Many bilinguals (and with this term I mean people who talk two or more languages, so including also plurilinguals) feel annoyed by all kind of questions that refer to them being able to understand, speak, write and read two or more languages. Instead of listing up these negative examples, I think it would be good […]
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When a bilingual child turns quiet
This is an extended version of an answer I gave to parents who asked me for advice about their 7 yo boy turning silent. One or the biggest myths about bilingual children is that they are all like sponges and that they become fluent in no time… Fact is, that during language acquisition, children go […]
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Keep cool and stay bilingual
We can find many suggestions about how to support our children to become bilinguals* when they are toddlers, in preschool or primary school. But what happens when they are teenagers and young adults? Can we still support them with their family languages or other languages they’re learning along the way? If culture was a […]
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Multilingual Switzerland
I’ve often been asked if I was able to talk Swiss, as I’ve lived there for a long time. Even if this kind of comment seems funny to those who live in or close to Switzerland, it is quite a common assumption among people coming from other continents, that Swiss talk Swiss, like Swedish […]
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Some thoughts about fluency in language
What does it mean to be “fluent” in a language? What is fluency? There are many different definitions of fluency, so for example it can be “the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise”, or “the smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are […]
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