I wrote about young people wanting to revive Chinese dialects in Singapore. Some time back, I had commented on an article about the language of our ancestors being able to touch our hearts. Today's article is about a young man who started making children's picture books for two Chinese dialects (Hokkien and Cantonese) that are commonly spoken in Singapore. What started as a fun learning experience for his nephew, it has now become a small business of sorts. Anyone wanting to learn those dialects would have fun learning. After all, who doesn't like feeling like a child all over again?
What tickled me the most was the name of his website: Sibey Nostalgic. "Sibey" in Hokkien is an expression to mean "extremely". It is as colloquial as you can get. It's also very appropriate since the site sells books to teach you Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew.
The best part about the books is not that they are available, but that you need to connect with someone who speaks the language fluently to learn the proper pronunciation. This is not a self-tutoring package. Instead, it is a family building, inter-generational package. Both children and adults can have fun with it. After all, language learning is meant to be fun!
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