Growing Up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide

This is a wonderful resource for anyone who is raising a child with more than one language. There's a good mix of scientific research, information on language development, practical advice, and anecdotes from parents around the world -- highly recommended.

This account of bilingual language acquisition is a fantastic how-to guide for all parents hoping to bring up their children with more than one language. I found the style very accessible and the pointers for creating your own bilingual family very useful. Still a work in progress for us - our baby is only 3 months old - but we're putting into practice the Andersson's recommendations, so time will tell!

I'm parent of three bilingual boys. I have read different books on education of bilingual babys. This one is perfect in my opinion. Is simple but complete. Is full of examples and, above all, is full of "common sense": I mean, the book present the bilinguism explaining also its problems and the differences among different babys; it helps you to understand that certain limits and situations are completely normal.

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.

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.