Raising Multilingual Children

When you move to a European country you suddenly realise how closed minded we Brits are.

Most European children grow up naturally learning two or more languages depending on where their parents originate from and in most cases their parents were also raised as multilingual children.

I can only put this down to European families being more exposed to a multilingual culture as they tend to travel more and eventually settling down in another country other than their native one.

Close friends of ours have a five year old daughter who already speaks five languages fluently!

This is because her father who is Italian speaks seven languages fluently and her mother who is Spanish is also multilingual and speaks Spanish, Italian and English. So their daughter has grown up naturally multilingual.

What a fantastic start in life that little girl has.

As a good part of my professional life has been spent in direct sales, being able to communicate is of utmost importance and languages is something that has always fascinated me.

I made a point of teaching myself Spanish as soon as I arrived in Spain which was a good job as when I met my wife who is German, she couldn't speak any English and I couldn't speak any German!

We communicated the entire time in Spanish.

I can now speak German as well, and she speaks perfect English but we still use Spanish as our native language when talking to each other.

I am teaching my twin girls three languages at once and I'm often asked if they get confused learning three languages at such an early age and the truth is no.

You see at the early age when we first start learning to talk, our minds are like sponges and will soak up all the information you can give it.

I guarantee when you were a child you learnt to talk long before you could read or write. You didn't need to use a dictionary or phrase book because you wouldn't have been able to read them anyway!

You learnt to talk from listening to your parents and associating the words and sounds with objects, questions or commands. The more often a word was used the quicker it stuck in your head and the quicker you would start using it yourself, but you didn't have to think about it. It just happened naturally.

The quickest and most natural method for anyone wanting to learn another language is to throw away your phrase books and spend all your time with people who speak the language you want to learn!

Seriously, I learnt to speak fluent Spanish in only six months using this natural learning method, and I am raising my daughters using exactly the same natural learning method.

What you can't do is to have one person try to teach your children all three languages.

They have to associate a person or place with a language so, we speak to them in English.

Grandma who lives with us only speaks German so she speaks to them in German and they associate Grandma with German.

The television, school, cousins and everything else is all in Spanish.

Hey presto three languages in one hit!

They don't understand the difference between English, Spanish or German and don't even realise that they are multilingual.

They just use different words with different people!

Oh Look There's Two Of Them!

This fun little book makes a Great Gift for any Parents of Twins, Identical Twins, Fraternal Twins, or anyone who is Having Twins or knows somebody who is Having Twins. Written for all the Parents of Twins and Multiples around the world who know what it's really like, "Oh Look There's Two of Them!" is a light hearted and amusing look at the ups and downs and so often comical side to Parenting Twins as seen through the eyes of a devoted but very tired Father of Fraternal Twins!

If you haven't read it yet click on the big link below and check it out.

The main benefit of raising multilingual children will come later on when it comes to choosing a career.

The Immense advantage they will have just generally in life over their counterparts who are trapped in a single language barrier is unquestionable and with three languages or more they can choose to live and work almost anywhere in the world.

Imagine what you would be doing now if you had grown up multilingual?