Life as a Bilingual

Bilingual infants are particularly good at discriminating the sounds of their different languages in their first year as long as the languages are acquired through live human exposure. But this does not mean that bilingualism needs to start at such a precocious age. For the majority of bilingual children, it begins at a later age without any problem. Read More

Heritage language speakers are a special class of bilinguals. They are invaluable ambassadors between two or more linguistic and cultural groups, within a nation and across nations. Read More

One of the languages we know may start waning for different reasons. But there are ways of keeping it alive, both in adults and in children. Read More

Sleeper agents, that is spies who have been infiltrated into a target country, are very special bicultural bilinguals. They have to develop linguistic and cultural skills that are rarely required of regular bilinguals. Read More

The defining factor of bilingualism has shifted over time from language fluency to language use. And yet both factors are important when portraying the languages of a bilingual or a multilingual. A new grid takes into account each factor and is easily filled in. Read More

There is a Czech proverb that says, "Learn a new language and get a new soul", and it is true that many bilinguals do indeed report being different in each of their languages. How can one explain this? Read More

When bilinguals interact among themselves, they sometimes intermingle their languages, either by code-switching or by borrowing. The latter process is fascinating not only because it occurs widely but also because it can have an interesting impact on language understanding. Read More

When bilingual children intermingle their languages, the comments one overhears can be quite negative. And yet, there are very good reasons for their behavior. In addition, there are ways of helping them restrict language intermingling to bilingual situations. Read More

Old age has an impact on language perception and production but it is no different in monolinguals and bilinguals. It would even appear that older bilinguals have a few cognitive benefits in their favor. Read More

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair has gone through repeated twists and turns, one of which concerns translation. It is worth stepping back a bit to reflect on the art of translation and its link to bilingualism. Read More

Studies examining the effects of bilingualism tended to produce rather categorical findings in the last century. Today, it would appear that when differences are found between monolinguals and bilinguals, they are specific to a particular task and are rather subtle. Read More

Teachers of a second language belong to the "special bilinguals" category. They share many similarities with regular bilinguals but they are also characterized by a number of interesting differences. In addition, they help lay the foundations of interlingual and intercultural communication among their students. Read More

Even though many children "just become bilingual", an increasing number of families develop strategies to ensure that their children become bilingual. They also consciously nurture their children's languages over time. Read More

Bilingualism in a sign language and an oral language, in its spoken or written modality, is relatively frequent but is still not fully accepted. Thus, children who are Deaf or hard of hearing are not systematically brought up knowing and using a sign language and an oral language. Read More