I have been thinking alot about our bilingual family......the conversations tend to be weird and probably not understood by most people around us, unless they are fluent in Chinese and English as well....
Today, ds2 came downstairs in his pull ups......"Mommy, wo jaow bu dau wo de underwear?" ...in case you are wondering, that's Mommy, I can't find my underwear?"
I realized that ds3 even gets in on the bilingual stuff.....he will come up to me and say "Mommy, niou nai (dramatic pause)...mommy milk!" guess he needs to make sure he is understood one way or another.
DS1 used to say "I yau he apple juice." meaning I want to drink apple juice.....for the longest time his nouns were English and verbs Chinese!!
There are somethings that I am glad the nationals don't understand, mainly body parts (we have 3 boys, enough said!!) and bodily functions....though that one is catching on in Taiwan for some reason....more and more kids are knowing what poo-poo and pee-pee is, though they can't say more than Hi and how do you do......they can name bodily functions. Our monolingual foster daughters pick up alot as well.
For Jimmie in China....Taiwan doesn't use pinyin, they have their own way, bopomo method which I learned. AND if you see the pinyin, usually it has tons of different spellings. Today for example, ds1 went to get his first grade shots, the outside of the building said "Taidong City, Taitung Country Health Clinic" (which was ANYTHING BUT HEALTHY!!!) the sign should've read "Taitung City, Taitung County....." They spelled their own name two different ways? We won't even go into the English inside the building....I had to read the Chinese to figure out what they were saying........
All that to say, I am glad I can teach my children at home. I can make sure their English IS English and not a form of pig latin:-) no offense to anyone out there, but if you heard some people here....you'd go crazy.....
ok, it's almost 1am and I need my beauty sleep:-)