Welcome to ‘Mother Tongue, notes from a bilingual family’, a blog about raising bilingual children, from the perspective of a mummy.

We are a Bilingual Minority Household. That means that English is the dominant language, spoken outside and inside the home.

My partner is English, I’m Portuguese. We live in the UK with our two small children. Find out more about us here

So, what’s this blog about?

It’s about our reflections on bringing up our children as bilingual, with all the challenges that it entails.

What to expect:

• Short-ish posts – I don’t have much time to write. You don’t have time to read. That should work for both of us.
• Weekly posts – even if just to celebrate a small victory, share a thought or just a ‘mea culpa’ admission of lack of effort
• A personal account, a light hearted journal. This is not an academic exercise. I’m just a mum who’s been learning from reading on the subject, talking to others and doing it.
• An account of our progress: what’s working and not working, high and lows and useful resources

We seek to follow the Minority Language at Home (MLAH) method, but not without its bumps. Being the minority speaker, with no minority language support, I’ve found our bilingual journey so far incredibly challenging. I found strength in reading about bilingualism and in talking to parents who practice different approaches.

I recently decided that if I wanted my children to be fluent in the minority language (spoken and written), and also feel as Portuguese as they feel British, I needed to do much, much more than what I had been doing so far.

Every family is different. Each family will have different circumstances and face different challenges. I hope you find this blog useful, regardless of your language(s).

I’ve been told raising bilingual children is a marathon. Well, lets start stretching those muscles…

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THE LUSOPHONE SERIES – food, travel and more 

This blog is mostly about raising bilingual children. The Lusophile series are posts about Portuguese language and culture. It includes posts about food, travel, traditions, trends and more. I hope parents raising bilingual children, whether they are of portuguese heritage or not, enjoy this series, as well as others who have visited Portugal or are fascinated by the country in any way. Do you have nice things about Portugal to share with me and the Mother Tongue community? Contact me or post on the Facebook page.