Bilingual books

I am sure we all like books and reading is so important for our children.

There is a company selling bilingual books, Mantra Lingua (http://www.mantralingua.com/home.php).

When children can read in one language and know another one, they are always curious to know the words in this other language.

The books in this collection offer them the possibility of reading the same story in the two languages they know.

Enjoy !!!

Bilingual Children do not syllabify the same way than monolingual children

I discovered this research about the way children with two or more languages syllabify. It is quite interesting. Unfortunately, it is in Dutch, but I can translate for those who are interested.

The researcher, Ivana Brasileiro, from the Department of Humanities in the Univerity of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, wrote a thesis entitled in English : "The effects of bilingualism on children's perception of speech sounds". She discovered that bilingual children have another way of recognising the sound than children with only one language at home. They also learn and memorize the vowels in a different manner.

Here is the website for those interested : http://www.uu.nl/NL/faculteiten/geesteswetenschappen/Actueel/Agenda/Pages/Tweetaligkindleertklinkersandersdaneentaligkind.aspx

First Meeting

Last night, the Cork Group of the Bilingual Forum Ireland met at UCC in the Speech and Language Therapy Building, Brookfield.

Fifteen people from various background attended the meeting. Parents, but also speech therapists and members of Enable Ireland were present looking for answers to their questions, but also for help.

Their were very happy to have a group started in Cork and are looking for more time to share.

Isabelle O'Neill will be coordinating the activities in Cork and its region.

We will try to meet every six weeks.

Events will be organised as well as talks, seminars and training with speech therapists and members of Enable Ireland.