I suppose that there are many members in this forum, who grew up in multilingual surroundings or/and who have children learning two or more languages from the beginning of their life.My children, now teenagers, have Norwegian and German as their mothertongue. I have spoken German to them from their birth. Their father has always been speaking Norwegian to them. During their first years of life German was the language, in which they did express themselves best. When they started to have more contact with our Norwegian surroundings, like in the kindergarden, Norwegian took the first place in their language abilities.Now my son speaks and reads German very well, but he lacks the training with grammar and writing. My daughter reads German books and watches the German children’s channel on satelite TV with only few words she doesn’t understand. But she is answering me in Norwegian, when I speak German to her. When I ask her to speak German, she comes with a mixed language of German and Norwegian.Both of the children master the Norwegian language very well. They have English as a foreign language since the first grade. My son is now having French as a second foreign language during the last two years with good results. He is planning to take German courses outside the school later for learning the grammatical background.For the next grade in autumn my daughter has to choose, if she should have German, French or Spanish. I sometimes think she should choose German, to give her the opportunity to get a solid basis in German instead of starting a new foreign language. But I really don’t know, what would be the best choice.I would appreciate to hear your opinions and your experiences about growing up multilingual.Best regardsCalendula :) //en.yabiladi.com/topics/growing-multilingual-families-44-568941-568941.html#msg-568941 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:47:29 +0200 Phorum 5.2.15