Momma Scolds Horse

Katie started a six week study of Mandarin Chinese today. As a 7th grader at Oaks Christian School, she is required to take Spanish, Chinese, Latin, and French. The school calls this course the "Language Wheel." Each seventh grade student studies one of these languages for nine weeks and then they all rotate to a new teacher and a new language for the next nine weeks. This gives each student the opportunity to discover the language that interests them and prepares them to pick which language they will take in High School (four years of one of these languages is required to graduate from Oaks).

Katie enjoyed her six weeks in Spanish and really liked the Spanish teacher (she started at Oaks about 3 weeks late so her Spanish session was shortened). Today, she came home and said that on this first day of Mandarin Chinese she learned to say "momma scolds horse." Seemed a bit odd to begin with such a phrase to me, but hey, I don't know one word of Chinese - let alone teach it. It would seem you would teach students how to say things like "good morning" or "how are you today." Again, that's just me.

The teacher taught them these three words to explain about the tonal inflections that make Mandarin so distinct from other languages. These words each demonstrate the various tonal ranges used. Well, that makes sense. I guess the teacher knows best.

Katie loved it. She eats this kind of stuff up. Now she wants to take Spanish for one year (her eighth grade year) and then take Chinese in high school. We will see if that sticks as the plan, but for now, she can sort of say "momma scolds horse."

We are so proud of her and we hope that if we need to rely upon her language skills to communicate to Chinese people, Lesli is scolding a horse at the time.