   
Maybe I am just overreacting.  I was just very surprised when my friend told me how my son uses a different form English in different situations.  I did not personally witnessed the English my son used when he was with his peers.  My friend is a native speaker recently arrived in HK, so maybe she is more sensitive to the local grammar.  One does get used to these things when you listen to it day after day.  
I am also an early years teacher who knows the importance of communicating with my child by the language I'm most comfortable of.  The problem is that I was trained in the UK, so I have limited experience on working with multilingual children.  

At the end of the day, as long as my son is learning and enjoying learning, has good enough English and Chinese to get by, then I'm ok with it.  

gatochat

回覆 misscheerful 的帖子

nah, we don't have a helper at home.  I can't get used to the idea of living with someone I don't know in a tiny flat!  

964000

gatochat 發表於 15-6-24 22:20
回覆 misscheerful 的帖子
nah, we don't have a helper at home.  I can't get used to the idea of livi ...

Maybe he picked it up from friends with Filipino maid. My maid always says " open the light" "open the fan" "xxx also" "many water, many wee-wee" "the food is trembling (meaning the cooking is so-so)" and sometimes I will use her language to communicate with her. Nevertheless I will speak properly whenever my child is around and try to rephrase her .