November Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism

Step right up to the November Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, organized by L from Bilingual for Fun! Grab a cup of tea (or other hot drink of your choice, especially if you're experiencing this same snowy weather we are) and sit down for a while with us. We've got several entries this month taking a look at the adults, the children and some of the tools of bilingual families.

Smashedpea from Intrepidly Bilingual starts us off this month with a look at Him - that mysterious supporting player without whom the whole thing falls apart.

First-time contributor Tamara at Non-Native Bilingualism makes a liberating realization that I think would benefit all parents, not just the bilingual ones, in her post Mama's New Freedom.

Gen at Bilingual Families wrote about a "dormant bilingual" she met recently. This young mother would like to regain her native language after years of not speaking it, for the sake of her children. I think a lot of us living outside our native countries or languages can probably identify with this, no matter how far down the road to dormancy we may have gotten.

Then mamapoekie at Authentic Parenting addresses a topic that's been on my mind lately in Towards a Language Switch. With their upcoming move to another language environment, how and when will her child's dominant language change?

Jan at BabelKid knows where his daughter overheard something - because of the language she said it in! One of the less well-known advantages of raising your children with multiple languages, in my opinion.

Rea at Not So Spanish explores her son's expanding vocabulary in both English and Spanish in her post Big. Green. Boobie.

Sarah at Baby Bilingual spoke English to her nephew Carl - and didn't get in trouble for it! Read her post Ma'am, we heard you speaking English to that child. Hand over your mouse. From now on you're not allowed to blog about raising children bilingually! to see how and why she occasionally breaks the rules.

Maria at Fab Mums discusses one of the cornerstones of language learning for kids or adults. In her post The importance of songs in the bilingual journey from nursery rhymes to pop music she talks about the role Michael Jackson is currently playing in getting her son interested in English, his second language.

Eve from Blogging on Bilingualism posts about a SmartPlay giveaway, including an interview with the president of the company. Head over to check out the conditions to win! The giveaway ends Sunday, December 5.

Maggy from Red Ted Art discusses another cornerstone of language sharing: books. Read about her experience with a multilingual book exchange in her post Swap.

Lynn from Open Hearts, Open Minds also writes about the importance of reading in her family's language plan in her post Reading to Elliot en Español. She recommends some of her favorite children's books in Spanish and observes one of the enduring truths of reading books in translation: some of them are better than others! Here's to well translated children's books - something we're on the lookout for as well, since we live in a market with a high ratio of translation to original publications.

Finally, I was thinking along the same lines this month in my post The Three Little Pigs and Growing Up. With our recent flip-flop of community-minority language I think it's important not to ignore English too much, so this is a post all about reading to my daughter in my native language.

In putting together this carnival, I noticed that a few of us this month wrote posts not exclusively focusing on bilingualism or the 'foreign' language. I think it's an interesting point because really, bilingualism is just one aspect of our families. It may be the one that makes us stand out in public (hah!), but it isn't all we are. We are families who happen to speak two, three or four languages at home, which is just the way we live. And that, my friends, is pretty cool!

Thank you very much to all participants, contributors as well as readers. Please pass the link around and don't forget to check in for next month's carnival hosted at Multilingual Mania!