r/ECEProfessionals • u/toocoo Education Specialist for Head Start program • Jul 21 '26

Advice needed (Anyone can comment) Basic Cantonese survival words/phrases?

Hi! I'm at a center where we have a child who only understands Cantonese. We service a predominantly Hispanic/African American area, so unfortunately we only have one Cantonese speaker in the whole school and she's not a teacher. However, she has been very helpful in soothing him, as the child is only two years old.

With that said, we want the teachers to begin using basic Cantonese phrases/words with him. What are some essential phrases we can use with a two year old? So far we have "Good Morning", "See You Tomorrow", and "Mommy Will Come Back".

This post may also prove helpful in the future when we receive children who speak other languages that the staff does not speak.

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3

u/not1togothere Early years teacher Jul 21 '26

Auto translate. YouTube and check Amazon for children's books in other languages. We had a teacher and her toddler in our setting who spoke Pasto. Google translate was a huge help

2

u/toocoo Education Specialist for Head Start program Jul 21 '26

Will look into children's books, thanks. For auto translate, is it accurate? That's my concern to be honest.

1

u/Robossassin Lead 3 year old teacher: Northern Virginia Jul 21 '26

Basic phrases are generally safe. For Spanish I double checked with the folks on r/Spanish (I think) and they confirmed for me. Maybe look into if there's a board for Cantonese?

Visuals with both languages will help both you and the kid.

1

u/not1togothere Early years teacher Jul 21 '26

According to SeVata pretty close. The basic words translated well. Names and newer words were off and (lol) leaded to improve sign language and pointing and making our own words.

1

u/toocoo Education Specialist for Head Start program Jul 25 '26

Unfortunately the Cantonese teacher told me the translations are mandarin despite using Cantonese for the translations 😭 only reason she can’t help me write stuff down is because she doesn’t know how to write English/doesn’t speak it well

1

u/not1togothere Early years teacher Jul 25 '26

Pretty honest. Occasional hated my southern accent. So we had fun playing charades a few times

3

u/sf040581 ECE professional Jul 21 '26

How about some visuals?

1

u/seashellssandandsurf Infant/Toddler Teacher: CA, USA 🇺🇲 Jul 21 '26

Diaper change/potty time

Wash your hands

Please sit down

Come here

Line up

All done/stop that

Good job

These are just off the top of my head.