Do you know what your first words were? According to the little book that was given to every parent upon the birth of a baby in Soviet Latvia for noting memorable milestones, my first words were mom (mama), dad (tata), and poo (kaka). To be honest, I found my choice of a third word a […]
Languages
Our Trilingual Family: the Building Blocks
In our little multicultural and trilingual family we use three languages on a daily basis – German, Latvian, and English. Here’s how we manage this language mix in our day-to-day lives To begin with, we are applying the method known as OPOL – one parent, one language: Birdy and Bamm-Bamm hear Latvian from me and German […]
Learning Latvian: the Best Resources for Kids
Speaking a small language has its perks but, as most Latvian parents living abroad will agree, finding books and other resources is not among them. Fortunately for us, the Internet can make learning Latvian a little easier and a lot more fun. Read on for a collection of useful webpages, mobile apps, book stores that deliver […]
Birdy Talks: 2 ⅔ Years
Last time I took stock of Birdy’s language progress almost 6 months ago. It may not sound like much but a half year makes a world of difference for a budding speaker! The language balance If you asked me which language is currently Birdy’s strongest – German or Latvian – I couldn’t tell. I’m often surprised […]
Birdy Talks: 25 Months
It’s high time for another update on Birdy’s language progress. In the three months since I last wrote about her language skills she has made a lot of language progress and is very clearly disproving any myths about multilingualism causing speech delay. Even more, she’s already pretty great at translating between German and Latvian! Overall language progress After a […]
Language Learning by Playing
When Rita Rosenback from the blog Multilingual Parenting asked other bloggers to share their best tips for motivating children to speak the minority language for the upcoming round of the Raising Multilingual Children blogging carnival my first reply was quite straightforward: playing! Let me explain why. Since my youth NGO days I’m a firm believer in learning by doing. As […]
The Perks of Speaking a Small Language
There are more than 7 billion people on this planet and they speak around 7000 different languages. But did you know that half of the Earth’s population speaks one of just 23 languages? Yes, that’s right, 50% of the planet speaks in one of 0.3% languages. Many of the other languages are spoken only by small […]
Picture Books: Boosting Your Toddler’s Vocabulary
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of reading with a toddler you’ve probably noticed that “reading” is a relative term. They rarely have the patience to listen to longer texts, love to flip through pages at their own speed, and you never know if they’ll want to read the same book three times in a […]
Birdy Talks: 22 Months
It’s been a while since I last wrote about our little one’s language progress and so much has happened in just a few short months. Birdy has experienced a true language explosion and I can no longer keep up with all the words that she knows. She’s also getting pretty good at repeating words and […]
Of “right” and “wrong” languages
Over the past month Birdy has been adding new words to her vocabulary almost daily and her language is currently an adorable mix of Latvian, German, and animal sounds. She appears to understand both Latvian and German equally well and uses the words that she either hears most often or that are easier for her to pronounce. Currently […]