In academia, which is where my background lies, the literature often focuses on ideal situations where one parent speaks one language or where the family speaks one language and the other one is learnt from outside the home. This is because exposure is easy to measure and children are more easily assessed and studied.
However, there are many different types of multilingual families, all very successful and many different strategies used by all of them. No bilingual family is exactly like another one. Everyone is unique.
In this series, I am posting interviews with multilingual families. They answer questions relating to their multilingual family settings and how it works (or not) for them. Who speaks what, how and why?
My aim is to show there is not one way of doing things and that you can raise multilingual children in many different ways. I hope this inspires you a little if you are raising multilingual children too.
You can see all of them here, click on a location on the map below or browse by language, strategy used or children's age group.
Here are our families so far (by chronological order of publication):
- Michelle (from MotherTonguesBlog) - Afrikaans, English, Spanish in the USA - Click here to read her story.
- Jen (from Perogies & Gyoza) - Japanese and English in Japan - Click here to read her story.
- Claudia (from Filhos bilingues) - Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese and English in England - Click here to read her story.
- Cordelia (from Multilingual Mama) - French, English, Spanish, Thai in Thailand - Read her story here.
- Julie (from Mon enfant trilingue) - French, German and Turkish in Germany - Read her story here.
- Luisa (from Immersion in Language and Culture) - English, Filipino and Mandarin in the Philippines - Read her story here.
- Nichola (from Our non-native bilingual adventure) - French and English in the U.K. - Read her story here.
- Olga (from The European Mama) - Polish, German and Dutch in the Netherlands - Read her story here.
- Mymy (from Je veux une tite soeur fille) - English, French and Spanish in Spain - Read her story here.
- Sarah (from Bringing up Baby Bilingual) - French and English in the USA - Click here to read her story.
- Sandra - Romanian and English in the USA - Click here to read more.
- Sarah R - French, English, Hawaiian, Creole and more in Hawaii - Read her story here.
- Tallulah (from Bilingual Babes) - English, French, Twi and some Mandarin in England. - Click here to read more.
- Becky (from Kid World Citizen) - Spanish and English in the USA. - Click here to read her story.
- Varya (from Little Artists) - Russian, Mandarin and English in China - Click here to read about her family.
- MaryAnne (from Mama Smiles) - English and some French in the USA - Click here to read her story.
- Heidi - Punjabi, Spanish and English in the USA - Click here to read her story.
- Leanna (from All Done Monkey) - Spanish and English in the USA - Click here to read her story.
- Adam (from Bilingual Monkeys) - Japanese and English in Japan - Click here to read his story.
- Maria (from The Paris Busy Bee Blog) - Spanish, English and French in France - Her story is here.
- Anita (from Bilingue) - Spanish and French in Spain - Here story is here.
- Stephen (from the Head of the Heard) - Brazilian Portuguese and English in Brazil. His story is here.
- Jan (from BabelKid) - Arabic, French, German, English in England. His story is here.
- Ute (from Expats since Birth) - German, English, Dutch and Italian in Holland. Her story is here.
- Amanda (from Miss Panda Chinese) - Mandarin Chinese and English (mainly) in the USA. Her story is here.
- Lina (from Best 4 Future) - Chinese and English in the USA. Read her story here.
- Sandra A (from Brussels Sprout) - Portuguese, English and French in Brussels. Her story is here.
- Ivana - Croatian, Italian, Slovenian and German in Germany. Here is her story.
- Phoebe (from Lou Messugo) - French and English in France. Read her story here.
- Michelle S's - German and English in Germany- Her story is here.
- Audrey (from EspaƱolita) - English and Spanish in the USA. Read her story here.
Afrikaans: Michelle
Arabic
Creole: Sarah R,
Croatian
Dutch: Olga,
Filipino: Luisa
French: Cordelia, Julie, Nichola, Mymy, Sarah R,
German: Julie, Olga,
Hawaiian: Sarah R,
Italian
Japanese: Jen
Mandarin: Luisa,
Norwegian: Claudia,
Polish: Olga
Portuguese: Claudia
Punjabi
Romanian: Sandra,
Russian
Slovenian
Spanish: Michelle, Cordelia, Mymy,
Thai: Cordelia
Turkish: Julie
Twi
Families by strategies used
OPOL
Non-native speakers
By children's ages
0-2
2-5:
6-10:
+10
I would love to learn about your experience, how you learn languages in your family. Please write to me at: thepiripirilexicon AT gmail DOT com or leave a comment below with your contact details and I will be in touch.
I've just been browsing around your blog after commenting on your #SilentSunday photo and really love this series. Mulitlingualism is so fascinating. Reading these stories I feel my family is very ordinary, *only* 2 languages! Having lived in 9 countries I now live in a very international part of the south of France and have friends from everywhere. Pretty much all our friends around here speak at least 2 languages and some many more. It makes life so interesting. I'd love to be part of this series if you'd have me. I'll send you an email.
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