Life Story. Our trilingual story: It’s all Greek, Italian and French to me!

Welcome to Life Story series. Collection of stories from parents and multilinguals around the world! Today's guest is Marina -  bilingual by birth and now multilingual mama - who is telling us about her experience in raising trilingual children in Brussels. 

 

Marina Kaffe:  I was born in Italy and raised in Greece. My father was Greek but spoke at home (very good) Italian with my mum so at home it was Italian for me and outside Greek. It was a piece of cake to learn both. I went to university in Italy and perfectionized it there. I actually dream in both languages, some words are definitely easier in one or another language. I have, I would say, definitely a bilingual mind, split and bipolar. English I learnt at school very soon and then at the Uni. I also speak French but in no way fluently. I really find great and lots of fun learning new languages and this I think I have definitely taken because of my bilinguality.

List of children's books in Polish language - Lista książek po Polsku dla dzieci

 

Big thanks to Emilia Pallado, who sent me this great list of children's books in Polish language so I can in turn share it with all of you! Emilia is a mother of two trilingual children, who are bilingual in Polish and Spanish from birth, and have been learning English at school.

Dear Emilia - Thank you! Dziękuję! Gracias!

Książki dla dzieci od urodzenia

Marta Bogdanowicz (opracowanie) – Rymowanki – Przytulanki - Author's books on Amazon

Jan Brzechwa - Wiersze i bajki - Author's books on Amazon

Julian Tuwim - Wiersze dla dzieci - Author's books on Amazon

Aleksander Fredro - Paweł i Gaweł - Author's books on Amazon

Maria Konopnicka dzieciom  -Author's books on Amazon

 

Książki dla dzieci od 3 lat

Trilingual Siblings Minority Language Progress Update. The Younger Sibling Is About to Enter Preschool.

My not yet fully trilingual daughter is 3 now. A big change is coming to our multilingual family life this fall. She will join her brother at a preschool. I closed the eyes on my worries on how it can affect siblings' minority language development and asked to assigned her to a class that is located in the same wing of my son's school building. The preschool, my children go to, has two wings with separate internal playgrounds and one big shared external playground. During bad weather months my children will meet each other everyday for a joined play with peers. I could separate them for the sake of preserving their Russian-only speech relationship, but I did not do it. The time they will spend together playing, developing their brother-sister relationship stands above my ambitious wishes for their trilingualism.

From now on I’m going to keep a closer look at how the community affects their minority language development.

I would like to sum up their progress so far. I look at their language development from a bilingual child perspective, as their third language - English - is still behind their Italian (community language) and Russian (minority language), both of which they speak equally fluently.


Bilingual siblings speak minority language only.

No matter who is around and how far I am from my children, they speak only minority language to each other. They even speak Russian among themselves, when staying with Italian grandparents. If you are raising a bilingual child and expecting a second one, check this  7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings.


Bilingual siblings read in the minority language.

Yes! Both of them, 3 years old and 5 years old, are reading now! Literacy is the biggest milestone in child’s development that will help him at school and in life. No stress at all. I just started early and followed these 7 simple principles to teach a child to read before school.


Planning ahead and adjusting our family language strategy
 
You would say: “Your children speak your heritage language to each other. It is a success.” And I would agree, that it is, so far. It proofs the importance of good planning ahead and not missing on any opportunity to expose your child to your heritage language.

When your child is born ( and even before), it is a good idea to think what your child’s language environment would be for at least next 5 years. So you can concentrate on the “right” language in the right time.

There are many things that you can not predict. In my case I found it extremely hard to stick to my plan after the birth of our second child. There was a pretty long period when both kids remained babies, because the jealousy kept the older one from growing up and acting as a toddler he was. I had to deal with issues that mothers of monolingual, bilingual or trilingual siblings deal, when their kids are very close in age. Those of you who had to go through it, know what I am talking about.
Constant plan adjustments are necessary throughout the multilingual family journey.


Do you have multilingual siblings? How was it for you when they were little?

If you would like to share your family experience, whatever it is good or bad, feel free to contact me.

Are you successfully raising bilingual or multilingual children? or do you have regrets about something you have not done on time? Please do not keep it for yourself, share it with other parents, by writing a comment or by contacting me for an Interview or by joining great contributors in the Life Story series. You will help thousands of readers!

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You might also like 

Planting a language tree. Does passive language learning work?   

How Minority Language Speaking Parent Helps Bilingual Children With Homework.  

How to develop early phonemic awareness and reading readiness by using language play with kids from birth to preschool.

As I already mentioned in the 7 principles to keep in mind while teaching your child to read, before child learns to read he needs to learn how to separate  phonemes (speech sounds). It is better for parents and kids to start working on it as early as possible, since in reality it does not require anything special.  So what can you do to help your child develop phonemic awareness? - It’s quite simple: just sing, read and play. Play using the language and play with the language!

When your child is born, start singing to her/him. 

The first recorded lullaby is dating around 2000 BC. According to the researchers, lullabies prepare child's ear and brain for language.

Life Story: Sometimes knowing a language is worth it for its literature alone.

 
It is easy to learn languages as a baby and be bilingual from birth. But many of us, including the parents raising those lucky bilingual children, have a different story. Some were born and raised monolingual until leaving the country as teenagers, some - as adults. Andrey left his home country when he was 10 years old and moved to US with his parents. There he started a new life and learned a second language. He has also learned how to preserve his mother tongue and this gave his life a different spin - he started translating the poetry and putting his own thoughts into rhyme. He is also raising a bilingual daughter.

My name is Andrey. I was born and raised in Moscow, Russia. I remember my childhood, as most kids remember theirs, carefree and easy-going. I spend most of my summers with my grandparents, either from my mother’s side, in Pishchulino, a small village some five hours drive south of Moscow or from my father’s side, in Pyatigorsk, a city in southwestern part of Russia, known for its mountains and mineral springs. In Pishchulino, I learned how to collect mushrooms, pick berries, and play card games. In Pyatigorsk, my cousin and I would make water guns from old shampoo bottles, and run around with local kids, spraying one another. During the long winter months in Moscow, I would spend a lot of time outdoors, playing in the snow. My brother, who is six years older than I am, always had many friends and he would reluctantly drag me with him from one party to the next.


As a child, I did not ever think about the economy, politics, the army draft that was looming over my brother’s head, or future in general - that was my parents’ job, and so it was somewhat of a surprise when they had decided to follow my aunt and uncle and immigrate to New York.  I was ten at the time. I remember feeling anxious and excited at the same time, elated and depressed. I did not know what awaited me on the other side of the ocean. I knew that the chances of me coming back to Russia in the near future were slim. The evening before we left,

What language multilingual family speaks at the table?

 

Every evening the whole family is gathered at the table. We speak to each other. Kids laugh at their misbehaves.  I am getting stressed that they do not eat and that my son, who is learning to cut food with a knife, periodically waves with it and his sister follows him with a fork.  All things are like in a common family with two or more little children on board. The only difference, we add more turmoil -- we speak three languages at the table.  My children and I speak Russian to each other, my husband speaks Italian with them and English with me. Sometimes we become as laud as Italians in a restaurant, when one table tries to outshout  the others, with the only difference -- we are all seating at the same table -- in our home!

Soon our children, who are 2 and 4 years old, will grow up. The chaotic dinners should get more civilized tone. (I started writing this post some time ago, now the kids are almost 3 and 5 years old and have made significant behavioral progress :) ) Every month we are slowly getting  a chance to discuss topics that are interesting to all four of us. We use our "language scheme" (Father + Child = Italian, Child + Child and Child+Mother = Russian, Father+Mother= English) and it works for us so far. We do not get bothered by not speaking the same language. The questions I have:

Would things stay the same way after a couple of years?
Would we all feel comfortable having a conversation in all three languages at once?

It won't be a problem for me as I speak well our trilingual family languages Italian, English and Russian. It might be a slight problem for my husband. Hopefully his level of Russian will improve together as children master the language.  Everyday he tries more and more to join our conversation in Russian. The children are slowly learning English and, who knows, one day they might actually join our, for now parents only, conversations in English.

I wonder how other multilingual families "language at the table" situation evolved over time. Did you come to the common denominator and stop on one language? Or you still use all the multilingual family languages? Does it bother you not to have one single language at the table? Please leave a comment for me and readers to know what you think.

You might also like reading:

What language should I speak to my child in public? - Multilingual parent dilemma.

A family vacation, multilingual style. Are you in?

Naming languages with their proper name.

7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings.  

Child rips books apart: What should we do when reading becomes a book eating?

 
Does your child sit still and listen to the book you read or stays with you for a second and then starts running around picking up toys to play?  Or perhaps, even worse, he is chewing on the books checking how they taste?
In Bilingual children: How to read to a baby?  I gave some  tips on how to keep your child's attention while reading;  and I am very excite to introduce Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, who is raising a trilingual child in Polish, English and Italian. Today she’s sharing  some great ideas on how to help you to deal with little lions at home :) 

"I really would like to read to my toddler but it’s really difficult. She moves so much or when I start reading to her she grabs the book and tears it apart,” a friend of mine said to me. I really knew what she was talking about as my little toddler was doing exactly the same thing. Pulling, biting and tearing the pages ferociously as if turning into that young and wild lion that I’ve just attempted to read to him about.

More delight, less doubt. Bringing up a trilingual child – the beginning

 

by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini

I just came back from the hospital with my small and beautiful little boy. He was an easy-going newborn who settled himself into a nice routine very quickly. I loved holding him in my arms late at night and absorbing his peace. Blissful, wonderful peace. I felt enormously happy. I felt rewarded, blessed and enriched; but my fortune was not made of money, but of affection and attachment that strengthened and deepened with every day, unconditionally, unremittingly, and peacefully.

It was in this peace of a quietly breathing newborn baby, in a room that smelled of baby shampoo, just after midnight, that I realised that I want to bring up my son as a trilingual child, that the biggest gift my husband and I can give to him is the gift of languages, an opportunity to enter and explore his parents and grandparents' cultures and to draw strength from them.

But there are other reasons too.

Good Reads: books about Prostokvashino by Uspensky. Read or watch cartoons with English subtitles.

If you ask any child in Russia, who is Uncle Fedor, there is a big chance you will receive an answer that’s full of excitement!
Uncle Fedor is a little but very independent boy, who left the house together with his new friend - the cat. This cat not only speaks people's language and cross-stitches, but also knows the proper way to eat an open-face sandwich so it tastes better!
This wonderful story was written by Eduard Uspensky in 1973. Almost 30 years ago! And it is still loved by children.

You can also find it translated in many other languages:

Life Story: Trilingual mama - trilingual kid. Why would it be any other way?

Trilingual "apple" does not fall far from a trilingual "tree".

Nathalie’s parents raised their kids trilingual long before nowadays multilingual parenting book plethora and well before anyone can google everything.  They did think there was a choice!  And now the story repeats  -  Nathalie is raising her son trilingual and can’t see any other way. 

 Nathalie with Daniël (then 4 months old)

My name is Nathalie (39) and I’m  of a German and a Dutch nationality. After being born in Germany, I traveled around the world with my parents and two siblings. I currently live in Madrid, Spain. I work in a bilingual (Dutch-Spanish) primary school where I teach the toddlers and first grade. 
I am a mother of a nearly two year old boy, Daniël, who is half Dutch half English.  I am a self-proclaimed expert in both multilingualism and moving houses thanks to my upbringing.


I was raised as a trilingual child, and I'm now myself raising a second generation trilingual child, be it with other languages. Many people around us seem to think it is harsh on our child to expose him to not only two, but three languages. Others seem to think we are over challenging the little boy, just for bragging purposes. Neither could be further from the truth. As in my own upbringing, I feel there is no choice than to raise Daniël trilingual, simply because we cannot just ignore one of the three languages.

I was born in Aachen, Germany to a German father and a Dutch mother who spoke English to each other because they didn’t speak the others' language. I suppose neither of them were willing to give up their mother tongue when it came to raising us.

Camping in Kenya

Once my father had finished university he was offered a job that would imply moving all over the world for the next 20 years. The first stop was Nairobi, Kenya where my sister and I were sent to a local (English) school. At home we spoke German to my dad, Dutch to my mother and English at school.

Nathalie with her sister

As my grandparents were mortified not seeing their grandchildren growing up, my parents often recorded cassette tapes of us speaking and singing for them to listen to, which they sent to them. These tapes have become the most valuable and interesting testimonies of our language development. By the age of 3 and 5 my sister and I had formed the most complicated sentence structures applying the various grammatical rules of English, Dutch and German, using all three languages in any given sentence-depending on which parent we were talking to, the language the last song had been sung in or in whatever language a word came to mind first.
To outsiders this must have been a perfect verification against raising children in more than one language. Mind you, at the time you couldn’t google if what you were doing was right. My parents raised us trilingual with no clue as to what they were doing.

Venezuela

The second country (after a break in Holland) was Venezuela. We went to an American school and I think by that time my dad had learned Dutch which became the language spoken at home. I don’t actually know based on what my parents decided to leave out German-possibly it was us, the children who decided we wouldn’t speak German anymore. (I just asked my dad why we started speaking Dutch at home, and even he has no clue). As we were in a Spanish speaking country we also got Spanish lessons at school, and I suppose we learned the basics, but in leaving Venezuela, we left behind our fourth language-Spanish.

The next country was India (again after a little break in Holland) The American school had not really been what my parents had hoped for so we went to a local German school. By now (8 and 10 years old) we were obviously perfectly capable of separating the three languages we spoke and were fluent (but not native) in all three languages. The family continued to speak Dutch at home and we spoke German at school and English when out in Bombay.

Bombay, India

After India we moved back to Holland where my parents were confronted with various options as to where and in what language we would continue our schooling.  At the time our school language and home language were both good but not perfect, and the choice had to be made not knowing what country the future would bring. The choice (for which I am to this day still grateful) was the European school in Mol, Belgium. The European school gave us the possibility of being educated in all three of our languages. Be it that we had to chose which language would be our first, second and third. In the end, we went to the German section.

When it came to going to university I myself chose to go to a Dutch one, as we were living in Holland. It was at university where I became aware that I was pretty non-native in all three the languages which was quite a shocking realization to me. There I was thinking I was a right genius while getting back papers with more red than you could possibly imagine (and comments like: "This is a primary school mistake". Bit by bit my German and English disappeared to the background as I was living and studying in Holland.

I stayed in Holland till my 30th and then started to get itchy-feet and so I decided to make a plunge to Madrid-Spain. It was here that I realised how much I had missed speaking different languages - all of a sudden I would hardly ever speak Dutch. To be honest, I felt negatively towards the Dutch language, wanted nothing to do with it. I very much enjoyed speaking English most of the time and realised that my identity was actually directly linked to the Dutch language.  English became my first language again as I became an English teacher while I was struggling to learn my fourth language-Spanish.

Now (8 years later) I am still in Madrid, working at a bilingual school (Dutch-Spanish) watching “my” little bilingual toddlers learning to speak their second - and sometimes third language.

My partner is English, and I'm half Dutch-half German. We have a 1.5 year old son Daniël (imagine the struggle to find a name that sounds ok in four languages!) who is being raised trilingual as well. His dad speaks to him in English, I speak Dutch and at a day-care he learns Spanish.

When Daniël was born, we knew we had no choice but to raise him trilingual. The fact of living in Spain, being born to an Englishman and going to do his primary school in Dutch and Spanish, there was no way to chose for a monolingual or bilingual education. Therefore,  just like myself,  Daniël will grow up being non-native in all languages, but sounding like a genius to monolingual people.

I have no regrets about him growing up trilingual, and must admit that it fills me with pride that he understands basic concepts of all three languages. I have no doubt that he will, just like me, be endlessly grateful for the present of multiple languages.

                                                ----
Please contact me, if you are interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent.


You might also like reading:


Can babies distinguish foreign languages?  


Life story: A Journey to Multilingualism.  


PROS and CONS of Raising a Trilingual Child


Bilingual child: when to start reading aloud?


Do you speak another language in presence of your child, but not directly to him? Read , if the passive language learning works


Language resources: 

Kids Radio in different languages from around the world. 

19 great websites with FREE Audio Books and Stories for children in English.

What language should I speak to my child in public? - Multilingual parent dilemma.

Long time before my first child spoke his first word, I asked myself: What language should I speak to him in public, when I am surrounded by other people who do not speak my language? Should I switch the languages and speak to my child the community language so everyone understands? There should not be any harm if I do it (right?), since I am bringing up my child trilingual anyway.

However, after giving this matter a thought, I decided to always speak the minority language to my child and this is why:

Bilingualism and speech delay. How can you help?

Are bilinguals or multilinguals any different from monolinguals when it comes to speaking? Well, yes and no. Bilinguals might start speaking somewhat later; however, the latest research totally rejects a clinical language delays in bilingual or multilingual children as a result of exposure to two or more languages simultaneously.

In "Language development in bilingual babies: no delays, just a few adjustments" François Rochon talks about research of Professor Christopher Fennell of the University of Ottawa's School of Psychology:

Research has shown [...], that monolingual toddlers learn to distinguish similar-sounding words at around 17 months old. Professor Fennell has found that bilingual infants start to do this at 20 months. 

Prof. Fennell doesn't at all believe the "delay" in sound distinction is a hindrance. Bilingual babies are simply learning an adaptive strategy because they're facing a more challenging language environment. That strategy sees them unconsciously ignore some of the sound cues they receive so that they can concentrate on matching the word with the object it represents.

What does it mean for you as a parent?

It means that you should not worry that two or more languages are too much for a child, and that you should focus on how to help your child and ease that task of connecting words with objects. Do not think about it as something not natural and extra work for you. Look at this the same way you look at helping your child keep his balance while he is making his first steps. Come down to your child's level of understanding when you read or talk to him; proving extra explanations. According to the researchers, a 4 month old baby is already learning to connect words with objects. So start early!

Point on the objects while talking about them, and do the same on the pictures in the books, following a story as you read it to your child. You need to catch new words and follow on them explaining their meanings. I often use Google to find pictures of words  that are not pictured in books we read, or when I'd like to provide some extra explanation and show something in details. Pointing is a powerful tool for creating word-object connection. So make a point to point :)  Read also  How to read to a baby?
 
Researchers also found that children have difficulties to distinguish one languages from another, if the languages you expose your child to belong to the same rhythm category  (such as English and German (stress-timed), French and Spanish (syllable timed), Japanese and Tamil (mora-timed)) . Deborah D.K. Ruuskanen, Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vaasa, Finland, and mother of three bilingual children says:

if there is more than one language in the baby's home environment, then the baby will be learning first to process and separate the different languages, before talking begins.  

As you probably already experienced yourself, there are natural obstacles in the language learning process. So be ready to face this challenge and simplify the language learning task for your child by being consistent. Speak only the language you choose to speak with your child.

If you decided to speak only one language to your child - then do it all the time, without mixing with other languages in direct interactions.

If you, as one person, decided to speak to your child two or more languages, think of the best strategy to separate the languages one from another. You could alternate days or even weeks when languages are spoken to your child, for instance, one day / week Italian only and another day / week -  Hungarian. You could also assign a language to a certain activity: bathing, family meals, playgroups ...  Think of some possible, appropriate to the child's age sign that you can give to your baby, to help him to understand what languages you speak and when. It could be a different color bow in your hair,  a scarf, different picture on the wall. Just use your imagination!

You also need to be consistent with the language you speak to others at front of your child. If you decided to speak to your spouse other language then to your child, please make an effort and speak only that language. This brings structure to the language recognition and, hopefully, helps the child to sort out the languages fast.

Nothing dramatic will happen if you mix the languages. There is a number of parents that does it and they have a bilingual or multilingual child afterwards. However, my position on it: if you dedicate your time to your child, why not just take care of the language consistency part as well to speed up and simplify language learning. I found that naming the languages with their proper name helps in the language separation process.

As you see, there are many variables that can affect when your child starts speaking. My children started speaking within the same time frame as monolinguals do. Since my concentration was on speaking Russian language, their first words and sentences were mostly in Russian.  Interestingly, both children started speaking full sentences in Italian without usual long practice of words. They simply transferred the knowledge about building the sentences from one language into another by modeling the Italian speakers.

If you are pregnant, you might like to know that it is also beneficial to speak the languages you are going to use with your child during the last trimester. Research shows that infants are able to show preferences to and thus, recognition of the languages they were spoken to during the pregnancy after they were born.

When did your bilingual, trilingual or multilingual child start speaking? What do you think helped or delayed the child's speaking in your particular case? Share your thoughts to help other parents who read this page.

Useful Resources:
Language development milestones by ASHA - American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

BE AWARE! Your child can have fluid in the middle ear (otitis media) without you noticing it!  
As it can cause absolutely NO PAIN and your child will not complain. 
READ MORE HERE:  Speech delay due to fluid collection in the middle ear. 

Books about helping children to talk:

Time to Talk: What You Need to Know About Your Child's Speech and Language Development

My Toddler Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child's Language Development  by Kimberly Scanlon

The Cow Says Moo: Ten Tips to Teach Toddlers to Talk: An Early Intervention Guide  by Vicky McErlean

Talking with Your Toddler: 75 Fun Activities and Interactive Games that Teach Your Child to Talk   by Teresa Laikko M.S. CCC-SLP and Laura Laikko M.S. CF-SLP

Late-Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage?  by Stephen M. Camarata 

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7 principles to keep in mind while teaching your child to read.

Parents these days face many difficult decisions, no matter if their kids speak one language, two languages or three languages. One of them is whether or not teach children to read in an early childhood, before the school's formal education starts. Some parents decide to wait,  thinking that kids will otherwise get bored at school, some step in and provide the reading instructions before elementary school  thinking that being "prepared" will help children along the way.

I can understand both parents' positions; nevertheless, experts on this topic see a great benefit in engaging children in pre-reading activities early in life and at preschool. Doing some rhythm and phonic related activities that help children slowly establish letters-sounds connection and  prepare them for more formal instructions.

A family vacation, multilingual style. Are you in?

Would your family go on a joined multilingual family adventure? Are you afraid that vacation fun will be lost in translation, if you try to share with other families whose children speak a different language?  Read on, there is something to think about before you plan the summer vacation.

Who does not like summers? A summer beach vacation is one of the greatest experiences for every member of the family.  Parents are more relaxed (if not, getting a drink at the beach bar would really help!) and do not nag the kids. The kids are playing with a sand, water, and do not bother the parents. No one gets bored on the beach!  And this is where I am heading to.
 
Last summer we went on vacation with our English speaking friends. It is an English and German speaking bilingual family that consists of father, mother and two cute girls, who are about our Russian-Italian speaking children's age.  It was interesting to watch how the kids' relationship developed. All children spoke their native languages at first, but then, after realizing that "the message" does not get through, they started explaining themselves in the language their friends would understand. Our kids tried to speak English and the friends' kids - Italian. The sign language  combined with the native language worked well to fill the language knowledge gaps! They had so much fun playing in water , building sand castles and sharing toys.

 The children loved the time they spent together, and now are looking forward to another joined vacation this year.

This kind of multilingual vacation is good because:

- it widens child's horizons. The child learns about other languages and cultures,

- it generates an interest and creates stimulus to learn a new language and to proficient the already acquired ones,

- it develops communication skills.

It is important to make children aware of the existence of other languages not only by talking about them, but also by bring them in direct contact with their speakers. It will help kids later at school to realize why they need to learn all the verb conjugations. Kids always need to be challenged to promote development. In fact our friends' daughter is really eager to learn Italian now. She is only 5 years old and Italian language is already on her to-do list!

If you like beach as a destination for your vacations, another good way to expose you children to other cultures and languages is just by traveling with them to other countries' beaches.  For Portuguese you could go to Brazil (easy to access from the Americas) or Portugal, if you are in Europe. For Spanish - beautiful Mexican, Argentinian and Spanish beaches. For English - Florida, California or Hawaii.  For German - beach of the Northern and Baltic Sea would do a great job. For French - Cote d'Azur, Bay of Biscay, Tahiti. For Italian - hundreds of beautiful Italian beaches and amazing islands.  For Russian - the Baltic and Black seas, for Hebrew - the Red Sea of Israel. For Croatian - Croatia.   For Greek - Greece and hundreds of fantastic Islands.  For Arabic - Egypt's Read sea, Tunisia or Morocco. There are so many countries with beautiful beaches!

Where have you been with your kids around the world?
Our family already visited beautiful beaches of Italy, France and Portugal. Where should we head next?

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How much time do we have to influence a child's minority language development?

Planting a language tree. Does passive language learning work?

What should I order? Mortadella alphabet!  

Traveling with multilingual kids

Today's post is a little different. I took part in the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Vlogging Telephone. The topic of today's "video phone discussion was "Travel with kids".  

Participants, MKB bloggers, asked each other questions. In my video I answered a question from Olena of  Bilingual Kids Rock : 

What games do you play with your kids to keep them entertained while traveling to your destination by airplane, bus, train or car?

Here is my answer:
 

In the video I ask Mari from Inspired by Familia to tell us about the funniest travel situation her family have ever had.

Enjoy!

7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings.

The moment  you think  you figured  it all out and  your multilingual family found the right balance between the languages for your one and only child, you realize the baby #2 is on the way. And everything you planned so perfectly may go the way you were not expecting! Every parent with 2+ kids would tell you that dealing with two kids is much more complex, it's not really 1+1... So, the main question you never really thought of before: What language would the siblings speak to each other?

Planting a language tree. Does passive language learning work?

Our family, like many other multilingual families, follows a language strategy in which parents speak to each other in a language different from the one they speak to their children. My husband and I communicate with each other in English, I speak Russian to our children, and my husband speaks Italian to them.

In our multilingual family set up children are exposed to English language mostly passively with very little active interaction. I always believed in the power of passive language learning; however, I was still wondering if it can bring any good results. My children are now 4,5 and 2,5 years old, and everyday I see more and more

Life Story: My Three Languages – English, Spanish and Quechua

This is a story of  Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou.  She is trilingual and speaks English, Spanish and Quechua, an indigenous language of the Andean region in South America. Her multilingual parents did not speak all three languages to her, but only English.  Nevertheless, the multilingual environment she was surrounded by shaped her life in a unique and a beautiful way.

What should I order? Mortadella alphabet! - Fun way to learn letters and start writing them.

 Apparently there is nothing as easy and fun as teaching  your child letters using an aromatic Italian mortadella! One evening I was preparing appetizer for kids, I took a big piece of  mortadella, the Italian heat-cured meat sausage,  and

2013 - Raising a Trilingual Child Blog Posts in Review

The 2013 year is behind the shoulders. It was the first year in the life of this blog.

Thank you everyone for joining me! I appreciate your positive feed back! 

Even though my children and my ambitions to teach them three languages (Russian, Italian and English) kept me busy, I tried hard and I managed to find time to share my thoughts, ideas and discoveries with you.

I started the blog with the post Raising Bilingual / Multilingual child. Where to start?  describing our family strategy: Exposing our kids to languages  and created the multilingual family Language Strategies page for your reference.

I believe reading is essential in teaching a child speaking and developing a rich vocabulary. Guess when did I start reading to my child? You can find the answer in Bilingual child: when to start reading? post and the tips are in How to read to a baby?

Do you know anything about virtual babysitters?  Skype has opened a virtual window between our living room and Russian speaking grandparents. I am so thankful my parents could support me in many ways: virtual babysitting is one of it. Preserving grandchild - grandparent bond and keeping up the minority language with video calling.

How do you call the languages you and your spouse speaks? I believe Naming languages with their proper name  also helps children to separate the languages easily and gives a wider view without limiting to only family boundaries.

As a parent teaching children a minority language I learnt how not to pass on an opportunity to expose them to new words: Walking with your baby and showing him the world.

Ha ha ha or correcting your child's pronunciation problem. post was born after a lot of worries about my son's wrong pronunciation of the Russian letter "X".

I asked myself and answered a question: How much time do we have to influence a child's minority language development?

When my younger child started speaking I was wondering what language she would speak with her brother: What language do multilingual siblings speak to each other?  I am so glad that as of today it is still Russian - the minority language and hope it will stay this way for at list one more year.

I should stress once more that it is important to be proactive in introducing new vocabulary in minority language: Being proactive in exposing your child to the new vocabulary .

I answer the question: Should I correct my child speaking?

As parents speaking a minority language, we also need to work on being a good example for our children: How to prepare yourself to be a speaking model for your child.
Many of us have ups and downs on the way to multilingualism. The right motivation helps a lot in staying on track, but this is the reality: "No English!" Motivation is the key.

Some fun activities for language development were born while interacting with my daughter: Mixing art, material objects and imagination - a recipe for language development.

My friend asked me a very good question I found an answer to: Can babies distinguish foreign languages?

I welcomed Amalia, a guest on my blog pages with her amazing  Life story: A Journey to Multilingualism. If you are bilingual or multilingual from birth and would like to share your story, feel free to contact me via email: trilingualchildren [at] gmail [dot] com.

Many of you agreed that Teaching the letter sounds before letter names helps in facilitating teaching a child to read.

If you know good documentaries about nature, please share them in the comments of  A touch of nature on a rainy day post.

If you are expecting a child and/or still have to figure out how to merge the multicultural traditions, reading the post When to give your child Christmas presents - an international family challenge. might give you some ideas and help you to make the right decision.




My children enjoy reading books with me and I am glad that many blog readers found very useful the Russian children's books list . You can also review my kids favorite Russian cartoons and movies at the end of the book list. Some more resources in Russian:  Russian winter season kids songs  and books review.

Happy holidays to everyone! 

Let the 2014 bring you love and happiness!