Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

When I interviewed Oliver Tu’s daughter, Christine for Our Chinese & English Journey podcast, she mentioned growing up reading tons of manga. This idea stuck with me, and I started getting manga for my kids last summer.

It’s hard to choose the right titles because not all manga are suitable for first graders. I opted for age-appropriate ones like Doraemon and Pokémon. I also accidentally got a series called 四葉妹妹 (Yotsuba&!), which my kids ended up loving. It’s about a four-year-old girl exploring the world and interacting with her neighbors.

Since bringing the manga back from Taiwan, these books have become regular reads for my kids. While they didn’t really read the characters last year, I noticed Little Bun reading them more this year, whispering the words as she went along.

I bought new books from books.com.tw (博客來) and second-hand ones from Shopee (蝦皮), which I started using more last year.

This year, I picked up two classics, Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon. Both kids love them and constantly read the books, asking questions along the way. I also got cartoon series for those two manga in mandarin audio and have them watch a few episodes on the weekend. I think having something they’re kind of obsessed with helps fuel their enthusiasm for Chinese.

Overall, I find manga sparks my kids’ interest in reading, but it’s still too early to tell if it will significantly improve their Chinese character reading skills.