Today, as on the 6th of November every year, the “Finland Swedish Heritage Day” is celebrated in my home country. On this day all things to do with the Swedish-speaking part of Finland is brought to attention and appreciated. I am one of the Finns who state Swedish as...
If you are a parent trying to pass on your language to your son in a place where the majority language is different from yours, what should you do to increase the amount of time he is exposed to the language? You might not have other speakers of your language nearby...
Consistency is important in any aspect of raising a child, and no less so when it comes to passing on your language. While a child can learn more than one language even if the parents are not consistent in their language use, the chance of the child becoming bilingual...
I have mentioned the term passive language skill a few times time before in my posts: if you have a passive knowledge of a language you can understand some or most of it but you are not able to communicate in it yourself. Mostly there has been a bit of a warning...
Like any other “project” in your life, bringing up your son to become bilingual is much more likely to have a successful outcome if you plan ahead. You may ask: “Why do I need a plan? I grew up to become bilingual without anyone making a plan for me!” This is true – I...
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...
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...
Why do not all children in multilingual families grow up to become bilingual? What are the differences between the families that succeed and those who don’t? First, let’s start with some quick myth-busting: How clever or linguistically talented a child is has nothing...
Parents in multilingual families face the choice of teaching their child both of their languages from the start or wait with the next language until the first is established and the child is fluent in it. The decision whether to go for one language at a time (also...