Mandarin Speech Resources
created in Boardmaker®
Occasionally I am asked to see some bilingual Mandarin-English speaking clients for speech therapy, and that makes me very excited because I get to do therapy in English and Mandarin. These kids often have parents who speak Mandarin only or are more comfortable in that language; for these folks, I try to give Chinese speech activities so they can feel confident doing them with their children.
Most of the bilingual or other language therapy materials online and offline are for children from Spanish speaking backgrounds. I had a hard time finding anything Chinese related out there, so I made some, and thought I’d share them!
Here are some of the Mandarin speech cards I made up using Boardmaker. I’m in the process of adding the roman alphabet (hanyu pinyin) under the Chinese characters for English speaking clinicians to have *some* idea of how to pronounce the words. Do check back in a few days for more resources and information on the Mandarin phonetic system and speech sound development in children.
Please feel free to share this link with SLPs you know who work in school districts with a high Mandarin-speaking clientele. And if you know of any SLPs who also have bilingual Mandarin-English resources, I’d like to know about them and make a list of them here! Thanks. 🙂
The Speechie Speaks 
Hello!
My friend is looking for Mandarin speech therapy for her son in San Francisco, CA. Where are you located? If you are not in that area, do you have any referrals for another Mandarin speaking speech pathologist/therapist? Thank you so much for your help!
Lilia
Thanks for asking me! I am currently located in the Southern Hemisphere (in Australia!). I didn’t spend much time in SF but I can’t imagine finding a Mandarin speaking SLP there to be too difficult? There seems to be a big practice: http://www.spencerkong.com/About-Us.html that has a Mandarin speaking SLP working with them. Let me know how you go so I also know to add that to my list of resources.
Thanks and good luck.
Hi! Just wondered where in Australia you work? I’m looking for a Mandarin-speaking SP in the Sydney area but haven’t had a lot of luck with the SPA website search. I’m a community health speech pathologist & I have a client who I’m trying to link in with speech pathologists who speak Mandarin!
Thanks,
Vani
Hi Vani thanks for your reply! I’m based in Melb currently. Have u looked on SPA?? There’s one male Mandarin speaking guy. I think he works at Educational Speech Pathology Services. I remember googling once and he came up — not sure if he’s near where you are but might be worth checking out. 🙂 good luck!
Thanks so much for your reply, I appreciate it 🙂 Too bad you’re not in Sydney, I would love to hand over my client to someone as capable as you!!!
Aww thanks, Vani! If you ever happen to need someone in Mel you’ll know who could potentially help! :-))
Hi, I went through a brain tumor surgery in 2001 and end up losing my linguistic abilities (I was bilingual being Singaporean Chinese). After speech therapy for 1 year, I regain my linguistic abilities in English, but they do not have speech therapy in Chinese. Currently I am relearning my Chinese on my own (重新背字) but it is very tough as my memory has been impaired. I can speak and understand but I can’t read or write. My linguistic abilities for Chinese are now stuck at Primary 2. I got my brain tumor when I was in University 2nd year. Saw your material and was wondering how do I use them? Is it the same as what I went through for English speech therapy?
Hi Tee Ming,
Thanks for stopping by. I don’t work a lot with adults but have done in my clinical placement back in grad school. I do remember seeing a couple of bi- and even tri-lingual patients who were post-stroke who lost their abilities in one of the languages in which they were previously fluent. I even had one patient who, after a stroke, could only speak in her third language (which was the least dominant) after a stroke). It’s great to hear that you regained your English abilities after speech therapy.
The materials I posted here were designed for clients who have articulation difficulties (which is why they are organized by sounds). You could use it for language but probably need someone to guide you on how to use them. Where are you based? Do you have access to a Mandarin speaking Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)? Did you lose both speaking and reading abilities?
C
Hi, C
I am based in Singapore. Back then, I only lost my ability to read and write. My ability to hear and speak (to converse) was not impaired. As mentioned, I regain my English capabilities after 1 year of speech therapy in Singapore General Hospital so that I could finish my degree in Civil Engineering. But Chinese (read and write) I did not recover. Also as mentioned I am now relearning my Chinese on my own. Previously I can be writing the words for 5 lines (that is about 20 words per line, so total 100 words, ie, 100 times) but the next day I can write out the word but I don’t remember what that words meant or how to pronounce the word.
I tried your method of relating visual (pictures) with the words and sound. It does seem to make the words stick in my memory. 2 days ago I was learning 天涯. So I put these 2 words with the pronunciation tian1 ya2 as well a drew a picture of the sky and the valleys with a stream flowing in the center. This seems to make the words stick to my memory.
Thank you for the list of words! This has saved me sometime and can be helpful for families and other SLP’s