Does your GC speak another language?

Rinouchka that's very interesting indeed about dyslexia. I know someone, an English speaker, who is dyslexic. They had to learn Hebrew for their work and much to our astonishment, had no problems at all with picking it up!

As others have said, bilingualism is really not the barrier it may appear to be. If each parent speaks to the children in one language, they will learn both. I live in Spain, in Catalonia, where, as well as Spanish, there is a regional language, Catalan. My children have been brought up with three languages from birth, which makes them trilingual. As a result of this, learning a fourth language becomes easy. All mine speak varying degrees of French, too.

We brought all our 3 up bilingual and they are passing it on to their children as they are very pleased with us for doing it. The DiLs are fine with it, too. It is very inconsiderate for both the children and the grandparents if they do not have a common language.

And apart from anything else, I would have found it profoundly disturbing and physically impossible to speak anything but my mother tongue to the fruits of my womb.

We both spoke only in English to our DDs. We spoke to each other in Italian and English. We were really surprised one day then the older one was 4 and translated exactly what we'd just said. We had no idea she was absorbing and understanding what were not necessarily tangible concepts. We have never taught them but they are now fluent and the little DGCs (4, 4 and 2) know how to say things to their Nonno, as well as bits of Frech. DD is a linguist so I'm sure they'll go on picking things up. Their boy cousin is not so interested but does know a few stock phrases.

My son and family live in Poland and my 8 year old DGS has had no problem coping with two languages,although he has said that he finds English lessons boring at school!
His first language is Polish as that is what he uses most of the day but he and my son use English and he has had no problem swapping from one to the other.
I would love to be able to speak Polish but it's one hard language,spanish is easier.

Juney24 have a wonderful time in Barcelona meeting your baby GS!

Your post has been a pleasure to participate in and it is wonderful that it has given you a new way of looking at things. A comment that has been often voiced by so many of my ex-students is that mastering a 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. language has opened new windows in their mind. That is so true.

Your GS will have at least 2 naturally acquired panoramic picture windows in his mind and will be receptive to additional new views!

Thanks Rinouchka. I'll do my best. I have three sons - 2 in their forties and one late thirties. This is my first GC and I'm really excited to meet him this coming Saturday. It's been a long time coming. I'm still having difficulty in believing that I'm a Gran haha.

Thanks to the responses on this post, I'm now fascinated to see him progress in language, albeit mostly from a distance.