加油 – jiā yóu

Today, my oldest had his first swim meet for the summer. While he was swiming with his teammates, his little brothers cheered him on. In particular, my 2 1/2  year old started saying 加油, jiā yóu, 加油 as he watched his brother swim. I was kind of surprised by this outburst of Chinese as his Chinese is limited to food and some simple instructional words such as go, come, eat, etc. It turned out, there was a Ni Hao Kai-lan episode where Kai-lan and her friends cheered for Ho Ho. The best way to understand 加油 is in a sentence, it basically is the equivelent of  “Go, Name (Ho Ho), Go!

This again affirms my believe television is ok as long as it’s educational! Seriously, if my kids are going to watch tv, at least I know they are learning!