Being bilingual … crossing language borders
2 Days in New York is a delicious comedy about cultural differences, mistranslations, and … lots of code-switching! Julie Delpy, Marion in the film, is stunning in the role of code-switcher: she switches seamlessly from English to French and back again as she tries to placate her scandalized African American boyfriend and restrain her...
Being Bilingual…becoming bilingual
There are many routes to bilingualism, and individuals can develop their languages to varying degrees of native-level proficiency at any stage in their lives. It all depends on context and need. Humans have the fundamental need to communicate, and children, born into bi or multilingual contexts, will learn to interact with their entourage in the...
Being Bilingual: From South Africa to France With Love (part 2)
Being “perfectly bilingual” is a monolingual dream, illusion, deception… Bilingualism is not an absolute, an acquired state, a finite quantity. It is fluid and dynamic: like riding on sand dunes in an undulating, ever-changing and never-ending landscape.
Being Bilingual: From South Africa to France with Love
Being bilingual in multicultural South Africa shaped my childhood and heralded many new worlds as an adult. Walking down the street in a banal suburb of Johannesburg was a multilingual experience.
