The Language Experiment
How do I raise a multilingual child? Will exposing my child to multiple languages confuse them? Will their speech be delayed? How can I give them enough exposure to my mother tongue? These were just some of the questions that Kaisa and Camillo had when they were expecting their first child. Originally from Finland and Brazil, now living in the French speaking part of Canada, the couple searched for answers, literature and resources about multilingual upbringing.
When their research turned out unfruitful, they agreed to do what felt most natural to them: practicing their own languages with their daughter while incorporating two local languages on top of that. The Language Experiment is a podcast where Kaisa and Camillo share their journey on multilingual parenting with hopes of helping and encouraging other parents who are looking to raise multilingual children. There will be interviews, practical tips and plenty of real life experiences and perspectives on multilingualism.
You’ll discover how they helped their daughter become quadrilingual before the age of three only by reading, singing, playing and spending time outdoors with her. You’ll learn to recognize and critically assess some of the myths surrounding multilingual parenting. You’ll also hear from other parents and learn what worked for them and what didn’t. If you are a parent raising or wanting to raise children with multiple languages, this podcast is a must-listen. Hit subscribe now and join the community!
The Language Experiment
Shifting Linguistic Landscapes: A Major Life Change
#14 - In this episode we discuss some significant changes on the horizon. We're bracing ourselves for a whole new chapter in our lives. Stay tuned as we navigate this uncharted territory, and find out how it impacts our multilingual journey.
We're excited to share it with you! Our future holds some exciting opportunities, and we can't wait to see where this adventure takes us.
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Greetings, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Language Experiment.
Kaisa:Hey, everyone. Nice to be back here talking to you. It has again been a very busy time in our lives, and it's all related to a big announcement we're going to make in today's episode.
Camillo:Yeah, and I do not think we do have any other way to say this. We just need to rip the band aid. Off. So without further ado, / /we are permanently moving from Canada to Portugal next summer, and this is something that has been in the works for a while already, but now as the preparations are in full swing, We are finally ready to share the news with everyone, including all of you, our listeners.
Kaisa:As we have discussed how big life changes can affect the language choices we make in our families before on this podcast. I thought it would be fun to dedicate this episode to talking about how we're planning to deal with these big changes that are coming in the near future. And then you can follow along on our journey to find out how things go. If things actually went as planned, or not, and all the surprising things that we learned in the process. We don't know what to expect, and although we have both moved and immigrated before, this is the first time we are doing it with kids. So it's going to be a whole different ballgame. No matter what happens, we're thrilled to have you with us on this journey and we'll keep you posted on how everything goes. But first, let's talk a bit more about our decision to make this move and how it will impact the languages in our family.
Camillo:While we don't want to spend too much time talking about our reasons for moving, what we can say is that it's going to be a work relocation for both myself and Kaisa, meaning that our employer is transferring us to work at their Portuguese location. However, the reasons for the move are more personal than professional, as we both want to be closer to our families who live in Brazil and Finland. As anyone who has ever immigrated to a different country knows, it can be hard to be far away from family, especially when you yourself have a family and your kids are young. You're missing out on their help and support, and most importantly, Your kids are missing out on the precious time with their grandparents and extended family. As our oldest daughter will start first grade next year, we thought this would be an ideal time for us to make the move to country where we want to stay in the long run.
Kaisa:I think the pandemic made many people rethink their future, especially if they lived far away from their family and friends. And it did have a big impact on us and how we envisioned our future. Both our families and one of my good friends had booked their trips to come visit us in 2020 and all of those trips had to be cancelled and due to inflation and high flight prices only my parents were able to book their trip again and even they could only come see us almost two years later. Because of this, Camilo's family has never met our daughters, who are now 5 years and 20 months old. And what the pandemic really showed us, and the rest of the world, is that nothing is certain, and our lives can be turned upside down when we least expect it.
Camillo:This move is certainly going to change things for us, and probably the biggest change from the language perspective. We believe that we will lose the presence of French in our daily lives. We are currently living in the province of Quebec. French is the official language and we speak it in the community and our daughters attend French daycare and school. Another change is that one of the current minority language that we speak at home, Portuguese, is going to become the majority language spoken in the community. And the girls will continue their education in that language because it is the only language that I have been speaking to. Our daughters we're sure that they will have an easier time adjusting to their new surroundings then if they didn't know the language at all. The remaining two languages, English and Finnish, will probably not experience much changes, as many people in Portugal speak English, and it is also taught in schools from an early age, and Kaisa will continue speaking Finnish to the girls.
Kaisa:We're expecting a relatively smooth transition when it comes to the Portuguese language. As many of you know, I've also learned Portuguese while we've been doing OPOL, although I never really formally studied the language. Of course, we speak Brazilian Portuguese at home, which is slightly different from European Portuguese, but not so different that we would necessarily struggle. At least I hope not. I'm definitely planning on taking some Portuguese classes once we arrive because learning the local language is an important aspect of integrating to the new society and while I know many people can get by only speaking English in Portugal it would be wrong to assume that everyone in any situation can speak English. I don't think that's the case.
Camillo:Exactly. Knowing the language is so important. Even I have a lot to learn about the differences between the two varieties of Portuguese. It is going to be a process for all of us. For our daughters, the process will be completely natural, and I bet they won't even notice it. Although we are preparing them for the movie in many ways, like talking about it, showing them videos and things about Portugal, and discussing the different areas where we would like to live, we have not yet started preparing them for the language shift. In part because we don't think it's necessary. And in part, because we are quite busy with all the other preparations. We do listen to Portuguese music every day, like we've mentioned in the past episode. So I guess that is some kind of preparation. Maybe we should look for some European Portuguese kids shows and let them girls watch them before we move.
Kaisa:We could definitely do that to help them get used to how different European Portuguese sounds compared to Brazilian Portuguese. But in the end, even if we do nothing, they will probably be fine. The biggest issue for us is not the majority language in our destination country, but the one we'll be leaving behind in Canada. Like mentioned earlier, we can all speak French, but it's a language that we never speak at home. We've lived in Canada for the past 14 years and our daughters were born here and have been exposed to French since they were one. So it would be a real shame if we just left French behind. I also feel a certain level of responsibility to keep the girls connected to their roots in Quebec, because as they are citizens, maybe in the future they will move back here to study or work. But how can we keep a language that we don't speak at home alive if we'll lose all our exposure to it?
Camillo:There are several things that we could do. We could put our daughters in a French school in Portugal, which wouldn't change much in our language setup as their education would continue in the same language as in Canada. There are several French schools in Portugal, and we've even found one trilingual school that teaches English, French, and Portuguese, which sounds interesting. The only issue with this is that the schools tend to be in the big cities and located around the city center, which limits the areas where we can live. These schools are also on the more expensive side tuition wise The second option that we came up with is getting a french tutor for the kids or a babysitter Who they could communicate with in french? I think a French speaking babysitter is in general a good idea, but it is definitely not someone who could provide daily language exposure to our daughters.
Kaisa:I think tutors are also brilliant, and I've used tutors a lot when learning languages, which was super helpful. However, I would be a bit hesitant to get a tutor for our girls because I want to be mindful of not imposing any school like activities on them outside of school or daycare. They are still so young that I'd rather have them spend their free time playing. I'm sure getting a language tutor can yield great results, but pushing extra academics to our children is something that we definitely don't want to do. Just because we have this amazing opportunity to have so many languages in our lives, it doesn't mean that our children should bear the brunt of that. That should be on us parents, if possible. And that's precisely what brings us to our third option, which is our favorite one, because it doesn't put financial or other limitations on us, and it doesn't put a burden on our children, and that is us changing the language that we speak to each other to French.
Camillo:It is a bit of a crazy idea because while me and Kaisa can speak French, we are not as fluent in it as we are in English. Another thing is that we have been together for 12 years and have always spoken only English with each other, so switching to a different language will be weird. Make this change would be a massive transition for us. But if you think about the potential benefits, it gets interesting. Our daughters would still get passive exposure to French, as they have up until this point with English. We could also decide to speak French as a family, because currently due to OPOL, we never speak the same language together. And I've... Even thought about speaking more French to the girls instead of Portuguese Because when we live in Portugal, Portuguese will be the language that's suddenly getting a lot more exposure than the others we are now even considering letting OPOL slide a bit Which is something that we have been following in the strictest way possible up until now. It is a bit scary, actually.
Kaisa:Of course, there are many other smaller ways of strengthening the French language, such as reaching out to the local French community in Portugal and meeting people from there. Traveling to France, which will now be much closer, and just, uh, finding out about activities and events that will happen around the area where we live in French. These will be great ways of supplementing the exposure. Us switching our common language to French is our absolute favorite option because it's completely free and it involves both us parents and the kids practicing the language together. This is just an idea for now. We don't know if it'll work, if our daughters will accept it, if we'll be able to stick to speaking French, uh, if our marriage can withstand the language switch. So, it's a bit of a mystery for now. It's also not going to be the end of the world for us if it doesn't work. We have agreed that it's not something that we must do no matter what. But if we've learned one thing from raising multilingual kids, it's that we can't predict the future and when We do things with an open mind and flexible expectations, something truly amazing can happen. We didn't know if we could help our girls speak four languages and somehow we did it. Now, can we help them keep those four languages although we are changing our life around and moving to a new continent? I guess we're about to find out.
Camillo:Change is never easy, and there is an endless amount of things that could go wrong, but we have to stay open minded and positive. We believe that multilingual upbringing equips our children with resilience. They might be better prepared to cope with transitions, whether it's moving to a new country or encountering unfamiliar language environments. Our kids are accustomed to challenges and unfamiliar situations, making them more willing to embrace linguistic and cultural change with a positive attitude. At least, this is what we hope. But like we mentioned before, we are committed to sharing this experience with you. Maybe there are some listeners who are or will be going through something similar.
Kaisa:We want to thank all of you for your continuous support. Thanks for reaching out to us with questions and experiences. We have really enjoyed talking to some of you and getting to know you a little bit better. We started this podcast to encourage other parents to embark on this multilingual parenting journey. Even if we don't always know where that journey will take us. We have gotten so much heartfelt feedback from many of you, and you have in turn encouraged us to keep going. So, thank you.
Camillo:Keep sending your questions and feedback to us. And if you'd like to be interviewed in our podcast, you can get in touch as well. As we are currently trying to manage this big life change that's ahead of us on top of a full time work and two kids. You might not hear back from us as fast as you normally would. Just bear with us and expect some delays in our answers. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
Kaisa:Until next time, take care. Bye bye. Bye.
