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
Update on the year that has passed
#15
Welcome back to The Language Experiment!
After a year-long hiatus filled with life-changing events, We return to share our incredible journey of moving from Canada to Portugal. In this new episode, we recount selling our home, navigating a whirlwind of relocation logistics, and adapting to our new life abroad. From settling in, to our children's evolving language journeys, it's been a year of growth, challenges, and cultural shifts.
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Greetings, everyone.
Kaisa:Hey.
Camillo:Yeah, we took a one year break because of all the things that happened in our lives. We sold our house in Canada, sold most of our belongings, moved to a temporary house, Pack the rest of the things we owned and ship them to portugal and in june this year 2024 We left canada And immigrated to portugal And since he arrived here we
Kaisa:hey, wait a minute. I I think we forgot the intro.
Camillo:Oh, yeah the intro. So welcome to the language experiments
Kaisa:Good to be back.
Camillo:Hey everyone. like I was saying, since arriving in Portugal, we have worked on setting up our new home, took some time off on errands and buy furniture . Going through all the bureaucracy that's involved in moving to a new country, received our things from Canada after a few months, had both our families over, had the girls start daycare and school in September and in their activities and building a social circle here in Portugal. It has been the most action packed year ever, I must say.
Kaisa:That is very true. And, things are still not finished. We have lots of unpacked boxes, there's still furniture missing, and things are definitely not sorted in the house. We were only able to plug in the podcasting equipment this week. It's pretty crazy. It's crazy. But we are working on on it all slowly and we are loving it in portugal so far
Camillo:now, let's give an update on the things we discussed in the last episode we published last year. There, we talked about the changes that would affect our language setup after we moved to Portugal. There. The change that we foresaw were more exposure to one of the family minority languages, Portuguese, probably a bit more exposure to the other minority language, Finnish, as we now live closer to Finland and family and friends can visit more often, and that we would all lose the exposure to French that we got in Canada. We discussed how we could potentially mitigate the situation and our ideas were for us to start speaking French between us parents instead of English or myself starting to speak more French to the kids as they are already getting a lot of Portuguese. I'm sure some of you would like to know what we decided to do and what happened.
Kaisa:We can share with you that so far we didn't start speaking French between us, and I think it's safe to say that we probably never will. and our older daughter has flat out refused to have Camillo speaking French to her. She has actually told me how excited she is that she's losing her French. So not going so well on that front. However, there is a small silver lining. Our younger daughter has some French books and she wants us to read to them every night. There aren't that many of them, which means that by now she knows them all by heart and sometimes she reads them to us. She also inserts some of the random words from the books into regular conversations, like she'll randomly say un gros rocher or un voilier. This is something that we didn't expect to happen at all, but we are ecstatic about it. Maybe it won't last forever, but as long as it does, we'll support her.
Camillo:And fear not, this is not the end of French here. We just need to understand a little bit more our setup and how we can work together with them to be able to reactivate the language. The kids also got a nice Finnish language boost during the summer as grandparents stayed over multiple times during that season and we had a Finnish nanny for two months. Our two year old, who wasn't speaking that much before the summer, started speaking full sentences first in Finnish and then in Portuguese as well as singing in Finnish. As in Montreal. The girls started attending the Finnish school in Lisbon. Not an actual school, but an activity organized by the Finnish community every other weekend, where they have met many other Finnish or half Finnish kids who live in Portugal.
Kaisa:Our six year old started first grade in a Portuguese school and she is thriving. She has made some friends already. She likes her school and her teachers and she is excited to go to school every morning. We weren't sure how difficult her integration would be as she is quite shy and she was pretty well established in Canada and had friends there that she had known for a long time. But it, it seems like she's adapting to her new environment and people without issues. And of course, one factor that is really helpful is that she is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. We have also already gotten to know some parents of her classmates, and playdates already. She has also been invited to a classmate's birthday party. So there are lots of opportunities to socialize with her friends. Our youngest daughter also started in the same Portuguese school in the daycare side and her integration has been a little bit more rocky as she still cries a lot in the morning when we leave her there. This seems to be her personality though, as it was the same in Canada. So her personality is just more, the kind that she's very attached to us and does not necessarily want to leave the house in the morning. But the teachers say that she's happy during the day and has made some little friends, so. which is good, but so far she isn't talking at all in the daycare. but she's only two and a half years old, so it's still very, very early. so we'll just see how it goes.
Camillo:That's it. And the whole family is now learning and getting used to European Portuguese. As you might know, I'm Brazilian, born and raised, and we all are very used to Brazilian Portuguese around the house. Either, myself speaking to the kids, we listen to music, we watch some shows, and now, living in Portugal, there is this impact on the world. Of how different it sounds how the expressions are different It's close to Not the same but close to what the british english is to the american english We need to train our ears learned expressions even how words are written It's different from what we have in brazilian portuguese grammar. For example, we know how tricky it's going to be to fully understand and adapt to the european portuguese. So far we are on a learning path. We are enjoying the ride and I think the future cannot be brighter.
Kaisa:That's right. And I wanted to say thank you to all the listeners who have gotten in touch with us and asked us when we'll start recording episodes again. We're so happy that our podcast has brought value to you. We did disappear without saying much. So sorry about that. But, as you probably understand, our life got so full with lots of stuff so fast. but now we are slowly getting back and we are back for good and we're ready to push out the second season of this podcast. Please keep sending us feedback, questions and suggestions. They help us a lot in our content creation efforts.
Camillo:Yeah, and even during the break, we got some comments and feedback about the podcast via the podcast platforms themselves, either on Apple podcast on Spotify as well. By the way, you can find us anywhere, but it was good to also meet people in person. And we actually had the opportunity to do that here in Portugal.
Kaisa:That's true. It's been truly great to actually connect with some people who listen to our podcast and find it helpful. So we're actually looking forward to meeting some more people who happen to live in Portugal or somewhere nearby. Maybe, maybe some of our listeners who are visiting Portugal, would be an awesome opportunity to, to meet these people as well.
Camillo:I think for now, as the first episode of second season of the language experiment, that'll be all from our side. And we cannot wait to see you on the next episode.
Kaisa:Have a good one. See you soon.
