Woes of an American Nonna--Raising Bilingual Children (and Grandchildren)

If you're planning to move your family to a non-English-speaking country, you'll need to maintain your child's proficiency in both languages--if a child ceases to hear and use one language, it can disappear within a matter of months.

International Living Postcards-- your daily escape

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006
Paris, France

Dear International Living Reader,

Every parent who moves a child to a non-English-speaking country faces the same challenges. In the February print issue of International Living, Natalie Lorenzi gives you a road map to making it through the difficult time of transition:

“My granddaughter can’t speak to me in English anymore.” My mother’s nervous chuckle couldn’t mask the despair that traveled across the Atlantic and through the phone lines to my living room in Italy.

For five minutes, I had listened to my then 4-year-old daughter, Teah, struggle to communicate with her American nonna. “Mamma, how do you say, ‘ bambola?’”

“Doll,” I replied. Satisfied, she resumed talking. One minute later, her eyebrows furrowed as she asked, “ Come si dice ‘maestra?’”

“Teacher,” I answered. This translation tennis match continued for the duration of their 10-minute conversation.

Back on the line with my mother, I tried to downplay her concerns: “Teah’s just out of practice, Mom. She’s not losing her English.” But my words sounded more like hollow platitudes than reassurance.

Most bilingual children mix languages once they begin speaking. This can include mixing grammatical structure, as when my 3-year-old daughter, Sofia, says, “I want to do me a bath.”

Bilinguals may switch from one language to another (sometimes within a single sentence), depending on a variety of factors...not all of them innocent. Teah leaned over to her Italian papà during dinner one evening and whispered in English, “This is yucky.” By speaking in English, she avoided offending her Italian grandmother, the cook.

Was my native tongue doomed to the darkest recesses of my daughters’ brains, while the Italian language awakened? Not necessarily…

If you’re one of the millions of parents raising bilingual children overseas, or planning to move your family to a non-English speaking country, the rest of this article (available right now to International Living subscribers) will prove invaluable--you'll learn everything you need to know to encourage and maintain your child’s or grandchild's proficiency in both languages.

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