I was born in Germany, but from a very young age, I knew it wouldn’t be the place I would call home. It didn’t feel right, as if I wouldn’t belong in that country.
When I was 11 years old, I nagged my parents to go to school abroad. As a 5th grader at the time, it wasn’t possible to participate in a school exchange for a year, so my parents gifted me a two-week summer school experience in Eastbourne, England.
I was ecstatic. It was June 1994, and my parents took me to the airport, where they handed me over to a flight attendant who would ensure I arrived at London Heathrow, where the summer school would pick me up. Back then, we didn’t have cellphones, so my parents had to wait for long hours until they received a phone call that I had arrived safely.
That trip changed my life
I celebrated my 12th birthday in England, with no family and friends, just other international students. I loved it. Hearing all those different languages and learning about various cultures and worldviews, I was fascinated.
There was no turning back for me. I finished school and university, and went to Australia for one year to backpack. When I came home, I got a job in Dublin, and a year later, I got another job in Amsterdam. When I became an entrepreneur in 2014, I lived as a digital nomad for 3.5 years, traveling between Asia, Europe, and South America.
When I met my husband, I knew we’d give our kids the gift of growing up multilingual
I settled in the Netherlands and got married to my Dutch husband. We both speak English, German, and Dutch, and we knew we wanted our kids to grow up with these languages, so we started reading books and listening to podcasts about how to do it effectively.
The first rule that we learned is to be consistent and clear. One parent, one language, because children often associate a language with a person, and switching between languages can cause confusion. That part was easy for us because we both speak each other’s language and don’t have to constantly translate. If I hadn’t already spoken Dutch, that would have been the perfect time for me to learn.
But I also knew that I would have to do the heavy lifting and be incredibly consistent because we live in the Netherlands and our kids are exposed to Dutch in their daily lives, but not to German.
We made a plan and both stuck to it
Our kids are 4 and 6 years old, speak German and Dutch fluently, and understand a lot of English. When I was pregnant, I had already been speaking German to both of my kids. And when they were born, that was just my intuitive language for speaking with them.
When they started interacting with us, we used playfulness to teach them the language. We would sit with books, point to an image, and name it in both our mother tongues. And we read to them a lot, to this day. Reading is one of the most important and fun ways to expose children to a language. It helps them build their vocabulary and understanding, but engaging with them is also a way to learn to speak the language.
We also talk to my parents a lot on video calls, travel to Germany regularly to visit them, and go on summer holidays together. That way, they are forced to speak German to someone other than me. And they can’t throw in Dutch words, expecting them to be understood, because my parents don’t understand Dutch.
When we travel, we listen to German podcasts for kids. That keeps them engaged while also training their active listening skills, vocabulary, and imagination.
We introduced English at age 2
To add English into the mix, we made it fun too, by reading books and watching “Peppa Pig” and other kids’ series in English. I remember it took quite some time until my daughter asked me what language that is. It was fascinating because she had already been introduced to the language for weeks. However, it also showed me how adaptable and flexible children’s brains are.
We also gave them access to LingoKids, an interactive app that teaches kids everyday English skills. They play games and watch educational videos, and the entire app is designed to teach in an engaging and fun way.
Sometimes, mainly when the kids ask me, I have short conversations with them in English. As they get older and English is taught at school, we will have these conversations more often, making it their natural third language.
If I could start over again, I’d do it the same way, though I might have introduced speaking English to them more actively earlier.
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