Why my child says I talk like a toddler

My 6-year-old thinks I'm a baby - at least when I speak Mandarin.

"I like it when you speak Chinese," she recently told me.

"It's sort of awkward. It's like a baby. And I like babies."

Indeed, Chinese was the blonde, blue-eyed girl's first language. Lily, who was born in Beijing, started to speak English after mixing the two tongues.

"Baba eat jirou. (Daddy eats chicken.) Baba look at xiongmao de hand. (Daddy, look at the panda's paw.)"

By age 3, she largely came to separate the languages.

Her 2-year-old brother recently acquired his first few dozen words - nearly all Chinese.

He nai (drink milk), baobao wo (hug me), jiejie ku (sister is crying).

He uses both ball and its Chinese equivalent, qiu.

"No" is about his only other English word. It's worth noting, Chinese doesn't have a direct equivalent of "yes" or "no" but uses other grammatical acrobatics to affirm and negate.

My Chinese is perhaps less like a toddler's and more like an immigrant's (a concept my daughter doesn't have).

I'm certified as at least intermediate in reading and writing, since I passed the national Chinese Proficiency Test's Level 4 before Lily was born. (Level 6 is the highest.)

And my spoken Chinese is much better than my reading and writing.

I can converse about, say, (basic) economics but with small grammatical flubs, tonal mistakes and a funny accent. It's worth noting the second two are common among native Chinese with less-than-perfect Putonghua (standardized Mandarin).

There's a theory that language shapes how we perceive the world.

I've noticed for instance, that after speaking only Chinese for a period, two things happen.

First, I start to think (simple thoughts) in Chinese. I notice because I sometimes talk to myself. Say, I'm traveling and haven't spoken English in days - I'll mutter, Wode shouji zai nali?, rather than, "Where's my phone?"

Second, I think about the world differently in such ways as, in my mind's eye, "opening" rather than turning on the light - a direct translation into English that retains the Chinese-language's conception of the phenomenon.

I was wondering how this works for Lily, since she's a native speaker of both languages but learned Chinese.

She says she only thinks in English and translates in her head. Interestingly, she also never dreams in Chinese, which I sometimes do.

It seems counterintuitive that I do and she doesn't.

That said, the other morning she told me in English: "I'm not afraid of the cold. I'm afraid of the hot."

This is a direct translation - Chinese typically discuss an aversion to temperature extremes using the word for fear (pa), rather than a synonym for dislike.

And I've noticed how our family mixes the languages at home.

I'll ask my wife: "Mind if I kai (open) the kongtiao (air conditioner)? Did you mai (buy) the piao (tickets)?"

My daughter only calls me Baba - never Daddy - whichever language we're using.

That said, to her, I'm still a baby.

I guess in the way of rediscovering the world like children do through another language, I actually am.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn