The opportunity of late bilinguals

The question of which age is most suitable for learning a foreign language has been studied for decades. It has become clear that it is most beneficial for children if they have the opportunity to hear their future languages simultaneously from an early age. But what if this is not possible and they come into…

Difficult and easy languages

A Polish mother asked me after a workshop in Barcelona, “Won’t it be difficult for my son to learn to speak Polish correctly, since this language has consonants that are very difficult to pronounce?” If her Spanish husband had asked me, I would have understood this concern a little better, since, from the point of…

Balanced multilingualism

During my webinars I often hear participants say things that reveal their unconscious biases about language learning. For example, a Polish mother once said to me “I know that my children’s mother tongue will be Dutch, but I’ll try my best to teach them Polish…” In fact, there was no reason why these children shouldn’t…

Multilingualism and musik

When we think of music, we automatically assume that it conveys universal emotions. However, this perception is wrong since our ear has a certain taste, just like we prefer different foods. Everyone has a preference for the music they heard in their childhood, in the same way, as, for example, an octopus salad evokes the…

Language erosion

Flavours are hard for the tongue to forget. Traditional dishes survive a long time even in a diaspora, or even in scattered families, for centuries or more. However, unfortunately, the spoken language does not have this quality and is much, much more fragile than family recipes that get passed down through generations. So much so…

Swearwords in several languages

In our family, swearing was more of a male preserve, and I was surprised that when I visited home as an adult, my aging mother used expressions that I had never heard her use as a child. Perhaps this was because she lived alone, or perhaps it was because her environment had changed, as it…