• Home
  • Our Shop
  • About Us
    • About MKB
    • Our Shop
    • MKB Board
    • Editorial Board and MKB Administrators
    • Our Contributors
    • For Bloggers: Join MKB
    • Books and Products from Our Members
    • Cultural Resources
    • Contact Us
  • Product Promotion Services
  • Blog Hops & Series
    • Holidays Around the World
      • Martin Luther King Day
      • Chinese New Year
      • Purim
      • Passover
      • Easter Around the World
      • Ramadan
      • Hajj (Eid al Adha)
      • Rosh Hashanah
      • Day of the Dead
      • Diwali
      • Hanukkah
      • Christmas in Different Lands
    • Heritage Months
      • Black History Month
      • Women’s History Month
      • Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month
      • Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month
      • Hispanic Heritage Month
      • Native American Heritage Month
    • Blogging Carnivals
    • Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop
    • Global Learning for Kids
  • Resources for Raising Global Citizens
  • Privacy Policy

Multicultural Kid Blogs

For families and educators raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.

Friday Sharing: Translating favorite rhymes into other languages

March 13, 2013 by Varya

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Translating Favorite Rhymes - Creative World of Varya on Multiculturalkidblogs.comRaising multicultural and multilingual children is not a very easy task and translating favorite rhymes into other language isn’t easy either.

Beside always wondering with what identity the children will end up, whether they will be culturally confused, how to make parenting styles of spouses match and work for the best of the family, there are so many little issues that arise every day.

One of the things I always wondered about since I started learning languages is how to translate and adapt songs, poems, nursery rhymes, favorite stories and fairy tales into different languages. I love translating and interpreting hence I never stop!

While working as a kindergarten ESL teacher I found it easy and more fun to try and translate children’s favorite nursery rhymes and simple songs into English. It always worked well and children enjoyed singing along the familiar tunes.

Now that I have my own children I try doing the same for them.

Translating favorite children's rhymes - Creative World of Varya on Multiculturalkidblogs.comHere is an example of a song I translated for my students from Chinese into English and which my older daughter sings for her own sister:

Lian zhi xiao wa wa ya

Zhen de da dien hua ya

Wei wei wei ni za na li ya

Ei ei ei wo zai you er yuan

Two little children

Talking on the phone

Hello hello where are you?

Hello hello I’m at my school

It’s and easy easy and catchy tune.

Translating favorite children's rhymes - Creative World of Varya on Multiculturalkidblogs.com

Here’s another rhyme which I translated for my baby yoga and English fun class:

It’s raining it’s raining

Come out and let’s play

Xiao yu xiao yu

Lai yi qi wan

I used this rhyme to play a rain game, and the 1.5-2.5 year olds loved it!

In my humble opinion, and experience, it is not very hard to adapt popular songs and nursery rhymes to a foreign language. It doesn’t mean to forget common for the language and culture own nursery rhymes.

Try it and let me know how it goes!

Creative World of VaryaVarya blogs at Creative World of Varya. She is a mom to 2 girls, early development specialist, baby massage and perinatal fitness instructor, breastfeeding consultant. Varya has been living in China for the past 12 years working and raising her multicultural family.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profileMy YouTube channel

Varya

Founder at Creative World of Varya
Varya blogs at CreativeWorldOfVarya.Com . She is a mom to 3 children, an early development specialist, a baby massage and perinatal fitness instructor, aromatherapist and a breastfeeding counselor. Varya has been living in China for nearly 20 years working and raising her multicultural family.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profileMy YouTube channel

Latest posts by Varya (see all)

  • 7 Quotes to Empower and Inspire Women - March 14, 2022
  • Healthy and Easy Multicultural Meal - December 6, 2021
  • Showing Kindness in These Uncertain Times - May 19, 2020

Filed Under: Learning About Culture Tagged With: bilingualism, children's activities, children's games, children's songs, Chinese language, early childhood education, education, family activities, multilingualism, Translation

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Comments

  1. Olga@The European Mama says

    September 13, 2013 at 6:08 am

    Love the idea and I also translate songs into Polish, or translate them for my husband into German. I have recently translated a song from Dutch into Polish and my girl loved it! What a great post, Varya, thank you! I also write my own nursery rhymes and songs, although I must say they pretty much write themselves!

  2. Varya @ CWOV says

    September 13, 2013 at 6:25 am

    Thanks Olga! The idea is not new and it is so natural! We should record our musings and share!!!!

  3. Jody says

    September 13, 2013 at 6:38 am

    This is such a great idea Varya! Thank you for sharing some of your translations here!

    • Varya says

      September 13, 2013 at 7:26 am

      You are welcome! And thank you for reading!

  4. Joy says

    September 13, 2013 at 7:18 am

    hi ,dear ..thanks for sharing your excellent ideas .

    • Varya says

      September 13, 2013 at 7:25 am

      Thank you dear Joy!

  5. Natalie says

    September 13, 2013 at 1:15 pm

    You are very creative. I always sing a Russian lullaby to my daughter. She can sing it back to me, but she doesn’t understand the words. Perhaps I can try to rhyme it in English and see how it goes 🙂

    • Varya @ CWOV says

      March 11, 2014 at 9:20 am

      Have you tried yet? I’m curious how she reacted!

  6. Frances says

    November 6, 2013 at 8:25 am

    Varya what a great post, and a wonderful idea. I have yet to translate my son’s favorite nursery rhymes into Spanish. Thanks for the idea! Thank you for submitting this post to last month’s multilingual carnival! http://discoveringtheworldthroughmysonseyes.blogspot.com/2013/10/raising-multilingual-children-blogging.html

    • Varya @ CWOV says

      March 11, 2014 at 9:21 am

      Thank you! Hope both of you enjoy it!

  7. Vanessa says

    March 11, 2014 at 7:53 am

    Love your blog! I’m so happy you included Chinese. My own daughter is learning so much from the ayi. She is becoming quite comfortable in both languages. A few corrections and then you can totally delete my comment: When you write “Lian zhi xiao wa wa ya” it’s actually “Liang ge xiao wa wa ya.” The pinyin of “two” is “liang” and “ge” is the appropriate measure word for children. “Zhi” is usually reserved for animals for example.
    Also in “Xiao yu xiao yu“, it’s actually “Xia yu xia yu”. “Xia” means fall and “yu” is rain so it’s literally falling rain, for “it’s raining”. “Xiao” means small which makes the phrase a bit poetic but not right for this intended meaning. Can’t wait to explore more of your blog!

    • Varya @ CWOV says

      March 11, 2014 at 9:24 am

      Thank you, Vanessa! What a sweet comment! I just want to add that the words are given word by word from “children’s” language/sleng of a sort. I often here “zhi” used instead of “ge” and in the word rain while as you pointed out it is “xia yu” somehow often sung as “xia-o” or ” xiao”. Thank you again for stopping by and commenting!!!

Trackbacks

  1. A poem about a Locomotive and Circle of Moms Competition says:
    November 4, 2013 at 10:13 am

    […] by European Mama on September 16, 2013 in I Am A Mom, Uncategorized 3 Comments In her latest post for the Multicultural Kids Blog, Varya talks about translating children’s rhymes and poems […]

  2. 100 Ways to Encourage Foreign Language Learning says:
    March 2, 2015 at 8:35 am

    […] 17. Rhymes, poems, story books – read to and with your child. And you can always translate them to give your child a better understanding, just like I wrote about it my guest post for Multicultural Kid Blogs. […]

  3. Julian Tuwim's Locomotive Poem says:
    October 18, 2015 at 5:51 am

    […] on September 16, 2013 in I Am A Mom, Raising Multilingual Children 3 Comments In her latest post for the Multicultural Kids Blog, Varya talks about translating children’s rhymes and poems […]

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on Google+Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Instagram

Anti-Bullying Resource FREE Download

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Grab Our Button!

grab button for Multicultural Kid Blogs
<div class="multicultural-kid-blogs-button" style="width: 200px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/button-take-3.jpg" alt="Multicultural Kid Blogs" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div>
Multicultural Children's Book Day Co-Host

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT