In this blog Linguist Ivana Brasileiro talks about her personal experience with raising a bilingual child.
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Don’t most mums think they have mothered baby Einstein? Well… I am no exception. I am convinced I gave birth to a linguistic genius. Okay… one of the approximately 490.000 linguistic geniuses who are born every day, but still a genius.
At a time when I was extremely proud of the marvels uttered by my 15-month-old whizz kid, most people around her, including her Dutch family and daycare centre staff, were completely indifferent to it. And so I was faced with my first challenge as the mother of a bilingual child!
I didn’t want to be one of those annoying mums telling everybody what their kid can do. But in this situation, how is one supposed to subtly brag?!
The first thing I did was to appeal to the home front. I got her on Skype and showed her off to as many Brazilian friends and family members as I could. They were nearly as delighted as I was to watch the delight on their face.
But I wanted more.
Time for drastic measures: I gave up on subtleties altogether: “She is saying that the blue ellipsis is big”, I translated for my non-Portuguese-speaking friends.
Cute, huh? I thought so too!
There is no denying it: I am a proud mum. Proud of everything my daughter says, as little or as much as that may be. The fact that she can say the same thing in both her languages makes me feel even prouder. And if I may: I am proud of myself too, because I am convinced I made the right choice for my child
