We will read this book this week: 听, 是谁在唱歌? (tīng, shì shéi zài chàng gē ?) ‘Listen, who is singing?’
It is full of Onomatopoeia, or words that make a sound like the sound they are trying to describe. They are called 拟声词 (nǐ shēng cí) in Chinese, or literally ‘imitating sound word’. These are great for young learners of Chinese, because just like in first language acquisition, these words can allow children to explore the ‘sounds’ of a language. You will notice that most of the characters in the table below for these ‘sound’ words, have the 口 radical on the left side of the character, which is the ‘mouth’ radical…often giving a clue it is an onomatopoeia word!
The children will have to try and guess which animal is making the singing noise!
Below is a table that has a list of the animals in the book, and the animal sounds that the children will enjoy, but till Story Time enjoy this song! The words to the song are far too long to post here, but this link will take you to them 🙂 You will note some of the animal sounds in the song are a little different to some of the animals in the book…like the Rooster goes ‘ wowo’ in the book and ‘o o’ in the song…but just like animal noises in English…there is no law!
here are the animals in the book:
Cow | 牛 | niú | Moo | 哞哞 | mōu mōu |
Duck | 鸭子 | yā zi | Quack | 嘎嘎 | gā gā |
Dog | 狗 | gǒu | Wuff | 汪汪 | wāng wāng |
Cat | 猫 | māo | Meow | 喵喵 | miāo miāo |
Lion | 狮子 | shī zi | Roar | 嗷呜 | áo wū |
Sheep | 羊 | yáng | Baa | 咩 | miē |
Rooster | 公鸡 | gong jī | Crow | 喔喔 | wōwo |
Horse | 马 | mǎ | Neigh | 嘶嘶 | sī sī |
Pig | 猪 | zhū | Oink | 哼哼 | hēng hēng |
Frog | 青蛙 | qīng wā | Croak | 呱呱 | guā guā |
Here is another more familiar song to help us make those animal sounds! The first sound in the song is a chicken, which is not in our book (we have a rooster in our book crowing ‘wōwō!’. The chicken says 叽叽 ‘jījī’, more like the ‘cheep cheep’ sound of a baby chicken. Lyrics to the song are under the video. Old MacDonald in Chinese is 老王先生 lǎo wáng xiānsheng, the ‘lǎo’ is a polite address of a senior, the ‘wáng’ is his surname, and ‘xiānsheng’ is the word for ‘Mr.’ In Chinese we say ‘Wang Mr’, not ‘Mr Wang’ 🙂 Enjoy!
wáng lǎo xiān shēng yǒu kuài dì yī yā yī yā yōu
王 老 先 生 有 块 地, 咿 呀 咿 呀 呦
tā zài tián lǐ yǎng xiǎo jī yī yā yī yā yōu
他 在 田 里 养 小 鸡, 咿 呀 咿 呀 呦
zhè lǐ jī jī jī nà lǐ jī jī jī
这 里 叽叽叽, 那 里 叽叽叽
zhè lǐ jī nà lǐ jī dào chù dōu zài jī jī
这 里 叽, 那 里 叽, 到 处 都 在 叽叽
wáng lǎo xiān shēng yǒu kuài dì yī yā yīyā yōu
王 老 先 生 有 块 地, 咿 呀 咿 呀 呦
Literal English Translation:
Farmer Wang had a plot of land, yiya yiya yo
On his land he raised little chicks yiya yiya yo
With a cheep cheep here, and a cheep cheep there,
Here a cheep, there a cheep, everywhere a cheep cheep
Farmer Wang had a plot of land, yiya yiya yo