Children and languages are my passion and I have combined the two in what has become my calling and career. I strongly believe that the more languages we can speak the better it is for our future, not only as individuals and families, but as communities and countries of this one world we all share. Raising children to speak more than one language allows them to communicate and be the future bridge-builders between generations, cultures, countries and creeds.

Having grown up in a bilingual household with a Finnish-speaking mother and a Swedish-speaking father in a tiny village in the Finnish countryside I went on to study languages at Åbo Akademi, the Swedish-speaking university of Finland. I studied German, Swedish and Finnish along with some Dutch, French and Spanish, spending some time at the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen, Germany.

My first book “Bringing up a Bilingual Child” was inspired by my experience of raising two daughters to speak our family languages, Finnish, Swedish, Punjabi and English. The book is an easy-to-read guide for parents in multilingual families, with practical advice and ideas on how to successfully pass on family languages to the next generation. My second book is the fictional Diary of a Bilingual Mother, an ebook coming out soon.

Whatever free time I have, I love spending with family, and of course with my international friends, many of which I have met through two organisations very close to my heart: FIGT – Families in Global Transition and MKB – Multicultural Kid Blogs.

You can find out more about me and my mission in the several podcasts, interviews and articles I have been featured in.

Thank you for being part of the Multilingual Parenting community!

Yours,
Rita