昨日我寫了一篇「為什麼英文書不好看?」我的結論是英文童書太多F型,T型的太少,所以T型的孩子很難喜歡看。
有網友留言那是因為我們華人孩子英文水平不夠好。我想問一句,如果只是因為英文不夠好,為什麼我兒子不喜歡看中文版的《哈利波特》?他隻隻字都看得懂呀!
不要忽略閱讀口味的重要性,因為媽媽大多數是F型的,她們比較難感受到那些英文童書有多悶,但如果F型的你,看看我的書單,你就會感覺到那種悶:
這些我正在讀的書,相信你看到封面都沒有興趣了吧!
那種感受就是我兒子看那些《獅子丶女巫丶魔衣櫥》的感受。如果你兒子也是T型的,感受就和我兒子就差不多。
由於大部分媽媽都是F型,大部分兒子都是T型,F型很難感受到兒子喜歡什麼書,男女品味真的大不相同的,所以大部分男孩都培養不到閱讀習慣,就是因為媽媽推介的書很悶。我在童書谷見到有些媽媽推介什麼《媽媽變成了鬼》,內容是說媽媽撞車死了化身為鬼去看自己的孩子,繪圖溫馨感人,反正媽媽自己一面看一面哭得一塌糊塗,感動到死,我心中就祈禱她生的那個是女孩,否則她兒子應該覺得這個媽媽是痴線的。男孩子不喜歡那些令人哭的作品,他們要刺激,要驚險,要過癮,要主角勝利!男孩是爭強好勝的。當然,也有F型的暖男型男孩子,但他們數目比較少。
有一次馬拉博友來探,我們吃完午餐便一起去圖書館逛逛,我隨手拿起説本張愛玲小說,問她愛看嗎?她搖搖頭說,她喜歡看男仔書,從小如此,例如金庸小說,這和我一樣!因為我們倆都是Intp, 是數目不多的T型女性。推介過金庸小說給 Infj 博友,她無論怎樣都看不下去,我就奇怪了,明明作者金庸先生都是infj呀,他寫的應該女性也喜歡看才對。而我鐵粉博友的兒子是enfj, 自從看過金庸也是大愛,為什麼大家都是xnfj, 喜歡的卻不一樣?🤔🤔🤔我猜是這樣子的,金庸先生是f和T比較平衡的人,極端F和極端T都不喜歡他的作品,所以看F/T,還要看維度。
我兒子不喜歡看英文書持續到小五,然後我安排他自學 igcse maths, physics, chemistry, 自此他便日日都在看英文課本,我就拿住手機 stand by, 叫他把不懂的生字 highlight, 我立刻替他查字典,然後我就發現他不用查也看得懂,我感覺很神奇,數學都算了,生字不多,為什麼化學和物理會不用查?!🤔🤔🤔後來他拿到好成績(grade 9啊!),證明他是真看得懂,不是裝的。
為什麼英文童書看不懂,中學的物理化學課本卻看得懂?那是因為英文水平不夠好才看不懂英文童書嗎?不是呀,是因為強T型的兒子覺得science課本比《哈利波特》有趣呀!(說起上來,我兒子非常喜歡看 magic school bus的,就是因為有 science, 可惜這種作品不多!)
我在此替所有T型男孩向媽媽們吶喊一聲:我們喜歡T型(理性)的書,不喜歡F型(情感)的書。
最後,再說深入一點,英文童書為什麼大部分都是F型的?因為外國人假設兒童看不懂科學呀,你看看那些在外國生活的朋友的 Facebook, 她們的孩子從小就不停畫畫,彈琴,游泳,非常體藝的。外國人不重視培養理科人才的,尤其美國,為什麼呢?因為到了高中和大學階段,中國和印度等國自然有大批理科人才來加入,他們自己的孩子那用學數理化這麼苦, 彈彈琴,跳跳舞,豈不快哉?!
13 則留言:
看到你說自修 igcse,我也有興趣替初中的女兒報名玩吓。請問揀哪個 board 有沒有甚麼 concern?
Actually, why would type T children have trouble locating interesting English books to read? About an estimated 40% of the population is type T. Why would publishers ignore such vast market? Let’s say your claim that “80% of the English Children’s books are F-typed” is correct (even though I highly doubt your claim). American publishers publish about 20000 children books a year so using your number, about 4000 type T children books are published per year. This number is only from American book publishers and we also have publishers from the UK, Canada, Australia and South Africa. We can easily be talking about 6000 new type T children books publisher per year. 6000 a year means about 60000 books to choose in the duration of a child’s childhood. That is still quite a lot of books to choose from.
I am type T and so is my husband. Neither of us had trouble finding interesting books to read when we were children. For the sake of being constructive and to help other parents locating interesting books for their children to read, I will list a few fiction books that we enjoyed as children. Many of these books are from the 80s because that was the time when my husband and I were children.
My list:
- the Usborne Puzzle Adventures series
- the Choose Your Own Adventure series
- the Clue series
- the Goosebumps series
On top of these, I also read a lot of Scholastic stand alone fiction titles exploring issues on topics such as sibling rivalry, family hardship, immigration, religion, war, and race.
My husband’s list:
- the Encyclopedia Brown series
- the Choose Your own Adventure series
My husband also read a lot of fantasy books (i.e. books about kingdoms, magic, dragons and knights) even though he refused to name any of them because he admitted that many of these books which he read as an elementary student were not appropriate for his age as they were too violent.
On top of these, we also read our fair share of non-fiction books. We never had trouble finding interesting books to read.
Cambridge 較深,Pearson 較淺,但他們的承認度是一模一樣的。我會認為Pearson 性價比更高。
I would like to know where are you from ?
As you can see, I always mix my Chinese with Cantonese, I suppose my articles are readed by Hong Kong Citizens.
And I suppose my articles are readed by a long term followers. Most of my long term followers have kids from kindergarten to primary school, most of them still P1-3. Most of them are studying local schools rather then international schools.
The situation I mentioned is in Hong Kong. Most books you mentioned above has not been introduced in primary level of Hong Kong school.
Actually, I have goosebumps and encyclopedia brown series to my child when he is a primary student, but he don't like them. I have introduced both English and Chinese versions. He didn't buy.
But one series from Singapore called Mr. Midnight, he likes it and read all, over 100 books. The author said he writes these ghost stories for Asian kids. He wrote this because he thought that the Asian has different feelings from the non-Asian about horrible things. The goosebumps seems to be OVER for my son.
I suppose my readers are Asian kids who are growing up in Hong Kong.
I suppose I write everything for my friends from my own experience. So no need to handle the supporting information.
I suppose there is no need to write everything right but useful.My friends always introduce girl books she like to their boys. They are too F to know that.
Last but not least, I suppose my readers know me and my son already deep enough so that I don't need to introduce our background in every article.
我喺香港出世同長大㗎,之後去咗外國讀書,畢業後留咗喺當地發展。我先生係個西人,母語係英文,完全唔識中文。
我細個時仲未有網購,啲書唔係咁易買到,例如Usborne Puzzle Adventures要去中環啲英文書局先買到,好在俾我喺學校圖書館搵到。我喺香港一間傳統名校讀書,學校每年都有一、兩次book fair,就係學校請幾個書商喺禮堂或者操場上賣書,書單上好多書就喺book fair買返嚟。細個零用錢唔多,我同其他同學就每人買幾本,之後一班人互相交換咁睇,傳嚟傳去,咁就睇到好多書。另外有啲書就係同學去旅行或者父母出國公幹買返嚟,總之一有人去外國就叫佢幫手買書,咁就可以買到一個系列最新果幾本。我有個同學嘅父母成日要出國公幹,成個系列一本本咁買哂返嚟,羨慕到我不得了。如果冇記錯,學校好似仲參加咗Scholastics book club,就係填紙仔用學校名義郵購啲書返嚟,收到書之後再分返比訂咗書嘅同學仔。
以前未有得上網,書就係我認識香港以外世界嘅窗口。舉個例,以前香港嘅華人冇人會慶祝萬聖節嘅,可能大部分華人連萬聖節都未聽過,有一日我喺本英文故事書上面睇到美國人慶祝呢個節日,突然我明白到點解我啲西人鄰居一年之中總有一日打扮古怪。
Goosebumps係九十年代初已經喺香港好受歡迎,不過我當時都就快小學畢業,升中之後我轉睇同一個作者嘅Fear Street系列,Goosebumps反而睇得唔多。Fear Street先至係我嘅至愛,我就係喺書上面認識美國中學校園文化,對於年輕嘅我好震撼,高中生會自己揸車返學,會去prom,原來世界有啲人係咁生活。依家大個咗覺得啲故事好公式化,我都唔太明點解我以前咁鐘意。
聽起上來是因為你對西方文化充滿好奇的原故啊!
由於這次你寫得很詳細,我便知道為何你會覺得不難找到好看的英文書了,那是因為情景不一樣,你找到幾本或几套已經覺得「多」,那是因為你對英文書的數目的期望並不高。
其實我說兒子找到好看的英文書不多,是用中文書做一個對比,我找到適合兒子看的中文書和英文書的數量大約是9:1,現在香港圖書館的英文書藏量絕對沒有比中文書少多少,大約是三比二吧,但好看的,的而且確不多,這又涉及到「好看」的定義問題。
我兒子小學看書是天量的,可能一年有一千萬字,所以在中英九比一的情況下,可能英文書看的量也不算少,只是比中文書少了許多。
Thx 晉彥媽 for the advice. 考試時不準用塗改液,又要用原子筆,點算?
今天學了 certutil -hashfile 😄 哈哈~ 謝謝你仔仔~
慢慢適應啦,你孩子會不斷操 past paper, 通常一份要做兩次的,第一次俾佢用塗改液,第二次唔俾,總之告訴她,考時唔俾用。寫錯劃左佢就得了!你打算報邊科先?
佢唔係資優,只係疫情下做了很多數,所以只諗住報數學一科咋
考igcse根本無須資優的,太容易了。
我保證她一定拿到8-9。
考到好成績再試下一科。加油!
一年一千萬字,以一本普通成人英文書大約八萬字計,就是一年一百二十多本書呀,這和我高峰期的閱讀量非常相似呀,但我由小時候到現在從沒有試過找不到好書看,中文的英文的也是如此。我從小到大也覺得世上我想讀的書比我有時間讀的書多很多倍,我的家現在還有五千多本想看又未有時間看的書,就算以我高峰期的閱讀量也要用四十多年才能把它們看完,更何況我現在的閱讀量不是在高峰期,以我有生之年應該看不完,更不要完那堆書的數量還不斷在增加。日文上有個字叫做「積ん読」,就是藏了一大堆未看的書在家裏的意思,我就是那種人。
題外話1: 家裏那些書絕對是煩惱的根源,我早就決定在退休之前把一大部分捐給圖書館,只不過我現在不忍心把它們送走。
題外話2: 我認識一個一個月讀一百本書的人,而且他的閱讀量維持了二、三十年,但此人的確不是普通人,是我業界中的巨頭,是一個神人。我只能讚嘆世界上有才華的人真的很多,各行各業的都有,不過估人口百分比就好小。
你思考時有跑題的情況。例如我明明是說我兒子小學時期一年讀一千萬字,你應該用兒童或青少年的書來做思考,不能用成人書做思考,那叫張冠李戴。例如我投訴大家樂難吃,你不能說我覺得美心很好吃,那兩件事是不相關的呀!
我兒子的情況是這樣,不代表全部人都是這樣,例如他不喜歡看英文書,不代表全世界小朋友都不喜歡看,甚至我說,他小學時不喜歡看,也不代表現在不喜歡看。因為小童書和大人書是兩回事,不能相提並論。
另外,看了的書才是自己的,不看的不叫書,叫垃圾😂😂😂。
我經常將香港圖書館當成我家書房,我不明白放在圖書館和放在自己家有什麼差別,我要看隨時也可以借來看家,只要用 app按個鍵,交$3.3便借回來了,但那本書放在家佔的空間,計返條租給那本書,計埋放了那麼多年,是天文數字。還有阻住了孩子活動空間和容易積塵的問題。🙈🙈🙈
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