In this section I write about my experience with being multilingual myself, raising multilingual children in a multicultural context and I share some linguistic musings.
I couldn’t resist… I had to write this today… I just read this inspiring article about how to learn Dutch by Albert Both, “Don’t let them break your egg“. He has brilliant ideas about how to learn Dutch fast and “gaining Dutch fluency while having fun.” What he […]
If you raise bilingual or multilingual children, you probably start with the ‘one person one language’ (OPOL) method, in order to promote the bilingualism. This can work for the first years of your children, but it might change as soon as your children start going to daycare or […]
Some time ago I read an interesting article from a mum raising multilingual children in a multicultural environment. She told her multilingual mothering story in a very positive and encouraging way. I would like to encourage mothers, fathers, caregivers to not be afraid to speak several languages to […]
All children like poetry from a very early stage, when we sing them lullabies and nursery rhymes. We all know that nursery rhymes help children to develop prereading skills and it’s our children’s first step in becoming successful readers as by listening to them, they develop their phonemic […]
Swiss Italian is the name given to the dialect spoken by about 500,000 Swiss in the canton of Ticino and in the southern part of Grisons (Canton Grigioni). Swiss Italian is also the term used to signify the Italian-speaking autochthonous population in Switzerland.
Swiss German (Schwitzerdütsch, Schwyzerdütch, Schwitzertüütsch, Schwizertitsch) refers to the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland. In 17 of the 26 Swiss cantons, German is the only official language: Aargau, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Glarus, Luzern, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Uri, Zug, Zürich.
(©wikipedia, Savoyerli) The Suisse romande or Romandie is the French speaking part of western Switzerland. It inlcudes the cantons of Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, western Valais, Vaud and the northern part of Berne (cfr. Jura Bernois or the Bernese Jura).
Some people don’t know that Switzerland is multilingual. 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 […]
