Age and culture

I got married when I was 25 and I had my daughter at 28. For me this was perfect age, my work colleagues considered it as early, statistics from my home country say 'young wife/ mother is till 25'. I like to consider myself as a young mom, age is a state of mind anyway.


And here another interesting website for "parents raising Little global citizens".

Ellen Bialystok

I came across quite inspiring research of Ellen Bialystok, a Canadian psychologist interested in bilingualism and it's effect on language and cognitive development:
- Bilingualism in development
- Reshaping the mind: the benefits of bilingualism

Mixing languages

There are 2 things I am nervous about when I think about the future:

 - my child will start speaking really late because 4 languages might be too much for her

- she will mix the languages and no one will understand her. Although a plus (or maybe a minus?!) of our environment is that each language comes from a different language family so the vocabulary and grammar is totally different.

Here are some articles about raising bilingual kids:
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Christina_Bosemark

OPOL

We speak in 3 different languages at home and as we live in a French speaking country, the 4th language is inevitable. At home we use so called OPOL method (one person, one language), each of us speak in our own native language to our daughter plus we speak English when we are together.so far it's not a problem because our little one is only 3 months old. I am just concerned about the future when she starts to speak and really communicate in all these languages.

I found here an interesting article about different language systems: http://www.multilingualchildren.org/getting_started/language_system.html

Multilingualism

There are countless definitions of multilingualism and linguists are still debating which one is the most accurate. Here is a very simple on: multilingualism is an ability to use multiple languages by an individual speaker. Is that so? If someone speaks basic or intermediate  French and Italian does it make him/her a multilingual person? I don't think so. For me the knowledge of the language should be complete. But then again what does it mean? When are you fluent in a language? Where is the border? Impossible to say...

Introduction

Let me introduce myself: I am a young mother raising my child in multilingual environment. My daughter  hears everyday 4 languages therefore my interest in multilingualism. The internet is full of useful tips and literature how to teach your child so many languages to his/her benefit. I will be publishing here links to interesting articles, blogs and sharing my thoughts about bringing up a child in multicultural society.