Connecting through Mother Tongue Languages

Mother tongue languages help us to connect with our loved ones.


============================================
Connect with us:

[johnnytan]

So touching...The little girl is so beautiful .

[dawnloh]

Agree that our mother tongues are important, especially in bonding and creating that closer relationship. Nicely portrayed in this video!

[yijianchia]

In order to stop the millenias from losing their bilingualism and their connection to the roots, it's important for them to continue to use and learn their mother tongue languages. Too much negativity from people who think it's only an ideal. Look how my generation (80s-born) grew up ... everyone has mastered bilingualism. Are we saying that the millenias are not as versatile as us? No, they should be even better than us. It a matter of wanting or not. And parents who choose to only speak English at home. Thanks MOE for emphasizing this again among the students. Spread it to the parents as well. Fluency can be mastered over time, but for the start, use your mother tongue frequently. Practice will make perfect. And this will be a good tool when we are head on with globalisation.

[emilyseetoh]

Good idea to keep our mother tongue alive which ever it might be. While we might not speak it often on the street, work place or anywhere else, there is a sense of connection within the family roots and when spoken at family gatherings. Somehow even when being in another country for the first time and you get to encounter someone who speaks your mother tongue, there is a special feeling you get. A kind of bond.

[johnwhite]

This played before a Try Not To Cry....video hasn't started, already cried

[brucelim]

My niece is actually speaking more Mandarin when I saw her last weekend. We were chitchatting about this video few weeks ago. Nice one MOE!

[ZacharyAlexanderGoh]

Doesn't really count for me since my grandma speaks English

[dougchua]

nice and meaningful video campaign. It is very on point to highlight the precious heritage and culture what we are losing, and our mother tongue is one of the most important element. Good work to MOE for enforcing this campaign and encourage learning and using mother tongue in school. back in the 90s, we always get "fined" in class for not speaking English, maybe now, teachers can use the same method when the kids don't speak their second language during language classes?

[charlestham]

It pays to be bilingual. Having a command of our second language is a form of keeping our identity and roots. And it's always an advantage to your resume I suppose.

[GKP]

This would be a great video if it were true.  The ordinary Singaporeans speak Singlish not English, just listen to what spoken on the streets.  Bilingualism is an ideal. But far from the ideal, my personal experience and observation is that most Singaporeans can barely managed one language let alone two languages with non-related roots. Of my generation at least many Singaporeans can at least handle one language rather well. With Singaporean Millennials, most speak Singlish and cannot managed any other languages. I have warned my nieces that speaking Singlish is fine in Singapore, but that vernacular is not understood elsewhere in the world.  And sadly none of them speak any Chinese dialects, thanks to the Singapore system which eradicated them.

[joyseng]

Actually, it is not only about mother tongue and mandarin in this video. Many of our grandparents can only speak dialect, but the government has totally removed it from our environment regardless is ban in media or other channels. Speaking mandarin is not sufficient to communicate with grandparents for many of the Chinese families

[marclim]

That kind of teacher... is like impossible to find in sg

[chooruizhi]

Hello? Did anyone forget that your grandparents, who were most likely from South China, probably spoke more Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew or maybe Cantonese than Mandarin?

[SuccessforLifester]

This is a lie. After being channelled into SAP secondary environment where almost everyone speaks Mandarin, I am having problems in the work life where English is cherished. You can do very poorly in studies but if you have drunk foreign waters and speak with an Ang Mo slang and pretend dont know how to speak Mandarin, the boss will cherish you instead of Chinese Speaking staff. All my RI friends do well in career as they speak English. I got a choice of going RI but no one advised me then. Coming from a speak dialect family.

[jannah]

this is true

and I'm just shocked that this is my school this year I'd my last year in this school

[renderz]

Why cant u let us choose our 2nd language? Yes promote billingualism that great, but why force us to learn our mother tongue language? We should be given options to learn spanish, german, french, etc too. And dont even start on the lack of teachers. If you can import teachers frm china etc, pretty sure u can do the same for other languages. If the language option is there, pretty sure there will be a demand for it, its a much better experience than having a language forced down your throat through 12 years of education. It doesn't matter anymore, I've finishing my 12 years learning chinese and I'd have been happier picking up another language

[EmAwakex]

Chinese and bilingualism is useful, granted, (THANK YOU FOR PUSHING ME TO MY LIMITS) but... this video finally made me realise that I have a huge problem with calling chinese "my" mother tongue. Chinese definitely did not help me get any closer to my grandparents WHO MOSTLY ONLY SPEAK TEOCHEW. Please, my entire extended family is known for their amazingly bad chinese. A B3 in my family is a huge achievement and taking HCL is practically unheard of (until me, but I got F9 anyway lolol). How can a language my grandparents, aunts, uncles and parents all struggle to speak be my mother tongue?

Tell me it's useful and relevant anytime and I'll buy it. Just don't call it something it's not (at least for me it isn't). Why not call them: Officially Relevant Languages or OrL for short lol jk

[thuoo]

learning chinese in singapore= 10 years later, still cannot read 早报。 wtf

[officialnyiyanmoehtet]

Why Americans🇺🇸 cannot speak a second language!?

[kaikai]

this is just a little pathetic and i think every parents from now should teach their own child BOTH good and fluent in their mother tongue language and english... haizzz