Raising a bilingual child is not just about teaching the command of the minority language, but also about giving exposure to the cultural background of that language, which is fundamental for a correct use of the language itself. This is one of the biggest problems with translations; often something is lost in the process when there is a cultural gap between the two. I am an avid reader and whenever it’s possible I try to read a book in the original language, but that can only happen with English, Italian and French language books. If I read a South American author I prefer the Italian translation to the English because there are more similarities between the two languages and less is lost in translation. Same goes for Anglo-Saxon languages. So how is this relevant to the cultural element? I have made the book example, but the same goes for movies. Watching a dubbed movie takes so much off the enjoyment of a film, starting from the accents actors have naturally or they might put on as part of a role to the actual change of the script because a flat translation might not be funny to an Italian or Spanish audience.

I have introduced since the very beginning English bedtime stories, cartoons in English – although the TV exposure has always been limited – and nursery rhymes to implement the cultural element whilst backing the language skills. Since we are approaching the holidays, at the moment we are going through our selection of favourite Christmas songs and every evening we have a dose of our three top songs

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

Santa Claus is coming to town

Away in a manger

Luca knows the lyrics to each song, he understands the meaning and most importantly he sings like a fluent speaker, he’s not always in tune but unfortunately good singing qualities don’t run in the family so we don’t expect to see him in the X Factor in the future!