Ute Limacher-Riebold

Hi, I am Ute and I’m the author of this blog. I live in the Netherlands with my husband and our three children. I’m multilingual and I speak and write in German, Italian, French, English and Dutch fluently.

I was born in Switzerland, grew up in Northern Italy, went to the University in Zurich where I got my PhD in French medieval literature & linguistics (on a old-occitan novel Flamenca) and have a Master in Bilingualism. I periodically lived in France and Italy where I collaborated at research projects. In Zurich I worked several years at the Department of Romance Studies and spent subsequently a few years in Florence for work before I moved to the Netherlands in 2005.– My son was born in Florence in 2003 and my twin daughters in Delft in 2006.

You can find some more information about the language situation within our family here and interviews with me on expatchild.com, europeanmama.eu, expatsblog.com, blogexpat.com, madernidaden2lenguas.com and thepiripirilexicon.com (some of them are no longer active, alas…).

Why “expat-since-birth”? Because ex-patria (“out of the fatherland/home country”) since birth.

I’m also an ATCK (Adult Third Culture Kid) raising TCK’s in a multicultural and multilingual context. We all speak at least two or three languages per day (German, Dutch, English, Italian etc.) – please read about my multilingual journey here. I know a lot about French, English, German, Italian, Swiss and Dutch cultures and I write posts about this in the cathegory “Expat life”.

I never lived in my parents’ home country but according to my passport I’m German. I’m also very Italian in my heart (and I had an Italian carta di residenza for 3.5 years), a bit Swiss (I own a Swiss passport since 2014), French, Dutch and English. A great mix of all the places I’ve been: I’m an expat since birth.

In my blog I share my experience about being a long time expat, raising multilingual children in a multicultural context, multilingualism in general, parenting and the different cultures I’ve learned to embrace during my life.

All kinds of comments and feedbacks are very welcome in English, French, Italian, German, Dutch and Spanish!

Last but not least: as English is my fourth language, I will surely do some typos… Please don’t hesitate to point them out for me. Thank you very much in advance!

Welcome, Bienvenus, Benvenuti, Willkommen, Welkom & Bienvenidos!

You can also find me on other sites:

• I also blog on Expat Living in The Hague at AngloINFO and I am one of the language coaches on multilingualparenting.com
• You can also find me on my business page Ute’s International Lounge.
• If you would like to know something about my “former life”, before becoming a mum of three and having to abandon my former career and reinvent myself, check out my “old” homepage.