Being aware of potential pitfalls is vital to ensure that the family’s languages are passed on to the next generation. This is the last post in a three-part series on things that could go wrong. Here are the links to part one and part two. Being afraid that you will...
This is the second post in a series of three about the things that can go wrong when raising a bilingual child. This week’s topics mainly deal with your confidence as a parent and your ability to pass your language on. Read part one of the series here, part three is...
Bringing up a child is never without its challenges – the types of things we have to tackle just varies depending on the age of the child. Adding another language to the mix will bring its own stumbling blocks. In this series of three blogs I will discuss the most...
Today I want to tell you about the best book I have ever read about us bilinguals. In his book “Bilingual: life and reality” professor Grosjean describes in a very accessible and sympathetic way what it means to be bilingual. Everyone who speaks more than one language...
Today I will tell you the story about Pricken, the Swedish speaking kitten, that came to play an important role in my eldest daughter Minna’s language learning. It shows how a little bit of creative thinking can come to rescue when you are bringing up a bilingual...
Being able to speak more than one language is definitely beneficial to your career, I know this from my own experience. Sometimes this manifests itself in ways that you could not have imagined. Finding a job in today’s competitive world is a challenge and will...
So you have decided to bring up your son to speak your family’s languages – what will this mean for your family life? What will be different? 1. A little bit of extra effort There is a bit of extra effort to be put in for you to succeed in raising your son to become a...
By now you have probably noticed that I am rather passionate about families passing on their languages to their children. It’s a chance of a life time, far too valuable to miss. So it upsets me greatly when parents say that they don't speak their language to their...
What to do if a teacher tells you that your daughter’s progress at school is hampered by the use of the minority language at home? How to react if the school thinks that you are making her learning more difficult by insisting on her becoming bilingual? Hearing...
“Today’s kids don’t want to learn our language”, “Once they go to school it will all be out of the window”, “We really tried but our children just didn’t want to know”. Probably every bilingual person knows parents who have not been successful in passing on their...