Question   Hello I’d be so grateful for your advice. I am bilingual French-English. My husband speaks French, English, German and Swiss German. We started off living in French speaking Switzerland so I started speaking English at home to our then new-born. When the time came he went to pre-Kindergarten in French. When […]

  Starting early, getting into the habit and staying positive are some of the vital components for getting your bilingual baby or toddler to speak a minority language. This is a short video based on the first part of the post 40 ways to motivate bilingual children to speak the minority language.

  Question Hello We are a family who lives in Catalonia, Spain, we speak to our 2-year-old son in French because before he was even born we already spoke in French since we met up in Switzerland, even though any of us is French, we feel totally confident with it. My worries are that my […]

Question Dear Rita, first of all, I’m VERY happy I’ve stumbled across this website! It’s really interesting to read other parents’ stories and your replies, and great to see so many people are in similar situations. This is our trilingual situation: My wife is Iranian, I am German, but I grew up speaking German and […]

Question Hello, My name is Maria, I am Italian and together with my Libyan husband we have a 10-month-old son. Together we live in Malta, where our son was born. Our common language is English, since I do not understand Arabic and my husband doesn’t understand Italian. In Malta, English is an official language besides […]

  Question Hello, I am a French mum who has been living in England for 20 years. During all these years, I hardly spoke French unless I was returning to France to see family on average once a year. I now have a 7-year-old daughter who has always refused to learn French. She has had […]

  Question Dear Language Coaches, Can you please give any advice on my family’s language situation? My wife is fluent in both English and Afrikaans, with HL (home language) Afrikaans. My HL is English and my Afrikaans is good enough for us to successfully communicate but I still make quite a lot of mistakes, so […]

  Question Hello, I have been reading your website with interest and hope you can help me in introducing French to my two-year old son. I am half English and half French and fluent in both languages, although my dominant language is English. My husband is Iraqi and fluent in both English and Arabic. I […]

  Question Dear All, We are an Italian family living in France. We speak Italian at home (two hours at night and on the weekends/holidays) but sometimes in the afternoons after school, when my husband is not there yet, it happens that I speak French as well to my daughter (I’m very exposed to it […]

Question Hello, I am from Hungary and live in the UK with my British husband. At home we speak English, as my husband doesn’t speak much Hungarian. We have a 3-month-old baby, with whom I have been talking in Hungarian when it is just the two of us, or if we are in the company […]