For years I've had pangs of guilt for failing my child, failing to rescue him from his struggle to read…you know the ravaging mum guilt, that grips you when you know something isn't as it should be and you look to yourself for fault first: Meet Hugo, my clever, determined tri-lingual, soon to be quad-lingual, 8 year old. He was lucky that he started school when he was … [Read more...] about How to Help an 8 year old Struggling and Reluctant Reader?
multilingual
The multilingual toddler- 23 months old
Max is a week shy of 23 months old. As his peers' vocabulary increases, so does Max's. His speech is developing at lightning pace. He's making some remarkable sentences of 2 -3 words with ease. Yet very few people around him will actually recognise the huge developments in Max's language from day to day. Not because they don’t interact with … [Read more...] about The multilingual toddler- 23 months old
My favourite lullaby- the Hungarian Lullaby, Altató by Attila József
A lullyby- I don't remember my mum singing lullabies to me, but then there aren't many in Hungarian. What Hungarian is extremely rich in is bedtime poems (, which in the years since have been turned into songs.) Hungarian is a language that has very few harsh sounds and lends itself to the beauty of poetry. I actually prefer them to be recited instead of sung… that may be just … [Read more...] about My favourite lullaby- the Hungarian Lullaby, Altató by Attila József
Grandparents- bridging the distance, language and culture
. A post by Nickie got me thinking of the Role of the Modern Grandparents and how different this can be depending on circumstances. So what does it mean being a multilingual European family living far from grandparents? How do our children experience that special bond? Yesterday we arrived to my in-laws’ in the Netherlands in the middle of the night, transferred the sleeping … [Read more...] about Grandparents- bridging the distance, language and culture
How many languages do your children speak?
- We are a multilingual family, not even bilingual, but trilingual. This means we usually have three languages flying around in the house at any one time- English, Hungarian and Dutch. My mother tongue is Hungarian, Oh-so-lovely-Daddy is Dutch and neither of us speaks the other’s language, so we speak English. We met, married and started a family in England, so it all sort … [Read more...] about How many languages do your children speak?