The custom is to make resolutions for the new year, but as we all know, most of them fall by the wayside well before the shops start stocking chocolate for Valentine’s Day. As a parent of a bilingual child, what could you do instead? My advice is to forget about...
Q&A: Bilingual parent – which language to speak to the child?
Question I would like to tell you a little bit about my story because I would love to get some advice from you. I am a Spanish native speaker married to a South African whose mother tongue is Afrikaans, although he is bilingual, he can also speak English. We currently...
Bilingual siblings
Your first-born is on the way to become bilingual – you are so happy to see that both languages are progressing well. You have managed to arrange enough exposure for both languages and look forward to repeating the “procedure” with your next child. It should not be...
Q&A: Watching cartoons in different languages – good or bad for bilingual children?
Question I am Egyptian so I speak Arabic and my husband is Italian. We speak together in English but we don’t speak English with our son. In his daycare they use English and Arabic and a little French. My 3 year-old son is speaking both but he is much, much better at...
Q&A: What if a bilingual child’s majority language is not as advanced as the minority one?
Question I’m American and speak English to my children (now aged 12 & 9). We live in the Netherlands. My husband is Dutch by birth (and speaks Dutch to them), but his mom is Spanish/Catalan and his dad is Czech/Slovakian (but also speak only Dutch to the kids)....
Q&A: What to do about bilingual teenagers mixing languages?
Question: Our children have grown up learning both family languages and they are now teenagers. We are happy they can speak both languages, but are horrified by how much they mix the languages when they speak to each other. When they speak to people who only speak one...
7 encouraging thoughts for parents of bilingual children
Bringing up a child to speak more than one language is not an easy task. There are days when we need all the encouragement we can find to keep going. So I asked parents what they would like to say to other mothers and fathers of bilingual children – and here is a...
Q&A: Can a passive language speaker help a child become bilingual?
Question I would like to hear what your thoughts are about this: Languages: minority language (ml) - Spanish, majority language (ML) English Strategy: One parent, one language (OPOL) Country: USA Child: 1 year old Let’s say we found someone who could babysit our kid 4...
Q&A: How can grandparents help a grandchild become bilingual
Question Hello, I will soon become a proud grandmother to my son's first child and I wonder how I could help in teaching him Finnish. My son knows conversational Finnish but his strongest language is English and his wife speaks English. They would very much like their...
Q&A: Our son only answers in English
Question Our son is 3 years old and we live in England. Since he was born, my partner and I have spoken to him in English and our first language Portuguese. I speak English to him because English and Portuguese are my first languages and his dad speaks mostly...



