thank you very much lindsay it's an absolute  pleasure to be here i'm doing great yeah this  

is fun i'm excited to have you on the show today  and to have our listeners kind of tap into your  

knowledge and life experience guys today on the  show we have alistair budge from the podcast  

english learning from for curious minds great and  today alastair we're going to talk a little bit  

about raising kids in a multi-lingual household  so tell us your story we're also going to learn a  

little bit of what we can learn from multilingual  kids so what you guys our listeners can understand  

and kind of take on as your methods about what  kids do i'm so excited because kids definitely  

learn languages in a totally different way  from adults don't they alistair uh i think they  

certainly do but i think there's a lot of things  that we adults can learn from kids yeah so tell us  

your story first of all tell us about your family  where do you live you know what are you guys up to  

sure so as you might be able to tell from my  accent i am originally from the uk from just south  

of london but i i met an italian lady um and got  married and moved to a tiny country called malta  

which lots of people ask me where is malta um some  people think it's part of italy some people think  

it's part of spain it is in fact its own country  and it's uh just directly south from sicily  

um to the south of italy uh right in the middle  of the mediterranean wow yeah yeah i've been  

here for five years now um and i have a little a  little boy he's two and a half years old and um  

we are bringing him up bilingually so i speak  english to him and my wife speaks italian  

and he's he's two and a half so he's still  he's still learning um but it's been a really  

interesting experience to see how a child  manages two languages and how um just how  

amazing kids can be at compartmentalizing  things and doing things that we adults find  

difficult and spend lots of time learning for  them it just comes almost naturally absolutely  

you know i've always envied kids in the way they  think they're so i think the word is uninhibited  

right they're so uninhibited because they haven't  even gotten especially at two i imagine your son  

obviously hasn't gotten to the point where that  self-consciousness comes in right my mom is  

actually a child psychologist we should have her  on this show so she can tap in to tell us when  

when that happens but what did you think  when you kind of formed your family how  

this would go like what did you expect and  then i want to go into your tips here but  

i'm curious about that what did you imagine  this would be did you think it would be hard  

easy what were your thoughts so i um i actually  had bilingual cousins growing up my my auntie  

um married a french man okay and my cousins  were bilingual french and english and i they  

were a little bit younger than me and i always  thought it was very uh it was firstly cute when  

they would you know use a french word in english  or english word in french um but also absolutely  

amazing because these these four children now  have this this fantastic gift of being able to  

speak two languages fluently without ever ever  studying really um so so i thought if if there's  

a way that you can give a child the the gift of  two languages rather than rather than just one  

what an amazing thing to be able to do um and it  also allows that child to be able to connect with  

their different cultures in a way that is not  so easy to do if you just speak one language i  

love that it's so true yeah yeah and i think  especially for um for parents um who have  

grandparents who don't necessarily speak the other  languages it's really important if possible for  

the kids to be able to speak the language that  the grandparents speak because then you can have  

you can have a level of connection that  is just um deeper than sign language and  

smiles and cuddles and stuff i love it it's so  true i mean and also just not to mention that  

you're you know the greatest gift you can give  a child is not just you know a language and b  

language it's the ability to learn any language  and if a kid has done that from a very young age  

they can now go learn chinese or whatever they  need to to keep up with the world economy in  

the future that's way down the line but  what a wonderful gift that's fantastic  

i love that that's inspiring okay so let's get  into it so then alastair for our listeners who may  

be raising kids in that multilingual household or  they may just want to learn a few things from kids  

like your child right who have learned how to do  this who learn in a different way what are three  

tips that you could give them today well let me  first just start by saying i'm i'm certainly not  

the world's greatest expert on raising bilingual  children but i can't but i'm very happy to  

to share my my experience and what has worked and  what does not work one thing that one thing that  

i think is super important and from everything  i've read and everyone i've spoken to seems to be  

very important is to be consistent so if you have  you have one parent who speaks one language they  

they consistently speak that that language and to  not to not mix things up um and and in fact my my  

wife and i have had to get a bit more disciplined  in this because previously we would speak a mix of  

english and italian to each other and now we have  to be a little bit more uh a little bit more rigid  

and strict with our own language because otherwise  it's confusing to a two-year-old they just just  

don't know what's what's actually happening  interesting so just to clarify just make sure  

i understand so you mean that when you're with  your wife in the house and your child's around you  

speak in english to her and to him and then she  speaks back in italian is that what you mean or

kind of yeah to the child so if i'm speaking  to my child i will speak only in english and  

if she's influenced him she'll speak only  in only in italian even if he responds in  

in a different language you respond in the  language that you have started i see i see  

and then what if he's kind of around and then you  two are talking to each other what language does  

that end up being it does that is because he's  listening right kids are sponges they're always  

listening how does that work how does that  work so that's an excellent question and we  

haven't really figured out a proper rule for that  yet because we speak a mixture between the two of  

us we speak mainly mainly english and sometimes  when he hears me speaking italian he kind of looks  

with this slightly strange face he's  like what's going on there um yeah and uh  

so we haven't got a proper rule for that  yet um i think it's nice for it's nice for  

kids to know that parents can speak both  languages and that they can have that kind of  

fluidity i think that's an important thing too  yeah i love that well i like that so the first  

tip is discipline right and i think that's so  important because even though kids are sponges  

and they learn in a little bit of a different way  not obviously in an academic way i think when it  

comes to learning languages setting up conditions  and being disciplined is so key so i love that  

uh so that's number one so setting the rules  you know who what language are you going  

to speak to your child and sticking to that  what would be your second tip here alastair  

my second tip is is more a tip on what language  learners can take from can take from from children  

and certainly what i've seen yeah with my  own channels is to to listen out more for  

sounds rather than individual words and let me  just explain this um in a little bit more detail  

yeah so um i was listening to a podcast the other  day uh i think it's called deeply human where  

there was a lady who's an expert on accident  accidents and pronunciation talking about  

why kids often have such um such relative ease at  um at pronouncing words and uh kind of they don't  

have accents in different languages right um and  her theory on this the theory that she was talking  

about was because kids are listening out for  particular sounds rather than focusing on the word  

and if you're focusing on a particular word you're  projecting your own idea of how it should be  

pronounced based on your native language whereas  if you're just focusing on the sound of what's  

being said then you're much more likely to be able  to recreate that sound and i can tell you a funny  

uh anecdote about this is that um uh my wife and  i heard a recording of our son speaking serbia  

at nursery and i'm not serbia my wife is not  serbian no one we know is serbian but he has a  

serbian teacher at his um and his nursery at his  kindergarten and uh she would occasionally speak  

uh words in serbian to him and he was there  kind of speaking the back parroting them back  

apparently with a perfect accent in serbian  amazing and this is him you know like i'm sure  

any other child is doing i'm not trying to claim  that my son is right but uh but the fact that  

this child is listening out for the sounds rather  than focusing on the words he doesn't know what  

he's saying he's just focusing on the sounds  so i think there's certainly a lesson for the  

english learners there and people who aren't  conscious about their pronunciation uh is  

to focus on the sound of what you're actually  hearing rather than worrying so much about the  

the construction of the word yeah i love that tip  and that's a that's a funny story i i would have  

been amazed right you must have been shocked like  whoa oh my gosh what's happening uh guys this is a  

great tip right just to highlight what you said  you know when we use vocabulary words and we go  

and we listen for them we look for them we're  we're like filtering the new language through  

our old frames of our own language whereas if we  can be more of a kid listening for those sounds is  

kind of a more simple way to learn but a more pure  way to learn in a way isn't it i would definitely  

agree with that yes yeah i love this all right  so i'm excited to hear your third tip then

so the tip number three is is also related to  um to what language learners can take from kids  

um and that's really just to take joy in language  um it's it's a really funny thing to see how how  

a child could enjoy discovering new words and uh  connecting with new sounds in in an absolutely uh  

amazing way that he hears a new sound or he is a  new word it doesn't matter whether it's in english  

or if it's in italian and has big smiles and he  wants to he wants to repeat these sounds so so i  

think the more um the more language learners the  more listeners to to this show can just take joy  

in in the process of learning the process of  discovering new words and phrases i think that  

will be a very important part and people can get a  lot of success by kind of being more like a child  

in that respect oh i love that that's beautiful  i love it and you know this goes along with our  

whole idea of connection not perfection because  you know maybe just seeking the joy in the moment  

of connection is the second step right the first  step is the joy in the actual learning to learn  

right i mean that smile that comes on your son's  face and just wanting to acquire something new and  

having a sense of wonder like a kid so that's your  assignment for today guys we want to get you to go  

out there in the world and find the joy of just  learning and you know i think a lot of times if  

we're stuck in our textbooks in our rooms this may  not be as joyful so that's why you know we want to  

encourage you to go out and find new more joyful  ways to discover the language not just learn it  

i love it so good alistar thank you for these  three tips this has been fantastic anything else  

that you'd like to share with our listeners as  a closing sure so uh as lindsay said i have a  

podcast it's called english learning for curious  minds you can find it wherever you get your  

podcasts spotify apple podcasts or whatever and so  if you would like to to listen to that then just  

search english learning for curious minds in your  favorite podcast app yeah so we want to encourage  

you guys to follow alastair show check it out  go and enjoy that what do you cover on your show  

alistair just give us a little sense of because  your topics are are interesting they're different  

you dig into all sorts of things in history tell  us a little bit about what you cover on your show  

sure so the thing to do is to open up your  favorite podcast app or just google and search  

english learning for curious minds and you should  find the podcast there we make episodes on a real  

wide range of subjects everything from the curious  history of tea through to the real peaky blinders  

so i would love for anyone listening to this to go  and check that out okay great it was great meeting  

you despite the connections all right take care  connection yeah exactly all right bye take care