It's hard to memorise Ay Bee See

Now that EggEgg can count accurately, here comes our next endeavour: teaching EggEgg the alphabets.

With EggEgg being an ABC (Australia Born Chinese, no pun intended), I had never been convinced of the need to specifically teach him any English at home. Why bother? Find me a teenage ABC whose English does not surpass his parents!

Recently, I've bought a wonderful ABC pop-up book which EggEgg love to read everyday. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnZr0wiG1Hg) For the first time, I tried to point out the sounds associated with the symbols. Alas, a week of reading it to him, EggEgge still hasn't been able to memorise the sounds beyond the letter D. Those sounds and symbols associations meant absolutely nothing to him.

"EggEgg, what is this character?", pointing to the letter C.

EggEgg stared intensely at the curious letter C, trying hard to find the right sound. After a little while, he gave up and shook his head slowly, "I don't know..."

"I've taught you many times before, you kept forgetting it. It's the fifth time today I'm telling you. It's a C. C! Remember, it's C!"

"Ci... ci...", EggEgg repeated after me.

As a kid, I loved to browse through tattered Chinese almanacs, reading up on superstitious Chinese horoscope pages, mysterious palm reading pages, and hilarious English lessons pages. The publishers broke down each pronunciation into individual Chinese words, for the benefit of those illiterate Chinamen to communicate with their gwei lo bosses. Those pages never failed to gives me a good laugh. Out of desperation, I wonder if this method might work for EggEgg too, some 20 years later?

"See this curve? It looks like the paw of a lion. It's called C. Sounds like 獅子. C! 獅 from 獅子! "

EggEgg blinked and nodded his head ever so slightly in mild comprehension.

"And this is called D. You remember how to ask Mami for more biscuit? 多啲! 多啲!"

"This is called E. Like 醫生. E! 醫 from 醫生!"

"This is called J. EggEgg likes to eat 啫喱? J! 啫!"

"This is V. Like, you want to wee wee?"

EggEgg's eye slowly brighten up, as he finally understand where I'm coming from. Hallelujah! By the third day with this weird but wonderful learning method, EggEgg managed to memorise all the alphabets until the letter X. (I have yet to find a mnemonic for X,Y, Z. Those sounds don't seem to exist in Chinese...)

From the good old Chinese almanac 通勝學英文:

溫, 拖, 夫里, 科, 快夫, 昔士, 舍焚, 噎, 乃吾, 吞, 衣拉焚... 1 to 11

要王 you want

劫米 give me

白那那 Banana

來蒙 Lemon

坎 Ham

憶 Egg

蚊坭 Money

決麼玲 Good morning

屈都要王拖悲？ What do you want to buy?