• Bilingualism

    Raising Multilingual Children – A Blog Hop

    This was always our plan. From the moment that my husband and I realised that we were destined to stay together, to marry, to raise a family; we had always known that our children would be bilingual. It simply wasn’t an option to do otherwise as our parents do not speak each others’ languages. For our children to be able to communicate with both sides of their extended family, bilingualism was essential. In this week’s bloghop, Tales From Windmill Fields asks   How important is language learning for you? Are your children bilingual? Will they be? How do you keep the languages going?   My husband is German, I am Scottish and…

  • Expat

    Parlez vous Français?

    Un peu… …is generally my answer to that question. I should speak more than just a little, and if I am honest I do. But it frustrates me that over two years after arriving in Geneva, I am far from fluent. My children are trilingual – English, French, German and are handy as translators occasionally but I don’t always have them with me. It frustrates me that my French is so bad. I have noticed in recent weeks that people seem to think that I understand more than I do – possibly because I smile and nod a lot, and because I get the gist of the conversation so can…