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...
Question Hello, I wonder about minority language (mL) between parents combined with one parent, one language (OPOL), and the benefits of having spoken/understood several languages during childhood without making it to even receptive bilingualism. We are young...
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...
![Early Bilingual Language Development: Facts and Fictions [guest post]](https://multilingualparenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/January2016-400x250.jpg)
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’ experience of...
![Reading with the multicultural child [guest post]](https://multilingualparenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/January2016-4-400x250.jpg)
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, and...
Question Hello, first I would like to thank you because your web help us a lot. Our situation is the following: I am Spanish, my husband is Catalan and we have a daughter of 2.5 years old. We live in China since she was 6 months old. She goes to a Chinese...
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 choosing the...
Dear Santa, I hope you and all your elves are well so that you can get everything ready for the big day. I write to you again this year, as I know you read all the letters because I always get at least something from my wish list. I have figured out that you must know...
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...
Question Hello, I'm looking for some advice on how to raise a bilingual child when one of the parents is against it. We are a mixed family. I'm Polish and my partner is English. We have a two-year-old son and live in the UK. It is very important for me to teach my son...