¶ Early Life and Multilingual Foundation
Welcome to another episode of Praat Nederlands met me, the podcast for international families raising multilingual children. You probably recognize this question. How do we keep our child connected to their Dutch language and identity? In this podcast, we share real stories from families who are navigating that journey. Today I'm speaking with Natalie, who will share her experience raising a multilingual. Natalie, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome. Let's uh start at the beginning. Uh where was your family living when your daughter was born?
Okay, so we were living in Kenya in Nairobi.
Okay.
Um yeah, and I mean I moved there when I was twenty two, so when she was born eight years later, I was still there.
Yeah, okay. So she's born there in uh in Kenya.
Wow. Yeah, she was born in Catholic and so was my son in uh two thousand twenty one. Okay. I have two children.
Well uh just in short, how how did you end up in Kenya with twenty two years?
Yes, I was uh uh I was a music student here in the Netherlands and I was curious about exploring the world. First of all, I had already spent a year traveling as a as a lady after high school. And um I felt like a lot of my classmates were really interested in becoming very famous themselves. And that bored me, to be really quite frank. I wanted to do something for the world. And um so I decided as the only person in my whole school to do my internship approach.
And not just abroad, I actually ended up in Kenya because I wanted something completely different and I wanted to explore. And so um I looked for connections and I found uh through one of my uh Teachers I found a connection with the Festival Mundial, which was the biggest world music festival here in Tilburg.
Yes.
And um yeah, that's how I ended up in Nairobi in two thousand.
Yes. Okay. And um okay, so you are on your own. What languages did you speak uh uh at that moment?
At that moment I spoke Dutch and um uh of course my English was uh a decent secondary school English, but nothing special. Um and the Kenyan English is it was a bit of an adjustment. You might hear it now in my mouth because I sit there for almost 20 years. But in the beginning I spoke very Dutch English, I think.
And uh yeah, it was deep and of course French and German because you know, I had learned that at school. Um my dad is a linguistics professor, so language has has always been it has always played a part in my life. Yeah. But um yeah, nothing special. Nothing very
Oh bo y you say nothing special, but it it's quite a lot. When your uh uh first child was born, uh what language did you speak to her?
Her, yes. Before my first child was born I got a cat and I noticed that I started speaking Dutch with
Oh yes. Oh really?
At home I would speak a mix of English and Swahili because I learned Swahili. Um and so at the time by the time my daughter was born, I spoke mostly English and Swahili uh in my uh professional life. and home life as well. No, but it was an instant. It was a gut feeling. I I couldn't speak English or Swahili with her. I had to speak Dutch.
All right. And what was your gut feeling with your daughter?
was Dutch and and I also did a little bit of research before she was born because I really my wish for her was to be comfortable in all the languages of her parents and grandparents.
Yeah.
Um so on my list were Dutch, English and Swahili. Um and I was I've been very consistent from the beginning speaking Dutch with her. So we ended up with a toddler.
um be speaking Swahili with uh her dad and the nanny and uh she would or actually swahili with with her dad and the nanny English with her friends and Dutch with me so she could switch She would pick up the phone with me and s and start speaking Dutch and then shout something in Swahili to uh to the nanny or her dad and and something else in English to her friend.
Amazing, amazing. So you your daughter grew up multilingual already. Uh what do you think that made it so easy and so naturally? Uh and how did it develop over time?
I mean for me it's I I s I try to stick to the rule of one person, one language. So that is what I also read before she was born when I was pregnant and so even when she was in my stomach I was very aware of you know singing songs in Dutch to her. I'm a singer so Okay.
Yeah, right.
Singing and language are quite closely related. I've always loved singing in different languages. Um so I would sing and Dutch with her, uh to her and with her later. Um but the one person one language was really of great help. Yes. And I noticed also later on when I started making friends of course with other mums that that was the best
kind of advice that I could share with them because I would notice them switching and if if you switch then the kid also gets confused. I'm not perfect and especially as you know, my kids grew and we started having she started having multiple friendships and and I would sometimes end the I sometimes ended up speaking English with her as well. Especially um when we're at like maybe one of our friends' houses and I would speak English with the parents and then I would speak English with her.
Yeah. Yeah. I often hear this and it's quite normal when then you're when you're in the surrounding that uh the language switch. Uh but uh Yeah, she is so uh multilingual uh uh already, it will not confuse her. No.
¶ Navigating Dutch Schooling Abroad
Yeah, hopefully. I mean uh of course now that we are back here I do notice my own Dutch has changed quite a bit and has declined.
Okay.
Comfortable in English. It somehow comes out faster. So my process um in professional situations is often in English. And not in Dutch anymore. And even with friends, some some conversations I can just not have in Dutch. I I I try to, yeah. Um but sometimes I I find myself throwing in some Dutch words. Uh some English words, sorry.
Absolutely. Yeah. It's a mixed a mixed.
Thing is, that my kid calls me out, you know. My daughter's like, Mom, for telling me not to languages. Shake.
Yeah.
That doesn't even make sense.
Funny. So looking back, uh were there challenge uh challenges or
Or
Just all natural, natural flow.
I I mean for me I think back in Kenya So she my daughter went to an English speaking school until she was six years old. Then she switched to the Dutch school.
Perfect.
And there we found that because she had learned her basic phonetics in English, there was a bit of a took a minute to switch, although she read very quickly in that I also think the teachers at the Dutch school in Nairobi are just brilliant. They know how to deal with the multilingual children. They have multilingual children themselves. And they're really, it's a really incredible primary school.
Um I I felt like she needed a few years to catch up. So especially after after the switch into the Dutch system, we saw her CETO, her test results going up. um steadily in language especially uh begrijpend laser which is like uh reading comprehension
Yep.
In the beginning we found that maybe she she had a bit of a limited um understanding of certain words. Because of the lack of exposure to Dutch every day for hours of day. So that means Comprehension levels are a little bit different, but she really she was able to catch up over the the years that followed. And right now she's in uh uh group eight, which is the final year of primary school year, and she did as well as her Dutch class.
Amazing. Great. Yeah. She picked it up. But it's great also that the teachers in I Roby were so supportive. It's it's not always the case.
So yeah, I think I always say and I never thought I was going back to the Netherlands. Like I had a really nice life in Kenya and I had an incredible business and um I mean I I guess professionally I was really I I did everything that I could have ever dreamt of. Like I I achieved it was in Nairobi, right? So I never thought I would move back to the Netherlands.
But I still made the decision to put her in the Dutch uh system primary school in Nairobi, and that was the best decision that I ever made as a mum. I think it's also only fair because she is both Kenyan and Dutch. Her father is Kenya. Um and so it it was more than just um you know the language thing. It's also a bit of a part of the culture and Yeah, I think it's only fair for her to know both of her uh heritage.
¶ Family Relocation and Language Shifts
Almost like two identities, uh language identities. So um and how did she experience the move? The moves because you moved in Kenya and you moved back to the Netherlands.
Yeah, in Kenya we moved a hundred times because of different reasons. Um that was never really a big problem because she was always so she only went to two primary schools, the uh the British system until she was six and then uh from group three onwards. A year we start reading. Um To the Dutch system. So even though we moved houses, um, she wouldn't have to uh uh move schools, so that was quite stable for her.
Yeah.
She really wanted to go to the Netherlands. My daughter has been curious since she was she since she could speak about living here. I guess also because she could only come here on holidays. So everything was fun. Much in summer, so
Yeah, but she
She's adjusted it really well. She loves it here. She's eleven. Um we moved here uh after she had just turned eleven. She's about to turn twelve now. Um and the amount of freedom that she gets here and riding her bike to school, um just hanging out on the street with her friends. In Kenya that was possible because we lived in a
kind of a gated community. We lived in a very uh local way the last few years especially where we had compound with uh uh with other kenyan kids so they were free within the compound and it was spacious But it wasn't the same as here where you know my daughter can can grab take her bike and go to town.
Yeah.
Uh and that's different. And she plays hockey um and in Nairobi there was no hockey team that she could join. She does musical theatre lessons. In Nairobi she would have had singing lessons with me, but I'm her mother, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's different. So she's really happy here. It was a bit harder on on uh on my son who's four. Yeah. Um and for a good six months he kept on saying he wants to go back to Nairobi, he misses
dogs and and his friends. Yeah, you know, the dogs were like we we had two little dogs and we had to um give them to another family and that was really tough.
Yes.
But now recently he's been saying that he loves it here. But he is another one because he stopped speaking Swahili so before we left. My daughter is twili had kind of disappeared like first one very she understood it uh you know in the end but she wouldn't really speak it but my son was fluent and the minute we stepped On to the plane. He I I guess it's almost like a refusal. I I see it as maybe a way to deal with the loss of of Kenya.
Yeah.
Um and so he refuses to speak Swahili even when we speak to our uh old nanny, which you know we we speak to her regularly. Yeah. Um but he refuses to speak just speak Swahili completely. My daughter is is doing Swahili lessons online at the moment and my son just he wouldn't he doesn't even say hello anymore.
¶ Practical Tips for Language Retention
Okay. Okay. Wow. Yeah.
When his dad tries nothing, he'll reply in determination.
Yeah. The best advice I can give you just keep on going, even he answers in in Dutch or English, no problem. But he keeps on hearing it. So there may be there w there comes a time that he will start again. So how did you um just for other families uh uh what did you do more than only speaking to
Yeah, definitely so one of my fondest memories as a child was that my dad my dad me every single night until I was about fourteen years old.
Yeah.
Go out on the weekend to the bar, come home and my dad would read me a story. But like that sounds a bit ridiculous, but it really is like that. Yes. And um the last books uh he was reading to me was like Greek uh mythology and uh the conversations between plato and socrates like that was my my dad so i reco my children and especially to the listen right now every single day um because it's it's
For me it's it's more than just language. It's not really only just about language, it's about sharing stories. And these stories also as a part of of my childhood and of culture. Um and so for me, um that's a really important part of our day and and both my kids love it. And now I see my daughter who's you know also big enough to read herself, she really enjoys it.
You know, she spends time with her little brother, and I read to him. Uh, and at some point she was reading to me as well, so we turned it around.
Nice. Yes.
Um just to to create that moment before before going to sleep.
Yeah.
I don't know if I have been able to foster such a uh love of reading, you know, with my daughter especially because my son can't read yet. She reads every night, um but sometimes I need to remind her too. So you know once in a while I can kick myself in the butt and take out my e reader and say, Okay, I'm reading a book too, look.
Yeah.
That's also that helps because again, like as as much as I try to be a great example, I also spend too much time on my
Yeah. Don't we all? Yeah. Yeah, like you said, language is not only uh about communication, it's also uh about identity, belonging, story.
¶ Identity and Advocating for Education
I'm wondering, uh your son may be too young to to to to notice this, but uh your daughter, does she feel Dutch, international, Kenyan, or mixed or?
Yeah, it's a it's a conversation we have quite a lot because especially after coming back here we ended up living in Ustres which is uh a very white village. My kids are mixed and uh they are not white. Um So yeah, we speak a lot about uh identity and we had to look for a secondary school and um we looked at a few schools and she ended up feeling most
At a school that has an international department. So even though she's studying in the Dutch department, um for her she felt at home there because, for example, when we entered the school as a family and and we look the way we look, my partner I'm white, the kids are me. We walked in and the first question that was there was, hey, do you speak Bachelor English? And we were like, whoa, that's so nice.
Mate. Yeah.
You're from where? In Africa and you know, those kind of and and to be honest, that's really what happened. Yeah. Or the only family of color in the room uh is so so comfortable um for different reasons but like in in the school that she picked it's very everybody has an international story and if you don't then you're used to it kind of thing so that's she picked and um yeah, we'll see how that goes.
Yeah, but understandable. Very understandable. Many parents that are listening uh are currently navigating uh in uh kind of the same situation and uh Uh some of them worry that uh that the children might lose Dutch completely. If you could give one advice to parents raising multilingual children, what would it be?
I I mean l it's what I said earlier, one person, one language. that really helps and sometimes it creates you know difficult situations especially if you and your partner don't speak the same language. Um but we've had conversations I I we've spoken about that, me and my partner about you know the importance of them speaking Dutch and
Since in Kenya I was the only person speaking Dutch in their lives, at home at least. So be especially before they they uh went to school. Um We just settled on that it's it's more important for them to get the gift of the Dutch language than for everybody to understand every single thing that's being said.
And at the same time, you know, we also as adults we can also learn our parents' language. So even though it's not fluent, my partner understands quite a bit of Dutch and he's studying it now. Okay, now that we lived here. We live here obviously. It doesn't need it.
Yeah.
I mean he picks it up as well Um but yeah, one person, one language.
Would you tell parents that uh uh feel that it might be too late already?
I think it's never too late. Um it's hard I find it difficult to force my kids. Um to speak like I cannot force my little one to uh to speak Swahili. Um and I think uh what you said, like just keep exposing him, that's my strategy. So when my daughter does her Swahili lesson here. Um because it's online, we make sure that it's on speaker and you can hear it and that it's next to her making a drawing or something, you know. Oh great.
And then of course I am a musician, I'm a I'm a uh singer and uh I work with the voice, songs, music, especially with with teenagers. That really helps.
Yeah, that's a great great advice. Yes.
Because when you sing you don't I mean I sing in in Kikuyu which is a Loho Kenyan language, uh I sing in Bingala uh which is a Congolese language, I sing in French. It really doesn't matter. I actually I even sang in Chinese once.
Wow, that's it.
Yeah, it was interesting. It was an interesting I feel like when you sing in different languages your your tongue, which is a muscle, it it kind Challenge to fold itself in different positions to get the words out. And so that might just be a starting point, even if you don't understand exactly. Um
you know what the singer is saying. And there are some really cool Dutch artists, especially for the people who've been away for you know a while. The Dutch music industry uh has diversified quite a quite a bit. So there's Dutch rap, there's Dutch hip hop, there's Dutch uh soul and R and V. So yeah, I'm sure you can find something that uh that your older kid
No, thank you so much. Is there something I forgot to ask you, Natalie? Um or that you just want to share.
Yeah, no, I'm just I I'm thinking about uh Yeah, there's actually something that I would like to share. So when we moved back here, um our housing fell through just before we uh We left. Yes. And we had we had found a primary school in another town. And we I spoke to them at length about what would happen, uh what would happen with my daughter's um advice, I don't know, in in group.
Yeah, the the uh uh these days they call it the doorstrom kids and then the comes the final uh advice, yeah, for a secondary school.
So we had made a very clear agreement with them that they would follow what uh the Kenyan primary school, which is a Dutch primary school, mind you, would say. that clearly and uh so that housing filled through long story short we ended up here and um because of the rush i did not have the intro conversation with the primaries for here and then what Happening is that they gave her a lower advice initially.
than the Kenyan uh school did. And she was absolutely devastated. Yes. Um, because my mother worked very hard for that lice and she got in Nairobi. In Nairobi they had a better understanding of uh multilingual um advantages and also challenges that come with that. And here they just looked at the test results after three days, after three months, sorry, and they gave my lower advice and I was really angry. They corrected it because
I mean I don't know. They corrected it I guess because my daughter really showed them what she's worth but also because I I stood my ground. Yes. messages and pushed a bit. But I would really advise you if you come back at that time, you know your child, make a very clear agreement with the school of your expectation, especially around that school advice. Because
In the Netherlands, kids with a migration background still get a different and often lower school advice, especially kids of color. So be mindful of that. And of course. We can say that that's not what happened. But all these things we never know. But I do think it's really important to just have that clear understanding before you uh decide on a scope. Yeah. So that you can avoid us.
I think that's uh not a great story, but a good story to hear and a good story to tell. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Uh it's always inspiring to hear how families create their own path when uh raising multilingual children. And to everyone listening, if you would like more tips on helping your child maintain Dutch while living abroad, you can find resources and support for children. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with us.
🎵 Music
For now, thank you for the first time.