Question Hello I'm very glad to find this website. I have three years old daughter. Our language is Urdu but we start communicating with our daughter in English. In start it was okay but now we are feeling difficulty to explain things to her in English as she...
majority language
Q&A: How to maintain a five-year-old’s English when the majority language changes to French?
Question Hi there, My daughter Ophelia is five years old. She was born in the French Caribbean, I am English, and her father is French. She attended a French nursery until last year and could speak French very well (for a 4-year-old!). She has always spoken...
Q&A: How strict should OPOL-parents be with their languages when speaking to a small child?
Question Good day, Thank you for the good advice on multilingual parenting. I am Dutch and married to a Jordanian (Arabic-speaking). We talk English amongst each other but try to stick with our mother tongues (Dutch and Arabic) when talking to our 15-month-old son. He...
Q&A: “Will my grandson ever learn English, or will he have a strong accent?”
Question Hello My English son married a Mexican girl and their son was born in the US where they still live. My daughter-in-law speaks English but with a very heavy accent and she has found this to be a great disadvantage life and work wise, as where they live...
Q&A: How to maintain a family language once a bilingual child gets immersed in the majority language?
Question Hello We are a family who lives in Catalonia, Spain, we speak to our 2-year-old son in French because before he was even born we already spoke in French since we met up in Switzerland, even though any of us is French, we feel totally confident with it....
Q&A: What to do when a bilingual school-aged child’s minority language is the stronger one?
Question Hello, I wonder if you have any recommendations. My daughter is seven and has lived in Italy since she was 8 months old, however she didn’t start going to school till she was 5. At home I (mom) speak to her in English only and everyone else (including...
Q&A: How to help a bilingual child with the majority language when using mL@H?
Question Dear Coaches Thank you for the opportunity to ask a question! My name is Irina, I am Russian stay-at-home mum and I live in London with my English husband and our 6-year-old son. My husband knows Russian well, so we have chosen to speak Russian at home to...
12 discouraging comments about raising a bilingual child – and how to reply
As parents of bilingual children, many of us have been there: finding ourselves in a situation where others give us advise on what is best for our children when it comes to their languages, and how we should behave as a family. Sometimes we get brilliant ideas on how...
Q&A: When should parents in a mL@H family switch to the majority language?
Question Dear Rita, I'm raising two children in the United States where they will learn English naturally from their surroundings but I speak to them in Greek about 90-95% of the time and my husband also speaks to them in Greek but more of a mix of the two languages....
Q&A: How can one parent support the majority language while maintaining the minority one?
Question Hello! My name is Monique. I’m from the Netherlands originally and living in Australia with two children and my partner who is Australian. At the moment I’m a little lost as to what is the right bilingual system in particular with our youngest boy. He does...