Tag Archives: bilingual children’s books

Tagalog Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Today we feature the Tagalog language! We’ve gathered background information and interesting facts about the language. We also have information on our newest children’s books available in Tagalog. Continue reading Tagalog Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Tigrinya Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Today the spotlight is on Tirgrinya! We’ve gathered background information and interesting facts about the language. You can also check out our newest children’s books available in Tigrinya. Continue reading Tigrinya Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Dari and Pashto: Afghan Languages Fun Facts & Books

Today’s spotlight language is on Dari and Pashto! We’ve gathered background information and interesting facts about these two languages. You can also find information on our newest bilingual Dari and Pashto children’s books.

Continue reading Dari and Pashto: Afghan Languages Fun Facts & Books

Amharic Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Amharic Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

The spotlight is on Amharic today! We’ve gathered some background information and interesting facts about the language. We also share our newest children’s books available in Amharic. Continue reading Amharic Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Multicultural, Bilingual Idiom Books are “A Breath of Fresh Air”

We are excited to announce a new series of idiom books, available in many languages. With clever multicultural illustrations and bilingual example sentences, Language Lizard Idiom Books explain common idioms in a way that makes them easy to understand.

What is an Idiom?

An idiom is a phrase that says one thing, but means something different. An idiom can be a quick way of saying something complicated. It’s useful for language learners to study idioms because knowing idioms helps them to understand and speak English fluently.

Continue reading Multicultural, Bilingual Idiom Books are “A Breath of Fresh Air”

Charitable Program Provides Bilingual Books in Spanish, Arabic and Kurdish to Language Learners

Language Lizard and our colleagues at Mantra Lingua UK were honored to support a recent charity initiative of eClinicalWorks, to provide literacy materials to thousands of dual language families in Tennessee. Continue reading Charitable Program Provides Bilingual Books in Spanish, Arabic and Kurdish to Language Learners

Celebrating the Bilingual Child Month – Giveaway & Discounts Extended!

Celebrating the Bilingual Child Month is a great opportunity to recognize the many children who speak two or more languages and understand multiple cultures. Let’s encourage literacy and parental involvement, and celebrate the children who work so hard to learn a new language. Continue reading Celebrating the Bilingual Child Month – Giveaway & Discounts Extended!

The Somali Language: Interesting Facts & Resources

Somali books and language

Today’s spotlight language is Somali! We offer some background information and interesting facts about the language, as well as help finding children’s books in Somali.  Interested in learning about other languages as well?  Check out our series of posts on world languages, including Spanish, Nepali, Hindi, Russian and Japanese!

Where is Somali spoken?

Somali is a part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Somali is spoken by an estimated 16 million people around the world. It’s the official language of Somalia, with several regional dialects, and is also spoken in nearby countries, like Kenya and Ethiopia.

How Many People Speak Somali in the US?

According to the most recent 2010 US Census data, there are about 100,000 Somali immigrants in the US. There are large Somali speaking populations in Minnesota, Ohio, Washington, California, and Washington, DC.

Interesting Facts About Somali

There are multiple writing systems used to express the Somali language, including Arabic, Wadaad and Osmanya.

The Somali language has 20 distinct vowel sounds. It is spoken with three different tones (high, low and falling) that indicate things like gender and number.

Somali has been influenced linguistically by other languages, like English, Italian and Arabic.

Somali Books – Bilingual Children’s Books

If you interact with children who speak Somali, or are learning the language, you may want suggestions on some of the best bilingual Somali kids books and audio books.  Many engaging and popular stories with text in both English and the Somali language are available, including Handa’s Surprise, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Hansel and Gretel and Pandora’s Box.  There are also Somali book sets that allow for interactive learning via a special Recorder Pen, audio books and an interactive Somali picture dictionary.

Do you speak Somali, or are you learning the language? Comment below and share your interesting language facts!

 

“Aerial views of Kismayo 07” by AMISOM Public Information via Flickr is licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal https://flic.kr/p/dieWvg 

The Last Book My Dad Read to Me

bilingual father reaching for book

by guest blogger Sue Kwon

For my husband, our two young girls and myself, reading a bedtime story together is a much-loved nightly ritual. On our busiest days, it’s our first opportunity to sit down with a single purpose and no distractions. My husband is the official story reader in our family. He has patience (that I lack) with even the longest, most repetitive children’s books. The girls sit still, listen with rapt attention, and gaze up at him with eyes full of love and admiration.

In our household, we all speak and read in English. It’s a commonality that’s easy to take for granted. It means story time is an experience shared equally by everyone. The family I grew up in was different: my parents and older sisters were Korean immigrants, and I was born in the US. They all spoke and read in Korean, and I almost entirely in English. My father and I had a nightly story time routine too, and I remember very clearly the last book he ever read to me.

My father was born and raised in a small town in South Korea. He served a mandatory time in the military, married young, and eventually emigrated to the US with his wife and young daughters, knowing no English whatsoever. Once here, he picked up the language quickly while working at a doughnut shop, where he biked to and fro each day. One night at work, he was held up at gunpoint, and he decided to make a big change: He opened a business installing windows, a skill he had learned as a young man in Korea. We were lucky – the new business grew fast. But that meant he worked very long, stressful hours. By the time he got home at night, he was so exhausted he only paused briefly to eat dinner before going to bed.

I got into the habit of waiting by the front door as soon as my mother started making his dinner. That way, as soon as he walked in, I could pounce on him with a book in hand. Although my father had very impressive verbal English skills, his reading skills were very basic. Still, he would sit and read to me, and it was the few precious moments we spent together each day.

One evening, when I was 5, he came home from work and we sat down right in the entryway, just like always. He opened the book and read the first line: “We like worms!” he said, his English heavily accented. “Not worms, Daddy!” I interrupted. “It says ‘rhymes!’ Why would they like worms?” I doubled over with laughter. I found it hilarious that my dad, the most grown-up person I knew, someone I thought was invincible, didn’t know the word “rhymes.” What was even funnier to me was the fact that we had read that book a hundred times before, and I had thought all along it was a story about worms. I laughed so hard, I didn’t immediately realize that he wasn’t laughing with me. The emotion on his face was so clear, I knew without a doubt I had embarrassed him. It must have been humiliating to be corrected and laughed at by his preschooler. He handed me the book, shrugged, and said it looked like I didn’t need his help anymore.

We never attempted story time after that. Partly because of my father’s embarrassment, but also because I had lost respect for him. I naively thought that if I could read better than he could, I must be smarter than him. Who knows, maybe on some level he thought the same thing. It didn’t occur to me then that his ability to read in English was not a true measure of his intelligence. We never tried reading a book in Korean. I think if we had, I would’ve realized right away how silly my assumption was.

It wasn’t until I was grown with kids of my own, years after his passing, that I realized the enormity of my father’s life. The amount of bravery it must have taken for him to leave his home country. The level of intelligence it must have taken to pick up a new language, and then grow a successful business from scratch. My dad came from such humble beginnings, but managed to achieve so much in his life.

Thirty years after that last story, and 10 years after his passing, I often think about all the knowledge, experience and wisdom my dad must have carried with him. I wish I had given him a chance to hand it down to me. Because we didn’t share a written language, and had no means to bridge that gap, we missed out on a lifetime of knowing each other.

Tonight, as I sat with my husband while he read to the girls, I thought about how lucky we are. Lucky to be able to share bedtime stories, but also lucky to live in a time and place where foreign language is no longer seen as a detriment, but a great asset. Parents don’t have to give up their home language for fear of hindering their kids’ development. Languages can mix, intermingle and live in harmony in the same household. Parents and kids can meet somewhere in the middle, and share bedtime stories that lead to life stories that lead to a lifetime of family togetherness.

Do you have more than one language in your home? Tell us your thoughts and experiences by commenting below.

“No substitute” by Patrick Feller via Flickr licensed under CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/6jEJFb

Top Bilingual Books for Summertime Reading

When it comes to choosing bilingual books to share with our little ones during the summer, the choices seem endless. Who can decide on just a few when there are so many to choose from?

To help you pick the right bilingual books for your family this summer, we have put together the following lists based on some popular topics.

We hope you will find just the right books to make your summertime as enjoyable (and bilingual) as possible. Feel free to head over to our main Language Lizard website to find even more fantastic bilingual books!

Humorous Stories

Kids love reading books that make them laugh or have a funny, unexpected twist at the end. Get your children giggling with these books:  Continue reading Top Bilingual Books for Summertime Reading