One day - One language

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How to increase a minority language exposure It is inevitable that in any multi-lingual family setting one or more languages get more time and focus than the others. Naturally one of the parents or any other adult speaking minority language just gets to spend more time with the kids. Whether a stay at home parent, caregiver or maybe the one that spends a long morning commute with the child. Or there is more relatives around speaking the language. Or simply the adult responsible for passing on the minority language is just not as comfortable with it, gets limited time, cannot naturally hold conversation with a young child or simply gets frustrated to be in it alone.  As the time progresses and LingoPapa works hard away from home to support us, he gets limited time to speak and actively teach children Urdu. It a language that needs more attention in our household. Not only we get the least exposure to it but it also needs more attention due to its Persian script and ba...
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It's a state of mind

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I get asked this a lot :
"When have you started to teach languages to your children?" "What is the right time to start?"

In my humble opinion, one has to make the intention to raise kids with more than one language way before they arrive. It is really helpful if you consider how you going to raise your children and whether passing on another language is important not only to you but also the other co-parent. 

Switching languages on daily basis, potentially learning a new one as an adult and coping with the stress of arrival or a baby, toddler tantrums and tween drama...and beyond...is NOT EASY! 

I moved abroad to improve my English after high school and around that time I started to ponder on how I will teach languages to my future kids. As years went by I never went back to settle in my home country. What is more, I move to another country and picked up another language. In France I worked in multilingual family where kids spoke Spanish with their mother and housekeeper, French with their father and outside the house and English with me.  That was 10 years before  I had my own children. 

From my experience any child without learning difficulties ( more on this later) is able to pick up a language very quickly and accurately. I even met a Down's Syndrome 16 year old that confidently switched between English, Urdu and Arabic. 

It is extremely important to decide that you want to raise your children with more than one language (wmtol) as soon as possible. This is not because if you don't start with teaching them from day one you missed an opportunity, but because multilingual parenting is not an easy gig...IT'S STATE OF MIND.

Little multi-linguists

 Multilingual parenting is adding an extra layer of effort that you as a parent need to invest into your family life. For this you will need strategies, plans, adjustments, stocktaking and great amount of family and friend's cooperation. 


To make up your mind it is helpful to find your own answers to the following questions :
- WHY? and HOW? and WHAT?

 Let's start with "the WHAT"...

Read on as this blog is the account of what has and what has not worked for our family. 

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