In the strictest sense, we all have a mother tongue as we all have only one (biological) mother. – But does this mean that the language our mother talked to us is automatically our mother tongue? What about this friend I had in school, who was adopted […]
When children reach a certain age, parents want them to learn about what happens in the world. Many parents struggle with the way news are presented on TV. In fact, pictures and the way news are presented in the evening news can be quite traumatising. A great alternative […]
Learing a new language is always very exciting. Especially when the new language we’re learning is similar to one we already know. These similarities can be at different levels (phonetical, lexical, syntactical etc.). The Dutch language belongs to the westgerman branch of the indoeuropean languages and is actually […]
We all know that the best way to help our children become (and stay!) multilingual is by talking the languages we want them to become proficient in as often as we can and by providing an attractive context (with friends, family etc.). By acquiring other languages, our children […]
The conventional wisdom is that the Portuguese term saudade doesn’t have an equivalent in any other language. But according to an entry in wikipedia, there are quasy-synonyms in several languages. Saudade is… According to the Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, saudade can be described as follows (my translation): […]
When you come to the Netherlands you will notice that you entered the fietsland. The bicycle-country par excellence! In the Netherlands 27% of all trips and 25% of trips to work are made by bike. About 1.3 million bicycles were sold in the Netherlands in 2009, at an […]
In this second post about “What I like about living in the Netherlands” I will list up the things I like in everyday life, with my Dutch friends etc. 1) First of all, I love my Dutch friends. This is probably the main reason I feel at home […]
I noticed that many expats who live in the Netherlands for several years don’t really have Dutch friends and barely accept or appreciate the Dutch way of life. It made me think about why I don’t feel the same way and about what I like about this country. […]
Expat Since Birth – A Life spent "abroad" 