You might think it’s strange to ask whether you are expecting a bilingual baby. Surely you can’t know how many languages your child is going to speak! Well, of course you are right, you can not exactly know how it will all turn out with the languages in your family,...
Bilingual children: (re)introducing a family language
As the benefits of bilingualism are getting more widely known and the old myths about it dispelled, more and more parents decide to pass on the family languages to their children, giving them the gift of an additional language, fantastic! But what if everything...
3 ways to intensify the minority language exposure for your bilingual child
So you want to pass on your language to your children, but feel that they are not getting enough exposure to it – a familiar scenario for many minority language parents. You have made a quick calculation and noticed that you are not reaching the recommended thirty...
Single parent? Want to raise a bilingual child?
Most advice for parents raising bilingual children is based on the presumption that there are two parents actively involved in the upbringing. What if you are a single parent and don’t have the support of a partner – can it still be done? This is a question that has...
14 fun activities for a fortnight of word play
I often speak about making it fun when you are practicing language skills with your children, so I thought it would be only fair that I come up with some ideas for examples of word play. Below is a list of games you could engage your language learner in – I suggest...
7 ways to motivate your child to speak the minority language
Motivation is the key to any language learning, never more so than for a bilingual child keeping up with the minority language. 1 - Habit If you consistently stick to speaking the minority language with your children, they are less likely to want to switch to the...
The voice behind the blog
I am so excited to share with you an interview I did earlier on this month. Thank you to Olena Centeno, one of the co-founders of Bilingual Kids Rock, who did all the hard work for this interview. [audio...
Our clever little linguists – children do say the funniest things!
It is fascinating to observe children learning to speak, and it is mind-boggling how quickly they get skilled at using their language to get something, first by directly asking to soon finding an imaginative way of using language to manipulate their parents to act in...
Our Christmas
I have always loved Christmas and I am sure I always will. The most important thing for me is being together with the family, relaxing, playing games, enjoying scrumptious food and lots of chocolate. As I have spent most of my Christmases in Finland, there are some...
When grandparents have no common language with their grandchildren
We live in a time when an increasing number of people and families move from one part of the world to another, thereby crossing not only geographical but cultural and language borders. Quite often children grow up in a different country from their grandparents and it...









