I'm not going to lie. Raising a bilingual child is HARD. But don't let that scare you - the best things in life, the things we most appreciate rarely come easy. And Bilingualism is something that will give your child a HUGE advantage in life. Parents have every right to feel a little apprehensive about the project. Fortunately, some of the most common concerns about bilingual education are … [Read more...]

When we moved to the USA I was very confident that my 3 year old son will continue to speak Russian. However - within months my confidence was disappearing. My son started to resist. I was surrounded by people who only spoke English. Like water flowing down the path of least resistance - he wanted to speak the language of his friends and teachers........ I thought if I just keep talking in my … [Read more...]

The key to raising a child bilingual is to have a system. That one point can't be overstated. Having a method and sticking to it is important for both you child's development and your own sanity. Just like any other skill, languages develop best when they are practiced regularly and methodically. There are several widely-used systems for bilingual parenting. We'll look at all of them here, as … [Read more...]

If I tell you I am bilingual, what will you think? Probably that I understand two languages, speak those languages with no accent, and read & write in those two languages fluently. That's rarely the case......... You see I gained that kind of high fluency from learning both languages in my early childhood when I was exposed to communities speaking both languages. The reality is that this … [Read more...]

Bilingualism and biculturalism are related, but they are not the same thing. Some people assume that if you raise a child to be bilingual, that child will automatically have access to another culture. While it helps, it's not quite that easy -- bilingualism is more of a door into biculturalism. First, the definitions: Bilingualism is the ability to communicate in two languages. It generally … [Read more...]