Growing up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

~ CunninghAm-Ande (Author) "There have always been those who have moved from one country to another to study or work for a while..." (more)
Key Phrases: mixed language family, mixed language families, children with two languages, Sean Golden, Kaori Matsuda, Gabriele Kahn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A clear practical guide. . . . I don't know of any practical guide of this type." -- Eve V. Clark, Stanford University

Every family with two languages should have this book! - Stephen Ryan, The Bilingual Family Newsletter

Product Description

Una Cunningham-Andersson and Staffan Andersson are the parents of four children who have grown up speaking English and Swedish. This book is based on their personal experiences with the trials and rewards of life with two languages. The Anderssons' experiences are further illustrated by glimpses of life from interviews with fifty families from all around the world. They discuss the various systems families develop and recognize that every family is unique. Filled with invaluable practical advice for parents and professionals, this book provides guidelines on how to support children's linguistic development and enable them to gain maximum benefit from living with two languages.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041521257X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415212571
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #555,472 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's much more than teaching your kids language, June 15, 2001

By	Heather Solheim (Regina, Canada) - See all my reviews

This book gives lots of examples of bilingual / bicultural parents doing raising their kids in different ways and how these different approaches work. The examples are taken from around the world (although the authors are Swedish / Irish, so many examples are from their own family.) But what I really like about the book is the emphasis they give to all of the 'related issues' of raising a bilingual child--not just what's the best way to get children to speak, read and write two languages (although that's part of what the book covers), but also issues like: how do you deal with a situation where you always speak to your child in a language your spouse or parents-in-law don't understand, and not make them feel left out? What about when your child has to take foreign language classes at school for a language he's already fluent in (and maybe speaks better than the teacher, or at least thinks he does)? If you're the parent who speaks the minority language, how do you maintain your fluency in that language when no one else near you speaks it? And does it bother you that when you speak to your child in a minority language when you're out in public, that you attract attention, or that other people perceive you as a foreigner who can't speak the majority language properly? How do you deal with cultural differences in "bringing up children properly" (British people may expect children to play quietly, Scandianvian children are expected to take off their shoes when they come into someone's home, in some cultures physical proximity is much less and people hug and stand close in a way that might be uncomfortable for other cultures, etc.) How do you change the rules of what's 'good behaviour' when you travel? What about when grandparents are visiting? Growing up in a family where the parents come from different countries or cultures is a whole lot more than learning to speak two languages, and this book explores a lot of those areas. The book doesn't tell you what to do--just makes you aware of a number of different issues that can come up and describes some of the things that other people have done in those situations.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A practical Guide, July 10, 2000

By	Julie A. Hager (Germany) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am raising my daughter in Germany. She will be growing up with two languages too. This book was informative. Among the topics were mixed language families and intercultural marriage, developing a language system, language development,advantages and disadvantages of two languages, practical parenting in a bilingual home, problems and motivation. This book also has an internet resources list too. I have this book and also "The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents" in my library. Which I would recommend to all families going bilingual.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lacks substance, January 28, 2004

By	Justin Harris (Kansai, Japan) - See all my reviews

I have to agree with the last reviewer, that this book is a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps that is due more to my expectations of the book than the actual content. What I was looking for was concrete techniques to assist in raising children bilingually, with information backed up by research from the field. There is a large amount of research on the topic of bilingualism, and it would be nice to find it summarized in a single volume. However, this is a series of excerpts taken from various parents in bilingual situations together with reasonably obvious statements, with little relation to linguistic research. While the various opinions from parents were interesting, this could be found online at a bilingual forum. The rest, you will probably already know by instinct.