It’s been exactly 441 days since our family’s life was flipped upside down by COVID-19. Hopefully it will be over soon but for now, here we are. It might be a little more or a little less for you at this point but my guess is that it’s been about that long for you too.
It’s funny how when we go through big, sudden changes like that, so many other things change too, sometimes without us even noticing at first. For us, it wasn’t just a change to online classes and no social interaction. There was also a huge shift in the way we interacted with each other as a family. Ironically enough, we’ve had MORE opportunities for French & Chinese (2 of the languages that I don’t speak) and LESS time for Spanish, a language that I’m fluent in. Remember when you first decided to venture out on this journey to create multilingual kids? Regardless of whether it was 8 years ago or yesterday, my guess is that you had a reason and a goal for where they would end up.
So what was your reason? Did you want them to communicate with family, travel with ease or have better career opportunities? Maybe you wanted them to be able to learn languages easier later in life or you simply wanted them to experience the cognitive benefits of a bilingual brain. Whatever your reason, they would need fluency in the language, right? ….but what does fluency even mean? It might not be what you expect. Are you ready for some Tips & Tricks that every language learner should know about??? YouTube is an absolute gold mine for language learners!!! But not just because you can find engaging videos in so many different languages. YouTube also has a few key features that make it especially amazing....
Let's get started! I remember when my son was young, he was a ‘late talker’. He was late but he was still within the normal range of when doctors say they should start talking. As he started putting words together and speaking in complete sentences, nearly every single thing he said was a mix of English and Spanish. I thought it was SO cute but to the outside world, we were making a HUGE mistake! It didn’t help, of course, that we live in a VERY monolingual English speaking part of the world.
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