• What language do you think in? An interview Part 2The second interview in our series on what being bilingual means to our Fun Languages club members and their parents.

    Interview with Inga, Michael* and Jenny*

    Inga and her husband are both from Germany and came to Australia 14 years ago.

    What is your advice for other parents? 

    Inga: “The more languages you know, the better. The best advice is: you can teach your child even four languages at the same time but the most important thing is that the same person speaks the same language all the time. We do the same with our kids – we only speak German to them even if there are other people around who don’t speak German! Only if they need to (really) understand what we are talking about, we speak English. I think having one person (who the) children can always speak the same language to helps the kids to differentiate.”

    Would you like them to speak another language?

    “Yes – definitely. My sister speaks 7 languages fluently. I come from a family, where languages are highly recognised and considered as very important! Especially nowadays at the job market [sic], the the more languages you know, the better.”

     

Thoughts From A Travelling Club ManagerSpanish And Mandarin Learning Labs at University of Wollongong