Comments on: Exploring Other Cultures and Languages With Your Family

By: Sarah @ Baby Bilingual

Sarah @ Baby Bilingual — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 23:09:54 +0000

Thank you for sharing these very manageable suggestions! It’s so important that our children be aware of the wide world around them.

I have compiled a list of websites that offer opportunities to read and/or listen to children’s books in other languages here:

http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/2010/08/free-books-and-stories-and-fables-and.html?showComment=1330815925607#c486447545801841798

By: Rashmie @MommyLabs

Rashmie @MommyLabs — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 18:30:22 +0000

Karen,
Beautiful post and love the ideas you have shared – practical, interesting and enriching!
Incidentally, I too write a post about creating a multi-cultural learning environment for our children.
You may read and share your thoughts about it here:
http://mommylabs.gorgeouskarma.com/art_craft_projects_kids/growing-up-in-a-multi-cultural-learning-environment/

By: Pragmatic Mom

Pragmatic Mom — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:12:36 +0000

I make my kids say please and thank you in every ethic restaurant that we know how to say those words in: Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, German … you’d be surprised how many languages you can drum up with just those two phrases.

That being said, my kids have also been studying Mandarin Chinese and Spanish with a tutor at a very young age. I blog on trying to keep them exposed here at Introducing Foreign Languages To Your Kids (Mandarin Chinese and Spanish) here at http://www.pragmaticmom.com/?p=1386

It’s the materials and tips and tricks that worked for me. Hope it’s helpful to you too!

By: Babylovesbooks

Babylovesbooks — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:43:22 +0000

Love this post, Karen. All of these ideas are wonderful ways to expose your child and yourself to new cultures and languages. Something that would augment all of the above is making friends with and/or mingling with one or more families that belong to a different culture. Although books, CDs and movies are fantastic resources, actually being part of a cultural event or celebration and experiencing the little day to day details of another culture can broaden one’s interest and knowledge of the culture significantly. For instance, just observing and learning the practices around say, Hanukkah or Diwali by celebrating the occasion with a Jewish or Indian family can teach us a lot about the cultures. So, if there are kids of different nationalities or religions in your child’s class or you know a coworker whose culture and background is different from yours – that should be all the more motivation for us to go out our way to make friends and express genuine interest in learning more about that culture. Unfortunately, what I have seen happen more often than not, is that we tend to associate ourselves with people of similar interests and backgrounds – may be it just feels more natural and comfortable. But, we’ve got to make it a point to break out of the mold at least occasionally so we can expand…Thanks again for throwing light on this important aspect of growing as a family with your post.

By: langwiz

langwiz — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:33:52 +0000

Wonderful ideas! My kids really enjoy watching movies in other languages, eating foods from other cultures, and reading/hearing children’s books in other languages. As a language teacher, I also enjoy the International Digital Children’s Library–http://en.childrenslibrary.org/–and there are iPhone/iPad apps, too!

By: Laura Fabiani

Laura Fabiani — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:45:20 +0000

Living in Montreal gives our family a chance to explore other cultures. We read books about other cultures, set in other cultures, or in different languages. (We speak 3) We also visit the museum or other in-town events that expand our children’s world. Great post!