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Learning to speak Swenglish

31/8/2017

9 Comments

 
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​Only parents understand their toddler's babbling
​

*Tap tap* *tap tap*. Someone’s patting my forehead. As my eyes open with a little morning light sneaking through the blinds into the bedroom, Little Bear is informing me that it’s time to get up. ‘God morgon Lila Björn!’ I can faintly make out his smile as he crawls over to grab hold of me in a heart-warming hug saying what sounds like ‘Pappa! Pappa!’. Raise my arm to hug him back and he does a skilful role under my arm, over my belly and sits up next to me pointing at the lamp: ‘lappa! lappa!’ (‘Lampa’ in Swedish). So me and the lamp have the same name… I’m not jealous of the fact that he clearly has more interest in switching on a lamp than hugging his daddy, but it’d be nice to not have to share my name with a bedside reading aid.

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A Swedish approach to toddler discipline

12/8/2017

18 Comments

 
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We were on holiday with family in Sweden last week, and Little Bear formed his first two-word sentence. Well, more of an instruction than a sentence: ‘go car!’,(‘gå bil!’ in Swedish) pointing in the direction of the Volvo in the driveway to the summer house. It’s clearly far from his first successful attempt at verbal communication. But it’s a big step in his learning to articulate his ridiculous desires and inconvenient opinions. What’s his third word in that sentence going to be when he can manage it? We’d like it to be please, but realistically it’s going to be ‘now’.

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Starting to talk: bilingual baby challenge

11/3/2017

24 Comments

 
Walking baby little bear dad turn SPL swenglish baby swedish bilingual speaking
​Little Bear is starting to talk. No, he’s not forming sentences yet, or even pointing at things and calling out their names, but the baby babbles are starting to sound like words we just said, and he’s starting to understand noises he makes relate to things. What does this mean for our plan for bringing him up bilingual?

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Travelling Nordic

22/7/2016

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Dad on shared parental leave in Sweden Nordic with baby SPL summer
For most of July and some of August, Little Bear and Pappa have been in Sweden to enjoy the summer with family. Swedes love their summer houses, and as a Swinglish baby, Little Bear is no exception. 

The flight was easier than his previous trips abroad. We were lucky enough to only have one vomit episode the whole trip. Yes, don't feed your baby a full bottle when they're in the car. He might feel you're missing out and give the whole thing back to you...
After cleaning around 200 ml of baby vomit out of the taxi, Little Bear, his aunty and I took the plane.​ ​Of course, if it were possible I'd also suggest you avoid being in a plane, probably somewhere over Denmark, when you're baby might decide to do the biggest poo he's done in weeks. I carried him for the second time in 5 minutes to baby-changing room at the other end of the plane getting some sympathetic looks on the way. Then the stewardess asked me whether I 'wanted any help'... Odd I thought: why would anyone need help changing their baby? Then I realised the poo hadn't been limited to his nappy, or his own clothes...

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changing family language

26/5/2016

5 Comments

 
Bilingual Swenglish baby with Swedish flag little bear
I really want the Little Bear to speak at least two languages, and it's all the rage now for kids to grow up bilingual. We're told it's better for their brains, and unsurprisingly, for their language skills.

Since his mother's side of the family is Swedish, he'll also need to be speaking the language to feel properly at home when we visit. Although, not as critical as you might think, since all Swede's seem to speak better English than we do here. But it'll be an important part of his identity.

Tiny people seem to learn languages better than big people, so when they're tiny is clearly the best place to start. All you have to do is speak to them in the right language, simple. My wife can speak her mother-tongue and English fluently, and I can just about manage with both. So we're all set to go. Should be easy?
It's not easy. Especially if your an native English speaker with poor language skills. Not hard like having a baby, that's mainly exhausting with lots of easy cool stuff at the end. It's more hard like learning to ski when you're in your 20s/30s...

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    I'm Dave, dad of Little Bear. Also known as 'Pappa' to the little man as we try and bring out his Swedish roots

    My wife and I are sharing the troubles and joys of bringing up Little Bear equally. This is about my half of the time being responsible for not breaking the baby

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  • Home
  • Becoming a Nordic Dad
  • Raising Little Bear
    • Latest posts
    • Little Personalities
    • Dads are parents too
    • During Parental Leave
    • Early days
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  • Contact