This is the third post in my four-part A-B-C for parents in families with more than one language. M is for Myths There are so many myths about bilingual children and how to raise them that I don’t know where to start. In my opinion, the most damaging ones are: 1. that...
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...
So you have successfully passed on your language to your children and they are happy to talk your language with you. Maybe they have also spoken your language amongst themselves up to now. Then the language pattern changes and they switch to the majority 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...
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...
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...
Any parent with a teenage daughter in the house has probably at some point had thoughts along those lines. But what if it is a grandmother thinking that? And what if it is actually true? How does it feel not to be able to speak to your granddaughter? How would this...