Olá!

I’m Andrea, a mum to two incredible girls, aged 4 and 2 years old.

I’m Portuguese, married to a Brit and we live in London, UK, with our daughters and Jack Russell dog, Houdini, who is very clever and understands both languages.

Like any parent, we want our children to be happy. We also want to give them the gift of bilingualism.

When we were expecting baby #1, it sounded like an obvious, and perhaps even an easy privilege. How wrong we were! Yes, it is a privilege, but it is not as easy as we thought.

We’d like our children to be competent in both languages. We wish for them to be bilingual, biliterate and bicultural. We believe it’s the best for them and that they will thank us for it. But it’s not all plain sailing….

I’ve been in the UK for 20 years with no family or a Portuguese speaking network. I love Portugal and my Portuguese identity, but I think, dream and write in English.

I recently came to the realization that me just being Portuguese is not enough. So we decided that if we really wanted to make it happen, we needed to up our game.

This blog documents our journey, the highs and lows, the joys and frustrations, what worked for us and what didn’t, in our joint learning as a family.

Thank you for visiting and all the best in your bilingual journey.

Andrea