Before we moved to abroad, I had a rosy picture of my son learning two languages effortlessly somehow just by being in another country.
Since then there has been a lot of effort on my behalf to support my sons billingual identity. There has been a lot of hard work, which I had to make my son go through. And I know there is still a lot of hard work ahead of us.
So I have done my research. Una Cunningham-Andressons and Staffan Anderssons book Living with two languages describes the road we are on:
Yes, I have used bribery and extortion to get my son to read in his minority language. At the moment we are reading Harry Potter together, so that he needs to read first one page, before I read to him.
Yes, I am in my everyday life a walking translating machine. Sometimes the words do escape me. Can you name 10 different birds in English and their Finnish names?
Yes, my sons spelling in English starts to be at my level. How am I to help him, when he gets better than me?! Luckily we have Google.
Yes, my son corrects me shamelessly in my English, as I ask the children to take their shoes out, when we get in the house. (The right word is off and not out.)
Yes, I was expecting my son to be as good at his Finnish as he is in his English, just by being born in Finland. Since then I have lowered my expectation of a perfect language. My English is not perfect either.
With two languages you get everything double. He has double the homework and we get to have a constant brain muscle exercise with translating. But we also get double the joy. We celebrate Halloween with candy and Easter with Easter egg rounds from door to door. We dive in to the world of Harry Potter but also Moomins and Emil of Lönneberga. He is learning about the Anglo-Saxons, but also about the Hakkapeliitta.
And the best part, I am learning one new culture with him and deepening my knowledge of the other.
