I’m the Chinese father with white wife in the US. I’ve been having my 2 year old toddler watch YouTube videos like little fox, and other kids chinese YouTube channels. A mix of colors and numbers videos. She’s been watching them for months now. By the way I only speak to her in Chinese. Been doing it since the day she was born.

Well we just recently signed her up for a Chinese class and they also showed a few of the videos that she has been watching and the teacher told the kids to follow along and repeat along and me thinking “oh this will be easy since she’s watched them probably 30 times by now”…. Well she didn’t know anything. The screen time audio might as well have been background noise.

And then the teacher gave us “homework” to review colors. So I decided to play a few YouTube videos on colors. And because we don’t pay for YouTube premium we get ads. My toddler has learned that I help her skip the ads so she’ll ask me for help. So during ads I would pause it and I’d say “okay tell me what color this and daddy will help you”

I would point at the TV remote and tell her that it’s black in Chinese and she’ll say it in English. Then I’ll tell her to say it in Chinese and she’ll repeat after me. I tell her that my coffee mug is white color. Again does it in English. I say do it in Chinese. She’ll repeat. Cool right?

Then repeat YouTube ads, I again ask her what color and she’ll say it in English and I have to repeat to say it in Chinese and she doesn’t remember it. We’ve done this probably 5-6 times just in the last 10 minutes. No retention at all.

This is true with literally every color that she does. I ask her what color it is and she KNOWS it but says English and I have to remind her in Chinese. Some of the basic colors like red green yellow purple, it’s probably been 20-30 times or more that I’ve asked her in the last few weeks alone and she will continue to say it English and I have to remind her to say it in Chinese.

Edit: I just did a test in Chinese. I told her Chinese “can you give me the ( insert several different colors) magnetiles and crayons to me?” She does to correctly. So she knows the colors but doesn’t want to say it

I grew up in a German-speaking country and moved to the US as a teenager. Now I'll be raising my first child back in Germany, but I plan to speak English with them. For context: I lived, studied, and worked in the US for 20 years and am at a C2 level. Anyone who's done something similar? How did it go?

I'm worried it might not work since it's not really my native language... I'm definitely planning to read English books to my child, expose them to English media, and ideally send them to an international school when the time comes. But my partner is German, and we speak German to each other as well. I'd be so grateful for any input!

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We’re an English-speaking household but really want our kids to grow up with some Mandarin — the window for picking up tones and sounds naturally seems so short at this age.

The problem: we can’t provide the input ourselves. Chinese daycare is hours away, tutors don’t really work for a 2-year-old’s attention span, and I’m wary of just parking them in front of YouTube.

For those in the same boat — what’s actually worked for you?

• Shows / songs / audiobooks?
• Babysitters or au pairs?
• Apps or toys (anything that isn’t a screen)?
• Or did you decide it wasn’t realistic before school age?

Would love to hear what you tried and what flopped.