“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...
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...
Question Hi, I am nannying for a family who are multilingual, the mother is Chinese, the father is German and I am English. Also they speak English to each other. The child is eight months old at the moment. I was wondering if you had any tips or the best way to...
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...
“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...
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...
Question Hello, We are a trilingual family with me speaking in German to my son, my husband in Spanish and between my husband and I we speak in English. We have recently moved from Germany to New York and are now wondering which child care option to choose. They have...
Question Hi, I just found this website while I was looking for an answer to my question on how to introduce a third language to our 18 month-old daughter, who has just started talking in the two languages that her father and I speak to her. Your website looks very...
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 Hi I am after some advice. We as a family are bilingual. I am British, my husband is Brazilian and we live in Finland. My 4-year-old daughter has never had a speech delay, if not amazingly speaking earlier than the normal. It’s like she was born to be good...