FAQ

Hi, I’m Non-native Mommy. Welcome to my page!

I frequently get questions about our bilingualism. Here are the 5 most common ones and my answers to them:

  1. Who is Non-native Mommy?
  2. What do you do?
  3. Why do you raise your kids bilingually?
  4. How do  you do it?
  5. What do you write about in your blog?

You might have arrived with these questions on your mind and this page is to answer them briefly.

  1. Who is Nonnative Mommy?I’m just a mom with 2 kids like any other. The only difference is that we decided to raise our daughters bilingual (Hungarian English) in a totally monolingual (Hungarian) environment. The decision was made when our first daughter, E. was born in 2012. It was a matter of decision.
    No, Daddy is not a native speaker of English either.

    No, we aren’t bilingual ourselves either. Both of us learnt English throughout childhood education and as an adult.

    Both of us, parents, have a high command of English, but we are not native. You can read more about us as a family on my Our Family page.

  2. What do you do?
    As a Mom a change nappies, nurse, sing lullabies, cook dinners, go to the playground. As Non-native Mommy I write my blog about our bilingual journey, my kids’ language development in both languages (Hungarian and English) focusing on the minority language that is English in our case. 

    There’s a  Non-native Mommy facebook page where I share my blog posts as well as motivating and interesting thoughts, sites and other educational or just simply fun activities.

    I collect arts and craft ideas, educational activities on pinterest in groups of special events (like Easter, Mother’s Day, Halloween etc.), and topics (Oceans and seas, ABC, number games, weather)

    I try to help other moms in the same shoes as mine. So if you have any questions or would like some support and a helping hand on YOUR bilingual journey, just drop me a line.

  3. Why do you raise your kids bilingually?

    Every parent wants their kids to be healthy, happy and successful in their lives and tries to gie them support, love and whatever they can manage. As a teacher of English I though raising my children bilingually is the extra ability I can give to them. What’s more, having a “secret” language in a purely monolingual environment provide us a special bond. Not to mention what a great advantage in life it will be than they speak English at a near-native level.

  4. How do you do it?

    At the moment the kids are 5,5 and 2 years old so up to this point we’ve been playing and doing our daily routine in English whenever we can. In the first 3 years mainly we do almost everything in English to make a solid foundation of their English. We sing and play in English with the same toys as in Hungarian. We read plenty of books and take part in English-speaking activities, like the Mums’ English club or Helen Doron Early English lessons. A native nanny helps us to get the active native input, and youtube videos also provide a great variety of native exposure.

  5. What do you write about in your blog?

    I mainly write about my kids.  I note down our favourite activities, books we’re reading, songs we are listening to, crafts and projects we are doing in the target language. I also link quite a few other blogs and educational sites where several resource materials can be found. Taking an insight how the 2 cultures are present in our life is present in the blog as well.

    You can also read about everyday routines and our struggles, too. Yes, difficulties and everyday fights as the road we take is winding and long with many challenges, where the results can be visible only after quite a while, years at least.

    regularly I write about my daughters’ language development, mostly around their birthdays.

    Feel free to browes my blog and do not hesitate to share your views, doubts or opinions in the comment section or in an email to nonnativemommy@gmail.com