One aspect of going home when you are the minority language parent is realising that “people understand me here”. By that I mean that I’m so used to no one around us understanding what I say to my three-year-old in public that I have to do a double-take when I’m back home and suddenly remember […]

Twitter is my friend for anything writing-related these days. But I also do a bit of bilingualism on the side, as several of my writer friends are expats and parents, too. This week I came across this wonderful website with really good advice for parents of bilingual or to-be-bilingual children: Raising bilingual children

As I quote in my diploma theses, « Der Begriff Interferenz ist der Physik entlehnt und meint dort die Erscheinung, daß es durch die Überlagerung von Wellen (z.B. Radiowellen) zu Störungen kommt (z.B. Pfeiftöne im Radio). Auf die Situation des Zweispra­chigen übertragen meint der Begriff, daß sich Regeln der beiden Sprachen überlagern und es dadurch zu […]

This morning, I can’t remember in what context, my daughter (now almost 3½) said: “Je vais couper ein bisschen was ab.” Switch in mid-sentence without any trigger that I can see. (Maybe too early for the “switch-at-trigger” phase.) Did you notice the prefix “ab” placed in the final position (where it would belong if the […]

Today I came across this article on a UK website: Languages – Gift of bilingualism is too often ‘squandered’ Some quotes: [Professor Joseph Lo Bianco, of the University of Melbourne] who advised the Australian government on its languages policy, said it was of “critical importance” that education systems across the world fostered a “multilingual mentality”, […]

Yesterday we participated in the annual lantern walk (Laternelaufen) of the bilingual school an older friend of my daughter attends. Following the walk, I was queuing for sausages, enjoying the unusual situation of being surrounded by German speakers on all sides, when I overheard three girls (I guess they were about 9 years old) talk […]

The German Sesame Street opening song hasn’t changed since I watched it, even though the opening sequence has. It was the first thing that jumped to mind in connection with what I noticed a few days ago: When my daughter speaks German, she will systematically use French articles. Mostly “la”, actually, but I haven’t made […]

Today we went to see French friends with kids. The parents both took German in school but admit they don’t remember much of it. When listening to our girl, they said she seems to have a slight German accent when she speaks French. That’s something I’m in no place to judge, and her dad says […]

The other day, my daughter got this beautiful poster with the numbers from 1 to 20. Ever since we put it up on her door, she’s loved to compare the objects and, of course, count them. On Thursday, we managed to film her:

Do you remember our initial confusion when our little girl referred to her pool noodle as “pâte” in French, where they are called “fries”? This week we were talking about something called (I had to look up the term) “water warts” of which she unfortunately has a few, which are being treated. Since both Daddy […]