My partner’s native is Russian, mine is Turkish, and we communicate in English.

We’ve decided to commit to learning each other’s native languages for mainly two reasons: [1] We want to be able to talk to extended family members who can’t speak English; [2] we want to raise our future kids multilingual.

On a personal note, it freaked me out when I first realized that our kids’ native tongue would be different than ours—not because of the language itself, but because of its link to the culture. While their native will be English, they will not be exposed to British culture extensively, since neither I nor my partner is British. On the other hand, they won’t be exclusively raised in Turkish or Russian culture because we live in Cyprus, where the locals are Greek Cypriots speaking in Greek.

Eventually, having been raised in various cultures themselves, my partner’s parents calmed me down, assuring me that the kids could handle variety and they would be okay.

If you have any experience with such a situation, I would love to hear from you—stories, pieces of advice, or anything you could share on this topic are welcome! You can simply reply to this email.

That being said, we haven’t enrolled in any courses or taken private lessons—at least, not yet. Instead, we’ve decided to start on our own and tackle whatever we can by using language apps and each other as resources.

Here is my experience with different tools, including their upsides and downsides.

Duolingo
I think Duolingo is great for building consistency. Features such as Streak, Leagues, Daily Quests, and Friend Challenges encourage you to practice daily. Its strongest plus, I believe, is the game-like experience. It’s a pleasure to interact with an app that is so fun and aesthetically pleasing.

The first Duolingo enthusiast in the family happened to be my brother. He’s practicing with the app almost daily for over a year now. Following his lead, my partner and I began using it, which inspired the entire family, including both our parents.

However, Duolingo misses a huge step: it fails to connect learning with logic. It doesn’t explain why you structure a sentence in a certain way, why words change as they do, and so on. In my opinion, this makes the whole learning experience incomplete.

For these reasons, I now consider Duolingo a fun complementary tool to learn a language, rather than the only resource.

Busuu
I first used Busuu a couple of years ago while I was trying to learn French. Recently, I returned to it due to the logical gaps Duolingo has created.

Apparently, over the years, Busuu has adopted many successful features of Duolingo, including Streaks, Leagues, and Daily Quests. It’s still far from being as good-looking and fun as Duolingo. However, interestingly, I find this to be an advantage.

The reason why Busuu feels more like work than a game is mainly because you actually have to read to get through the lessons. Busuu offers you explanations and interesting facts about the things it teaches, which are followed by questions related to them. As a result, this forces you to pay attention and be present instead of being on autopilot.

From what I've observed, 'interesting' captures my attention more effectively than 'fun' when I'm learning. I assume this will differ from one person to another. Overall, I think both platforms are doing a great job and are worth trying.


Our Fun Little Made-Up Practice
My partner stopped practicing with Duolingo after realizing that he was doing the lessons only to preserve his streak and that he wasn’t learning anymore.

One day, he mentioned it would be amazing if there was an app that exclusively focused on teaching words. Inspired by this, we came up with a fun little practice: Every morning, we introduce each other to five words in our native languages. We also add some drawings to make the words stick better. In the evening, we review the words again. Then, we erase the drawings for the test the following morning. The next morning, we see how many words we can remember correctly. If needed, we go over any mistakes or misunderstandings. Once done, we move on to a fresh batch of words for the new day’s practice.

Honestly, I love it! Not only do we spend time together, but we also teach and learn new words every day. It’s both fun and helpful. I highly recommend it!

Friendly Reminder

#1 I would love to hear from you if you have any experience with learning languages and/or being a multilingual family. Stories, pieces of advice, or anything you could share on this topic are welcome! Please, reply to this email to let me know.

#2 If you haven’t already, subscribe to the HELPFUL & FABULOUS newsletter now so that from time to time, I can show up in your inbox with helpful insights like this one!

Some of my blog posts you may find interesting:

¹  “Are You Climbing The Right Wall?”
The harmony between inner guidance and external influences

²  “The Power of Meditation”
How meditation helped me with my career, health, and more...

³  “Loved The Wrong Way”
A journey of breaking free from dysfunctional relationship patterns and relearning how to love and be loved unconditionally.