Some things parents of bilingual children experience seem to be universal. As a parent of a bilingual or multilingual child, you become more aware of your native language and you may also consciously try to improve your own skills. In today’s world, there is an infinite number of things parents can potentially worry about or feel pressure for. Adding another language to that brings a new dimension to parenthood. You have to ensure that your child gets enough exposure to all languages and be on a constant look-out for language resources. To make up for the lack of materials, you probably end up being more creative than you thought you would ever be.
Question Hi Family Language Coaches! I wanted to ask if, in an OPOL household, it would be detrimental if a parent spoke "the other parent's language" to the child in certain public environments. I live in Germany and speak German natively (and English...
Question Hi there, I would like to ask for your advice. My husband is Portuguese and I am Hungarian and we live in England. Our daughter is almost one year old, and we mostly speak to her in English. She does hear conversations in both other languages, when we...
Question Hello! What age is appropriate to introduce the concept of language to a child? I don't mean teaching the child a second language but teaching him that there are different languages and that each one has a name. We use OPOL at home with our 3-year-old...
Question Dear Coaches, I am Chinese and my husband is Dutch. We live in the Netherlands. My daughter is two years. Now she speaks Dutch but very little Chinese. In the beginning when she was born, I tried to speak Chinese to her, but when everyone around...
Question Hi, I have a 5-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins. I was born in Iran and speak Farsi. I moved to the United States at the age of four, so English is my stronger language. My husband only speaks English and we have a nanny who speaks Spanish. We...
Question Hello, I would like to validate our family approach and maybe get some tips to improve on our current strategy. Our little one is 3 years old. We live in Austria and he is already in the kindergarten so picking up his German skills slowly but surely....
Question Dear Language Coaches, Can you please give any advice on my family's language situation? My wife is fluent in both English and Afrikaans, with HL (home language) Afrikaans. My HL is English and my Afrikaans is good enough for us to successfully...
Question Dear All, We are an Italian family living in France. We speak Italian at home (two hours at night and on the weekends/holidays) but sometimes in the afternoons after school, when my husband is not there yet, it happens that I speak French as well to my...
Question Hello, I am from Hungary and live in the UK with my British husband. At home we speak English, as my husband doesn't speak much Hungarian. We have a 3-month-old baby, with whom I have been talking in Hungarian when it is just the two of us, or if we are in...
Question Hello I have question and maybe this may seem silly, but do you think that the fact that parents who don’t teach or raise their kids as native bilinguals are “poor parents”? My son is 7. He speaks predominantly English at home but can communicate a...