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Language related articles

"Doesn't she speak English? Oh, I see - both Swedish and English. Doesn't that get awfully confusing? Swedish, you said - when will she use that?" Get used to hearing these kinds of things. You'll get opinions from the barista at Starbucks, your mother-in-law, even your neighbors and strangers on the street. Remember, being a trend setter always ruffles some feathers, and the best way to deal with unsolicited advice (other than running for the door) is to know the facts for yourself.

"What is the best way to raise a bilingual child?" is the question parents ask me most often. "Easy, just talk to them!" is my tongue-in-cheek response. In truth, there are many tricks and here are your first steps to raising your very own polyglot tot.

"After we talked, I've spoken nothing but French to my one year old for close to seven weeks now. All of his new words are French, and from what I can tell he understands me completely."

Your toddler may think that he or she's a complete superhero -- and when it comes to language acquisition, it's actually true! In particular, compared to adult language learners. Lena Sandvik in Boston says "I'm amazed that my 15 and 11 year olds have grown up to be completely bilingual. My accent and those silly, grammatical errors still haven't disappeared, even after 15 years in the country."

Have you ever noticed how poorly many children handle change and how they thrive when on familiar turf? When you've read that same story every night for two months, you'll know what I mean. Certainly, kids learn languages under the most chaotic conditions -- just look at the average dinner table scene -- but some predictability within the chaos spells safety and security, which in turn promotes learning.

I speak Swedish and my husband's native language is English. When we had our two children, we had no doubt that we wanted to raise them with equal access to both languages. Now, years later, when I've made promoting multilingual child-raising not just my avocation, but my vocation as well, people ask me for the straight story, warts and all. "What is the difference, raising bilingual children?" "What do you wish you knew before you got started?"