In the Doraemon anime, there is a frequently used prop called the Translation Mosaic Root.

After eating it, the words spoken by the person will be translated into the language of the other country. The protagonist's team uses this high-tech product to achieve barrier-free communication across races, species, and planets.

In those days, little kids all over the country nibbled on pencil stubs in English class, listening to the teacher explain completely unintelligible phonics and grammar, while at the same time, they dreamed of the emergence of a translation magic tar

With the rapid development of technology, a similar (low-end) product has really appeared: wearing a mask, speaking Chinese, and the other party hearing English.

So now you don't need to learn English anymore? Think twice, because its main use case is to accompany your children in practicing their spoken English skills.

Put on a mask, and grandma turns into a foreigner

Recently, there is a popular video on Douyin (TikTok) about a grandmother wearing a unique mask, speaking in a mix of languages with a translator hanging around her neck. The translator said in standard English, 'What do you want for dinner?'

The child starts to recite the list of dishes: I want pizza, ice cream, and lollipop.

Grandma didn't understand and quickly changed the topic, muttering in her mask: what are you playing?

What are you playing?

This device that looks like an emergency aid equipment is actually a foreign language learning machine product developed by a technology company, which creates an all-English learning environment for families where no one understands English.

The principle is actually very simple. A layer of physical sound-absorbing cotton is inserted inside the mask to reduce the sound of Chinese spoken by the wearer. The bottom of the mask is connected to a small translator, which captures real-time voi

It should be considered that the AI tone of the system is too AI, it is easy to leave a shadow on the child's childhood, this product also adds the function of cloning tone, so that the child can hear English with authentic grandma flavor, that is ca

Even grandma doesn't need to speak Mandarin, it supports Cantonese, Sichuanese, Hunan dialect and other local dialects: 'Don't do that, please.' Even grandma becomes a foreigner speaking fluent English like this

But this device is indeed lacking in a sense of dignity. The way parents wear it makes them look like the arch-nemesis of Batman, Bane.

Passersby might think it is a new type of halitosis treatment device, but in reality it only isolates halitosis and there is a high risk of infection with Helicobacter pylori when multiple people use it.

Leaving behind the small matters of face and appearance (after all, children learning English is the top priority), the real problem lies in the fact that the "immersive environment" of this English-speaking family is actually quite difficult to trul

From the video, it seems that the grandmother spoke to the machine for a while before it started translating with a delay of about three seconds. Although three seconds are not a long time, in daily communication, it is enough to make the conversatio

That's it, but the more important thing is that my grandmother doesn't understand it!

The translator turns Grandmother's words into English → The child answers in English → Grandmother doesn't understand → The topic ends.

In a short video of just 44 seconds, the grandmother has switched topics four times. She first asked about what to eat for dinner, then asked what you're playing, followed by asking if you're happy, and finally asking again what you're playing, purel

This kind of one-way communication without feedback should only be something a super well-behaved child would keep playing with their grandmother. (･_･;)

To make Grandma understand the child's words, why not equip her with a translation headset, with the mask translating Chinese to English and the headset translating English to Chinese. Cyber Grandma is fully armed, and a simple daily conversation req

Let's not mention this for now (after all, learning English for children is the top priority). But practicing speaking with such translations can easily lead to learning Chinglish.

In the video, the grandmother looked at the toy in the child's hand and asked, 'What are you playing with?' The translator hesitated for a few seconds and then translated it into 'What is this you playing?'.

This sentence sounds very strange no matter how you listen to it - it directly stuffs the order of Chinese into English words, which is completely inconsistent with the expression logic of English native speakers. A more natural translation should be

This kind of literal translation may lead to grammatical errors, which will affect children's language habits. Even if children learn this kind of Chinese-style English, they will still need to spend more time to correct it in the future. They intend

Netizens feel puzzled and confused about the birth of this product, and the comment section is filled with a joyful atmosphere: The inventor of this should win the Nobel Prize for humor.

But the market rule has always been that demand comes before products. The magical scene of a "grandmother turning into a foreigner" reflects a realistic soul-searching question: how can parents who don't speak English and have an ordinary family bac

This product is the cyber answer given by the era to them. It serves ordinary people who are helpless in educational anxiety - those who cannot afford international kindergartens due to family income, cannot keep up with parent-child reading due to l

A translation mask presents an irresistible scenario to anxious parents: they can instantly switch the language environment of their homes with just a click, without having to change themselves. In this scenario, the gap of knowledge can be filled wi

By the way, a child with analytical skills may have doubts when seeing this product: if my grandmother can speak English with the help of it even though she doesn't speak Mandarin, then why can't I just wear it too?

Parents are hard to answer this question, so they just say in a roundabout way: You need to step up your study effort, or you will be too late to start learning if you don't start now.

Learn English, starting from childhood

On Xiaohongshu, a Beijing parent shared the several types of kindergartens, which is information that is difficult for every child to know about.

Public and inclusive kindergartens receive government subsidies, making them affordable. Fees range from several hundred yuan to over one thousand yuan per month. These kindergartens strictly implement national policies, avoiding transition to primar

In public kindergartens, no knowledge is taught, but without any prior knowledge, it is difficult for children to follow the teaching content of the first grade. In an online poll, over 71% of voters believed that children who attend public kindergar

In ideal circumstances, kindergarten is a crucial period for personality development, where children should enjoy happy education through games, and start learning knowledge in the first grade.

In reality, there are so many children attending extracurricular classes that teachers assume everyone has a basic understanding of the subject matter. This results in a fast-paced lecture style that can easily leave those who cannot follow behind fe

Public kindergarten with extracurricular classes/bridge between primary and junior high school is the basic configuration, or parents can choose to send their children to private kindergartens which charge around 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per month. These

Parents of both public and private kindergartens want their children not to lag behind. The real academic kings' parents start thinking about academics in kindergarten. They spend several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan every month to send thei

The All-English Garden is different from the international kindergartens that people often hear about. International kindergartens are truly the choice of affluent families, whose children are mostly planned to attend private schools all the way and

All English Garden is a sophisticated tool for middle-class families to achieve educational breakthroughs. Here, all the teachers are foreign educators, and the garden does not speak a single word in Chinese. The goal is to enable children to think a

Most children who attend an all-English kindergarten will return to a public elementary school for their first grade after graduation. Parents think it is a cost-effective investment to spend tens of thousands of yuan per year for three years in pres

In this way, when other children are just beginning to struggle with vocabulary in grade three, their children have already been able to read English original works fluently. This kind of competitive advantage from reducing the dimension can benefit

In class, they are excellent students who can easily follow the original audio and have native-like pronunciation. In exams, they hardly need to spend time on English subjects, allowing them to allocate more resources to other subjects like math and

Parents expect this early advantage to translate into an ingrained confidence in their children--a sense of superiority that says 'I can do it,' which radiates from language skills to all subjects.

Spend 500,000 over three years to build a lifetime of confidence for your child. Does it sound attractive? It's no wonder it's part of the three-piece set for the middle class to fall back into poverty.

Ordinary workers struggle to earn even a few thousand yuan in wages each month, but kindergartens often charge fees in excess of this amount. Therefore, clever parents have found a more cost-effective solution: kindergarten education overseas.

The first choice is Malaysia. The cost of living in Kuala Lumpur is similar to that of domestic first-tier cities. Some private kindergartens offering international courses have monthly tuition fees between RMB 2500-4500, which is about half cheaper

Thailand is also a popular destination. Ordinary international kindergartens charge 30,000-60,000 yuan per year, averaging to 2500-5000 yuan per month. This price is only enough to cover the cost of an ordinary private kindergarten in a first-tier ci

There are also those sent to Indonesia, Philippines and other countries. The core idea is to use geographical cash-out by taking advantage of the differences in income levels and education costs among different countries. By using expenses equivalent

Thus, a new trend of chasing excellence for children has emerged: utilizing summer and winter vacations or short-term study tours, or even sending children to complete their entire kindergarten stage directly in Southeast Asia. These young overseas s

People without children often fail to understand why parents are so competitive even at the kindergarten level: it seems excessive. However, in the minds of parents, the true divergence starts from kindergarten as they believe that a child's characte

So everyone is anxious to let their children learn English during the prime age of language learning. After all, mathematical logic has not yet formed and deep reading skills in Chinese are still in their infancy at this stage. It's hard to make prog

Learning English is a matter of frugality. Middle-class families send their children abroad to serve as kindergarten children, and ordinary families with limited budgets do their own black magic at home. On Douyin, 20,000 pieces of "280 English anima

Chinese parents practice the same belief with amazing creativity in their respective coordinate systems: learning English starts from childhood.

Despite different income levels, educational backgrounds, and family resources, people share the same anxiety about education. In this nationwide English language movement, every family is, within their ability, extremely concerned about their childr

English, why is it so fascinating to parents

English has become a common obsession for Chinese families, not because of its beauty in itself, but because it has long been at the core of the education system. From primary school class placement, to college entrance exams, to postgraduate exams,

The collective experience of English = opportunity has been repeatedly verified by generations, gradually becoming a muscle memory. No one needs to prove whether learning English is useful or not, it has naturally been seen as the threshold to a bigg

On social media, there's a popular saying: 'If you feel anxious, go learn new vocabulary.'

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Adults often feel confused about their life direction, and this uncertainty is only amplified when facing the education of their children.

Math Olympiad requires natural talent, piano tests perseverance, and football depends on physical fitness. When parents are hesitant about the diverse range of interest classes, choosing English learning is always a non-negotiable option. According t

English is like a hard currency in the educational world, with a particularly clear reward curve: vocabulary can be counted one by one, and pronunciation progress can be evaluated using AI. In comparison, creativity is difficult to quantify, critical

When an individual is in a low-control environment, their sense of control is threatened and diminished, making them feel anxious. This anxiety drives the individual's psychological system to restore and rebuild the sense of control through other mea

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Although the external environment has undergone significant changes -- with AI translation becoming increasingly sophisticated, educational policies constantly adjusting, and society's calls for diversified talent growing louder -- the value judgment

In an era full of uncertainties, certainty itself is the most scarce resource.

Parents' anxiety never lies in their children's English proficiency itself, but in what they can do for their children in an increasingly unpredictable future.

I don't know, can't figure it out, can't explain it clearly. Since there's no answer for now, let's start by teaching the child some new vocabulary words.

This article is from the WeChat public account Cool Gadgets Lab.