We have answered more than two hundred questions on the topic of raising bilingual children, and the worry that gets mentioned most frequently is whether kids growing up to learn more than one language can get confused by the languages in their family and environment. Again and again we emphasize that this is a […]

This is the time of year when we are all encouraged to make resolutions to improve different aspects of our lives. As parents of bilingual kids we are no exception to the expectation of making promises to change our behaviour to ensure that our children grow up to be bilingual. However, apparently only 8% of all […]

As parents of bilingual children, many of us have been there: finding ourselves in a situation where others give us advise on what is best for our children when it comes to their languages, and how we should behave as a family. Sometimes we get brilliant ideas on how to succeed, but this is unfortunately […]

Parents who want to bring up their kids to speak the family languages can learn a lot from those families who have been successful at bringing up bilingual children. However, I also think that a great deal can be learnt from parents whose children grew up not becoming fluent in the family’s minority language. It is equally […]

Living in a bilingual family brings with it a lot of joy – but also some particular dilemmas, some of them funny, but quite challenging nonetheless! How to address everyone in the family at the same time You would think asking everyone to come and eat would be straight-forward. In a bilingual family you end up […]

As parents most of us have an ideal picture of what we want our children to be like when they grow up. Some of us are more specific than others with regards to the personality traits and behaviours we wish for our children, but for most of us ‘happy’, ‘honest’ and ‘confident’ feature high on […]

Question Hi, I am Chinese and my husband is English. I speak English but my husband doesn’t speak any Chinese. I am excited about my daughter learning to speak both languages and I’ve set myself goal since I was pregnant that I will teach my daughter Chinese, talk to her in Chinese only to give […]

“We are doing OPOL and I find it impossible to stay consistent in my language use – is my child’s bilingualism doomed?” – this question (or perhaps a less dramatic version of it) often pops up in forums for parents raising bilingual kids. Among the replies you will find on one hand those who state that […]

Amongst the most frequently expressed worries in different forums for parents raising bilingual children are concerns about potential delays in language development. Several research studies have found that bilingualism does not cause language delay (read more in e.g Dual Languages Development and Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning by Paradis, Genesee & […]

Extremely excited and somewhat worried – our bilingual mother’s feelings summed up this week. Real emotions in a fictional setting. Monday Anytime within the next two or three weeks our family member count will go up by one more son or daughter! We don’t know the gender and the predictions are 50/50. S wishes he […]