by Rita | Oct 11, 2017 | Challenges, Family life
7 tips for parents: How to remember to speak the minority language “I want to speak my language with the kids but keep forgetting. Can you help me?” This was one of the questions during the first ever Multilingual Parenting Facebook LIVE Q&A session (you can...
by Rita | Jun 21, 2017 | Bilingual baby
https://multilingualparenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/8745e04e-d639-49c1-8ff7-34f3872eab52.mp4 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...
by Rita | Jun 7, 2017 | Practical advice, Top 10 most read posts, Video
https://multilingualparenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/182af552-c65a-4edb-a546-cd7c827aae00-1.mp4 Video based on the popular post 12 things parents raising bilingual children need to know The blog article is also available in Belarusian, Catalan, Traditional...
by Rita | Mar 15, 2017 | Practical advice
“How do I introduce another language for my toddler?” “How can I motivate my little one to speak my language?” “How to have fun when practicing the kids’ minority language?” These are questions I often get in the queries sent to our team of Family Language Coaches....
by Rita | Feb 22, 2017 | Family life, Guest post, Practical advice
Today I am delighted to introduce you to our new Family Language Coach, Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett, a.k.a, Miss Panda Chinese. Amanda is a successful language instructor with over 15 years’ teaching experience in Taiwan, the U.S., Morocco, Canada, and Ecuador. She now...
by Rita | Feb 8, 2017 | Family life
As parents raising bilingual children we know how important it is to give our kids as varied an exposure to their languages as possible. This becomes even more crucial if we are passing on a minority language. Building a network of people who can support us in this...
by Rita | Jan 18, 2017 | Bilingual baby, Challenges, Family life, Myths
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...
by Rita | Jan 4, 2017 | Challenges, Practical advice
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...
by Rita | Nov 23, 2016 | Guest post, Language
This article has been contributed by Tarek Rabie, founder of Hekayatona, a digital platform committed to encouraging children to read and learn Arabic. For more help and advice on how you can best support your child’s Arabic learning journey you can visit their...
by Rita | Oct 19, 2016 | Challenges
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...
by Rita | Oct 12, 2016 | Challenges
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...
by Rita | Oct 5, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
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...
by Rita | Sep 21, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
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...
by Rita | Sep 12, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Bilingual teenagers, Practical advice
Babies and toddlers During the early years of your child’s “talking career” you may be holding a monologue for much of the time, but this is when you set the foundation for the language and there is a lot you can do to encourage your little one to start talking. Make...
by Rita | Sep 7, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Family life
Fantastic news from the father of our fictional multilingual family, who are living the very real highs and lows of millions of bilingual mothers, fathers and children across the world. They welcome the latest addition to their family on what is the last page from...
by Rita | Aug 31, 2016 | Challenges, Family life, Practical advice
“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...
by Rita Rosenback | Aug 24, 2016 | Challenges, Language, Practical advice
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...
by Rita | Jul 27, 2016 | Challenges, Family life, Practical advice
As parents we want to do what’s best for our children – this affects how we behave in our everyday lives when it comes to choice of anything from food and clothing to school and the place we live in. In addition, parents of bilingual children have one more aspect to...
by Rita | Jul 20, 2016 | Language, Practical advice
Holidays are a great time for catching up on reading books! You probably have a long list that you would like to enjoy, but in case you are looking for something on bilingual children, I have prepared a list of books from my own library, which I can all warmly...
by Rita | Jul 13, 2016 | Family life, Practical advice
This is the time of the year when our social media feeds get filled with pictures of families holidaying – either on a relaxing staycation in their own home or out and about in the country or abroad. Whatever way you decide to spend your family holidays, it is always...
by Rita | Jul 6, 2016 | Family life, Language
We live in a world where those who try to create divisions between people of different countries, creeds and cultures are getting more and more vocal and who try to disrupt the stability in way that leads to discrimination, abuse, displacement of families, fear and...
by Rita | Jun 29, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
Another week and another challenge in the lives of our fictional bilingual, pregnant mother, her hubby, 6-year-old son S and 3-year-old daughter D. Monday Finally we have summer and we can spend more time outside! S is off school and D is now home with me full time....
by Rita | Jun 15, 2016 | Bilingual benefits, Language
This week’s topic is another manifestation of bilingual living: translanguaging. If you look up the term in Wikipedia, it is described as “the dynamic process whereby multilingual language users mediate complex social and cognitive activities through strategic...
by Rita | Jun 8, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Family life, Guest post
It is with joy I welcome today’s guest poster, Diana Sampedro, a Spanish mother and language English-teacher who is raising her daughter to become bilingual in Spanish and English, which is not Diane’s native langauge. She has written a book about her...
by Rita | May 25, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
Follow the joys and challenges of our fictional bilingual mother and her multilingual family with hubby, 6-year-old son S and 3-year-old daughter D. Monday Only three months to go and we will be a family of five – I am so happy we went for a bigger house when we...
by Rita | May 11, 2016 | Language, Practical advice
I remember it like yesterday, the first letter I received from my South Korean pen friend Yong-Suk. I was 14 and it felt like a miracle: A young boy, on the other side of the world had sat down, picked out his writing pad, put pen to paper and talked to me about who...
by Rita | May 4, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
I love the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” – for the purpose of the topic at hand, I would like to expand it to “It takes two villages to raise a bilingual child”. This is of course not strictly true, but it does describe the need for extra...
by Rita | Apr 27, 2016 | Bilingual benefits, Language, Only happens to a bilingual
Fantastic interview with Professor François Grosjean, my all-time favourite specialist on bilingualism, conducted by Fabrice Jaumont, Education Attaché at the Cultural Services in New York. The video is brimming with useful information, to-the-point observations and...
by Rita | Apr 25, 2016 | Challenges, Practical advice
Choosing the topic for this month’s Raising Multilingual Children blogging carnival was actually very easy. “What do parents ask me most about?” I pondered and instantly I thought “How to motivate my child to speak the minority language?” My fellow bloggers – who all...
by Rita | Apr 20, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Challenges, Family life
“How to motivate my child to speak the minority language?” is one of the most frequently asked questions to our panel of Family Language Coaches. This challenge will also be the topic of the up-coming Raising Multilingual Children blogging carnival, which I will...
by Rita | Apr 13, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
Snapshots from the everyday life of our (growing) fictional multilingual family, written by a bilingual mother. Monday Feeling a lot better, no morning sickness anymore but still extremely tired, just like with the previous two. I fall asleep on the sofa most evenings...
by Rita | Apr 6, 2016 | Language
“Why have you chosen to write about bilingual children and languages, surely there are more important things in the world – why don’t you write about how important science is?” – this is a question I once got in a comment. The simple answer is – I believe I know quite...
by Rita | Mar 30, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Challenges, Family life
I am very happy with how my daughters have grown up to speak several languages, and I am looking forward to supporting the coming generation of our family in the quest of learning to speak more than one language. Looking back, there are certainly a few things I would...
by Rita | Mar 23, 2016 | Challenges, Language, Practical advice
When discussing the language skills of children in multilingual families, you occasionally come across the situation where a child has learnt to understand a language, but is unable (or unwilling) to speak it. Quite often you will find this described as passive...
by Rita | Mar 16, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Bilingual teenagers, Challenges, Practical advice
“You must start speaking your language to your baby from day one!” “She is already three and you haven’t started yet? She won’t sound like a native!” “If you don’t introduce the language before he goes to school, you have missed your chance!” “Older than seven and he...
by Rita | Mar 9, 2016 | Challenges
When more than one language is spoken in a family, parents in face the choice of whether their child should learn both (or all) languages in parallel or if they should let the child’s skills in one language become established before starting to learn the second (and...
by Rita | Mar 2, 2016 | Challenges, Family life
Exciting news from the real life of our fictional multilingual family! Monday Sorry for not writing for a long time, I have not been very well … or actually, I am feeling fantastic, over the moon to be precise! Yes, you guessed it, we are having baby number three! If...
by Rita | Feb 24, 2016 | Family life, Thinklet
With a child comes endless love, happiness, exploration and a huge responsibility. A whole new person for us, the parents to cherish, enjoy, play with to learn from and to teach. … to teach … We may not be teachers, but teach we will, just by being us, the parents....
by Rita | Feb 17, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Family life, Language
Growing up bilingual is another aspect of my early childhood which was a given for me (last week I wrote about how I took for granted my right to speak my mother tongue at school). I really had no choice, as my mother spoke Finnish with me and my father Swedish. They...
by Rita | Feb 10, 2016 | Finland, Language
A bit of an obvious statement, you may think. Unfortunately, it is not. Instead, it is a problem many children in the developing world still face: not being able to attend school in their mother tongue. United Nation’s International Mother Language Day is celebrated...
by Rita | Feb 3, 2016 | Bilingual benefits, Language
Every single child is lovable and should be loved, just for existing in this world. Today, my list is about the specific lovability factor of bilingual children, as they are my favourite topic: Create and maintain relationships The more languages bilingual...
by Rita | Jan 27, 2016 | Bilingual baby, Challenges, Guest post, Myths, Practical advice
I am delighted to introduce you to today’s guest blogger, Dr. Mary-Pat O’Malley-Keighran. She is a lecturer, author, researcher, speech and language therapist, and lover of all things to do with speech, language, and communication. She has over 20 years’...
by Rita | Jan 13, 2016 | Family life, Language, Practical advice
It’s a great joy and honour to have Katey Howes join my blog as a guest today! Katey is a mom of three, children’s author and literacy advocate who blogs about raising kids who love to read at Kateywrites. Katey is a native English speaker who studied in Madrid,...
by Rita | Dec 30, 2015 | Bilingual baby, Bilingual teenagers, Blogging, Challenges, Family life, Practical advice
The countdown to year 2016 has started, so let’s look at the year which is coming to an end – here are the top posts of 2015, starting with number 10: 10. Passing on a non-native language to your child, part 1: Considerations Part 2 of this series is on...
by Rita | Dec 10, 2015 | Blogging, Family life, Language
What we need more than anything in today’s and tomorrow’s world is respect, understanding, appreciation of diversity and a global mindset. What we can do as parents to fill this need, is to ensure that our children grow up to become respectful global citizens. Knowing...
by Rita | Dec 2, 2015 | Challenges, Family life
What to do when your bilingual child avoids using the minority language and speaks to you in the majority language instead? I am all for keeping the communication going with your little one, no matter what, so you will not be surprised to hear that I do not recommend...
by Rita | Nov 18, 2015 | Bilingual baby, Family life
Children learn language best through interaction and dialogue, and singing is a great way of engaging with children long before they can speak. All babies love the voice of their mothers and fathers, so the “I can’t sing!” excuse does not fly. “If you can walk you can...
by Rita | Aug 31, 2015 | Bilingual baby, Bilingual teenagers, Family life, Practical advice
Many bilingual children have at least one side of their extended family living fairly far away, often on the “other side of the world”. Visits are possible perhaps only once a year, or even more seldom if at all, so it is essential to find other ways to connect....
by Rita | Mar 25, 2019 | Language
International Day of Multilingualism 27th of March #multilingualisnormal Are you multilingual? If you speak more than one language or dialect, then the answer to that question is YES and this makes you part of a majority people in the world who can communicate in...
by Rita Rosenback | Dec 13, 2017 | Family life, Guest post
Today’s guest writer is Marieke Romano-van den Hoek, a 33-year-old mother-of-two, who blogs at Speaking More Languages, where she shares her family’s experiences of bilingual upbringing. Marieke lives in Holland with her Italian husband and they raise their children...
by Rita | Nov 15, 2017 | Bilingual benefits, Bilingual teenagers
10 reasons why your bilingual child has an advantage at school “Should we drop a language to help our bilingual child do better at school?” is a question parents occasionally ask me when they are concerned about their kids’ educational progress. The answer is a...
by Rita | Oct 25, 2017 | Family life, Guest post
Today’s guest post is by Michaela Hansen, the founder of Granny Aupair, an initiative to send young-at-heart grandmas all over the world. Founded in 2010, initially the grannies were only from German-speaking countries, but today more than 1,000 Grannies of various...
by Rita | Oct 18, 2017 | Bilingual benefits
Can monolingualism make you ill? “Is monolingualism making us ill?” was the somewhat provocative title of an excellent talk by Dr Thomas Bak, neuroscientist and dementia researcher at the University of Edinburgh, which I was fortunate to listen to last week....