Post Tagged with "Bilingual"

An international snacker

Sasa is from New Zealand and Japan and currently lives in Austria with her Austrian partner. Her blog Sasasunakku shows her passion for discovering and sharing new foods (sunakku is the pronunciation of ‘snack’ in Japanese), and you can find recipes from the various countries in which she has lived. Let’s find out more about Sasa’s international experiences.

You describe yourself as being from New Zealand and Japan. Is that because of your parents or the fact that you lived in both places as a child?

I was born in Sapporo in the northern island of Hokkaido in Japan to a Japanese father and a mother from New Zealand. We lived in Sapporo and Yokohama before moving to Auckland in New Zealand when I was six so my first language was Japanese though I express myself better in English now. 

(more…)

Cairo’s new creativity

Nawara Belal is involved in various community projects in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, including the Rising Voices Exploring Taboos project. She also writes and is playing a prominent part in Cairo’s exploding post-revolution cultural scene.

Nawara and I first started talking about this interview back in January, but events in Egypt took over and we had to postpone it for a while. A lot has changed since then. Here’s Nawara’s take on blogging, feminism, Egyptian literature and how life has changed in the past few weeks.

Whereabouts in Egypt do you live? Could you tell us a little bit about it?

I live in Cairo, the capitol. Cairo is the heart of Egypt, that’s where you will find most of the cultural events, protests, parliament and center of the rule and economics and the dream of every Egyptian.

(more…)

People of the World

If you’re a regular reader of PocketCultures, you’ve probably noticed that we have just renamed this section People of the World.

When we started My partner is a foreigner, we wanted to look at cultural differences in a light-hearted way. If you’re in a cross-cultural relationship, you come into contact with another culture every day, so you’ve got stories to tell.

But of course cross-cultural couples are not the only ones experiencing other cultures on a daily basis. As PocketCultures grew, we met many other people with global minds and outlooks. Some are part of multicultural families; some are Third Culture Kids; some are parents raising bilingual children. Some live in another country; some love to travel; some embrace other cultures and make friends in other parts of the world without even leaving home.

(more…)

5 tips for raising a bilingual child

This is a guest post by Eve Bodeux. Eve is mother of two boys, married to a Frenchman. She lives in the Denver, Colorado USA area and blogs at bloggingonbilingualism.com

Parents the globe over have bilingualism (or multilingualism) as a goal for their children as they realize the value this advantage provides in our ever-smaller world. Mixing traditional approaches with modern supplemental activities allows enthusiastic parents to encourage their children in learning a second language. Here are my five top tips for success!

(more…)

Meet Özlem and Javier

Where are you from?

Özlem: I’m Turkish and Javier is Spanish

Where did you meet?

We met in Bursa (in Turkey) in a dinner organized by a mutual friend.

What language do you speak at home?

At the beginning we were speaking in English. Later I started to learn Spanish and for me to practice it we started to speak in Spanish. After, we moved to Barcelona, then in order that Javier does not lose his Turkish now we speak in Turkish.

Do you try to cook food from each other’s countries?

We don’t have a preference about the country, both of us like each other’s cuisine but normally Javier cooks Spanish Food and me Turkish. The food is quite similar but in general Spanish dishes include more seafood and Turkish dishes more meat.

Can you explain one part of your partner’s culture that you found surprising?

Özlem: The most surprising thing in Spanish culture for me is that they have dinner very late, around 10 o’clock in the night. In Turkey normally we have dinner lately at 7 o’clock. Oh my god, it is very difficult to keep until that hour and later to sleep properly. I will never be able to get used to it!

Javier: One of the things that surprises me about the Turkish culture is the huge sense of hospitality, they meet you today and tomorrow you are at their home having dinner and finally it happens like me…. you get married!!!

What’s the best thing about being in a cross-cultural relationship?

You do not stop learning things about each other’s culture and this makes you more open-minded.

What’s the hardest thing about being in a cross-cultural relationship?

Sometimes it is difficult to explain some feelings but on the other hand it is nice because it makes you learn more about those feelings.

For instance the way that we feel when we listen to a song in Turkish or Spanish is different because of the difference of the languages and cultures.

Do you have any advice for other cross-cultural couples?

It is very helpful to learn each other’s language. Also we hope for more cross-cultural couples to help work towards… WORLDWIDE PEACE!!!

Over to you – tell us in the comments what questions you would like to ask the next couples. And if you’d like to be interviewed, sign up here

Enjoyed this?
Read more stories of cross-cultural relationships

A truly Spanglish couple

Kelly (Canada) and Jorge (Mexico)

When I arrived in Mexico five years ago, I spoke nary a word of Spanish, “cerveza, baño, cenicero, cigaro” and the all important “por favor” and “gracias” were about all I had learned for my “vacation”. I met Hubby on the beach after only a couple of weeks in Mexico, not realizing that he would be the reason for me to stay. Hubby spoke English well and that is how we communicated, there was no need for us to speak Spanish to each other. In fact, there was no need to speak Spanish at all on Cozumel, everyone I met spoke English and that was the language of the community we played and worked in. My first six months in Mexico didn’t require me to study at all, though I certainly picked up phrases as I went along.

When we moved to Cancun, things did change. We were now in the big city and living downtown, if I was going to survive I needed to be able to communicate in Spanish. Hubby was working all day and I was on my own to take care of grocery shopping, etc., so I was forced to really begin sucking in the language. And suck in the language I did, I was terrible! Hubby certainly didn’t make things any easier, he is not the most patient man in the world so having him try to teach me was not working out. Often my attempts at the language were mocked, he still reminds me to this day of the funny mistakes I made that caused his ribs to hurt with laughter.

So, I was alone in the city, no money for Spanish classes, no computer for internet lessons, nothing but a dictionary and newspapers. I would sit with a paper and the dictionary and do my best to try to understand what was happening in the world. This was valuable, until I tried to pronounce the words, they all came out with French pronunciations! I realized that all my years of French in school in Canada was both a detriment and an advantage. I could understand the meaning of the words as they were often quite similar, but the pronunciation was a disaster, French and Spanish are quite different and my “Frespañol” was quite ugly. And so our relationship continued in English.

Over the years I have learned a lot from taxi drivers, co-workers, students and web sites like www.studyspanish.com, but still haven’t had a formal class. My Spanish has improved immensely and I am able to not only survive but I can discuss politics, tell a joke, deal with household service providers, etc., etc.. In the last few days I’ve been listening to our conversations in the house more closely to see what we really use with each other. I realize that we are truly a Spanglish couple. It’s really mixed up, I’ll throw Spanish words into English sentences, ask him a question in English and he’ll reply in Spanish or vice versa, we very rarely have a conversation that is solely in one language, though English certainly is still the prevalent tongue in the house. He still laughs at my Spanish, but I’ve built up a tough layer of skin so I can laugh along with him now.

The one place that we do not mix is with Max. When Max was born we read a lot about raising a bilingual child and we decided to use the “OPOL” (one parent, one language) method. I only speak English with Max and Hubby only speaks Spanish. This method is working wonders, Max’s language skills surprise me everyday. He never, ever speaks Spanish to me and he won’t speak English to Hubby, no matter what language we are speaking to each other. If I do speak Spanish to him, he really doesn’t like it and he says “English mommy, English” and the same is true with his Daddy. He thinks it’s pretty funny when Daddy speaks English to him, it just doesn’t fit his world even though he knows that Daddy is bilingual and he usually only responds in Spanish.

Language has certainly caused some problems in our house, misunderstandings, miscommunication and even jealousy. The phrase “te quiero mucho” has been a source of angst for a long time. It means “I love you a lot”, for me a phrase reserved for my romantic partner, letting them know that they are special and different from everyone else. Hubby will use that phrase with others and it makes me very angry, I no longer feel special and I feel that it’s inappropriate for him to say that to friends (particularly female friends). He insists that the phrase can be used for both friends and romantic partners, no matter how often I tell him that it bothers me. I guess you can’t change old habits. I wish there were an equivalent to “love ya” in Spanish, I use that phrase with non-romantic friends, “I love you” feels too strong for me and doesn’t fit a friendly relation. I’ve asked Hubby to try to use “Te amo” with me, it also means “I love you” but it would make me feel that I was different than the friends he so casually uses “te quiero” with. Of course, being a man, he used it a couple of times and forgot so I am relegated to “TQM” once again. I’ll take it, being told “I love you” in any way should make you feel good, I’ve got to get over it I guess. As Hubby says, “Es tu pedo”, “it’s your fart”, meaning deal with your own issues!

I’m looking forward to the next few years to see how our language relationship develops. I have noticed that more and more Spanish is making its way into our home, in chat and text messages and in conversation as well. I don’t know if it will ever be the main language of the house, I think after five years of being primarily English speakers, we’re probably set in our ways. I do wish we had a secret language, something we can use to speak when we don’t want Max to know what we are saying, the spelling game just gets confusing for both of us! “Don’t give Max any more “C A N D Y”". “Que dijiste?” “C A N D Y”. “QUE?” “D U L C E S”. “Oh, candy!”. Great, Max heard that one, sigh, give him the damn chocolate bar……

Kelly writes about life with her bi-cultural family in Cancun, Mexico on her blog A Canuck in Cancun. This story was originally published on her blog here.