After reading the same story multiple times, ever felt the urge to shred the pages of your daughter’s favourite fairy tale book or to accidentally misplace it, so you could read something else? I know I did – I must have read the Billy Goats Gruff story hundreds times...
“You must start when he is a small baby!”, “No point trying after he has turned three!”, “Definitely begin before he goes to school!”, “Older than seven and he will not get fluent!”, “He’s a teenager – no way!” Those are some of the answers you may get – and do you...
Beautiful flowers with accompanying thistles. Teenagers love to rebel, that’s how it is, has always been and will always be. Better just be prepared for it. If two languages have been the norm so far in the family, you might just be about the experience a major...
[ted id=1075] Today I want to share with you a talk by Patricia Kuhl, Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington. It is a fascinating insight into how small babies pick up distinct features of a language. The talk only lasts about ten...
If you are a parent and a second or later generation immigrant to a country you may have concerns about your own knowledge of the language you want to pass on to your children. Maybe the language use in the family while you were growing up wasn’t that consistent....
No, I am not saying that you can see better if you speak more than one language – there are many advantages to being bilingual, however a better eye sight is sadly not one of them. What I am saying though, is that bilinguals can on average concentrate better than...
If you are a bilingual like me, you know that we all do it – we mix our languages in our everyday lives. When we can’t think of a good word in one language we simply pick one from the other. Sloppy, lazy talk? Actually not, it is called code-switching and it has been...