native

When we lose a language, we lose a part of our culture and history. A Day with Grandpa by Fiona Scott is a gentle way of talking about dementia with your children, especially if they have an affected grandparent. But the theme of forgetting, and losing who you are with that loss, runs through into the Irish that we have among our dual language versions of this book.

Raising bilingual children can be challenging, especially if you want them to speak fluently in two (or more) languages.

If you live in an English-speaking country, the English language will always be dominant for your children, regardless of what language you speak to them at home.
 
It is easier when they are small, but once they start to go to school and be exposed to the English language for 6 hours a day, that is when things usually change. Even if they haven’t before, your children suddenly start to speak to you in English.
 

I moved to the UK from Slovakia 8 years ago.
 
Our boys were born three years later.
 
Although I knew that English would always be their first language, I wanted them to speak Slovak too. It was unimaginable not having my children speak my first language.
 
While they were small and spent most of the time with me, it was not a problem. At one point, they even spoke more Slovak than English.