I don’t remember the first song I sang when I was a kid, and I doubt if my parents would still remember. As for my kids, Grace’s first songs were both “ABC” and the “Barney’s Song: I Love You“. That’s right, she knew both song, sang it loud and proud. Songs are pretty easy for Grace to remember, and she sings some Vietnamese children song as well. Quite the opposite for Benjamin, words and English vocab doesn’t quite stick with him. He knows them, but he doesn’t say it back. When he was younger, Thao usually sang to him a Vietnamese lullaby and he remembered it.
Au o vi dau cau van dong dinh cau tre lac leo gap ghenh kho di. Kho di me dat con di. Con di truong hoc, me di truong lang.You start singing and he can sing the next words for you, but he doesn’t sing the song. His babysit lady is from Hue, a central region of Vietnam, and she speaks with thick central-region accent. Ben also now has some Vietnamese central accent when he talks. It’s quite funny. The other day he went home from daycare and sang first line of ”Ai Ra Xu Hue” (a well-known song about that central region) and we had quite a laugh.
Today mark a milestone for him as he can sing his first English song, “Happy Birthday to you!” ”ABC” didn’t quite work out. Too many letters.
