We asked some multilingual friends (and their children) to explain what their mother tongue means to them and what it feels like to speak more than one language.
Aroha (14 years):
To me, being bilingual is like playing a game of Memory with your mind. Except instead of an image on your card, you have a word in one of the languages you speak. Sometimes you find the matching card immediately. At other times it takes a lot longer. And you just keep staring at the card in your hand. It is all you can see and you just can’t manage to find the other. Which, as you can imagine, is very frustrating….
To read the rest of Aroha’s story, or the stories of our other bilingual friends click on an image below.
Aroha - Being Bilingual  | Alana - Negrita |
Greta - Your native language | Nosrat - Mother Language |
Magda - Language of my heart | Mag - Five languages |
Alexis - French class made easier | Kofi - Tongo e meki |
Pamela - Ahang, you have my attention | Thijs - A wider world |
| Isaure - Two places where you belong | Dionne - Woman of many languages |