I'm going to start teaching an adult student who is keen to learn the piano. However, she speaks very little English. She speaks Mandarin which I can speak too but it will be my first time conducting a music lesson in Mandarin. Has anyone taught the piano in a different language other than English?

Yes, my first language is Welsh and have quite a few Welsh speaking students. Not all of them choose to have their lessons in Welsh but the very young ones do as their English isn't always so good. If you're equally fluent in Mandarin and English then you should be fine :-) Good luck!

English is my mother tongue and I am learning the oboe in French (so similar situation to you but the other way round). I have lived in France for years and speak French fluently but I have discovered that my prior musical knowledge is engrained in English - although I theoretically know that the French don't use letter names but a fixed "do, ré mi", I still get letter names muddled up. In a similar way I find it off-putting to have my teacher count the beat outloud ("un, deux, trois") while I am playing as this interfers with my own counting in English. I prefer him to clap or beat time (anything as long as there are no words). When talking about the music (because I don't always know the correct musical term in French) I often find it easier to point to the music and a demonstration from my teacher often gets the point across quicker than me laboriously turning it into English).

Trial and error will enable you to work out how best to precede.

Wow, Jazzlover, it must be great to be able to speak Mandarin.

Yes, I have taught piano, recorder, flute and class music and a few other things in French for the past eighteen years and I have lived in France since 1985.

I have no problem with every day, conversational French and can cope with most administrative French as well. Where I find myself inadequate is in any discussion which takes a political or philosophical turn.
I can understand but I can’t react with the same degree of speed or subtlety as in English. I am usually reduced to simplifying what I want to express and this makes me feel inadequate.

On the music side it’s the same sort of difficulty though I’m better at coping with it. Class and individual lessons are fine except for the eternal mixing up of words like “croche” in French for “quaver” in English and the problem of hearing movable solfa in one’s head when the French name notes by fixed solfa. But these are only minor hazards. The real problems come when you get to the stage of realising that the language conveys concepts and ways of looking at music inherently different from northern Europe.

I have a wonderful time doing a written translation of the examiner’s reports every summer as there are frequently just no French equivalents to our ways of describing performance. Some of the terms I have struggled with are “musical shaping” “musically directed” “dynamic shading” “balance could be addressed further” “touch had definition” and so on. I usually manage to convey the sense because it all happens within the context of music known to the pupils, and one can always demonstrate, but at this level it isn’t always easy to catch the exact sense of what the examiner meant.

However, I like the challenge - and I’m sure you will cope with your pupil. Before the exams my younger pupils sometimes express worries about having an English examiner but I tell them music is an international language and musicians find ways of understanding each other. Good luck!

I'm teaching several Americans who will eventually return to the States, so I have decided to try and use the Americal note names (quarter note etc) with them. I do find it very hard not to slip back into the English terms though...feels like a foreign language to me!

I've no experience of teaching in a foreign language - I only speak English - but I've taught several pupils who do not speak much English as there is a European school very nearby. These have been children, though, adults may not pick up a language quite so quickly.

I've always found that most of a lesson can be done through gesture, smiles, demonstration, etc, and the lack of a fluent common language isn't a problem.

It may be possible to use this to advantage. I used to teach a seven-year-old who was (amazingly) fluent in 5 languages. She was having trouble with the rhythm of a piece, and I emphasised the need to count. The next week the piece was perfect. When I commented on this, she said she'd practiced it 5 times each day, "the first time I counted in English, then I counted in Italian, then I counted in German, then I counted in Spanish, then I counted in French." Creative use of the two languages may be possible!

Good luck

Wow.

I know violin teachers who hardly speak at all in lessons - they just demonstrate and get their students to play, play, play. My violin teacher was Hungarian and had only just arrived in Britain when I met her; she hardly spoke a word of English but we managed just fine!

Hi Osian,

Wanted to pick up on this thread as I'm also Welsh but my use of the language doesn't go further than snippets about weather and general health! I have a 5yr old learning with me at the moment, and has been for the last year. Since then she's barely spoken to me. Her parents have told me she's quite loud in school and not normally that shy. I'm questioning now, whether she's having trouble understanding me as she only speaks Welsh at home, and hasn't done English in school yet. Have you had much experience in this? Are there any Welsh piano tutor books out there? Any advice greatly received

Cadenza

It's nice to see some Welsh language teaching in all fairness.

I am a "ddysgwyr" (learner - an advanced learner) and I too teach in Welsh. I teach singing at a primary school where my lessons are bilingual (2x in welsh, 1x in english), and at Church Choir, my music does it in Welsh, which is great for me as a learner.

And cadenza, i would love to have a bilingual piano method book. Im sure there are loads around as I have a harp tutor in welsh, but it's rather old. Check out your library =)

Thanks AntonPiano,

Spoke to the parents and they're really keen to continue in English as they feel it's beneficial. Throwing in some Welsh here and there though which seems to be helping, but still going to look out for bilingual book as i think there's quite a demand for it where I am,

here's to more language learning