It's Never Just About the Language | Raising Multilingual Kids
House Of Peregrine (00:00)
Every language is a different way of living life. That is a very powerful statement.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (00:04)
language is a different way of living, every language is a different way of being.
a different way of doing life.
House Of Peregrine (00:43)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the House of Peregrine podcast. My guest today is Maria Potfin, founder of Growing Up Multilingual. Most people know her as Mimi. Mimi is a linguist and multilingual specialist who works with families and communities navigating life across languages and cultures. She studied linguistics, applied linguistics, and multilingual education across LMU Munich, Celta, and Oxford Brooks.
She's also living this in real time as a mom raising two multilingual kids. What I love about Mimi is that she doesn't talk about multilingualism like it's a shiny achievement or some perfect expat family badge. She brings the research, indeed, but she also brings the emotional reality. The grief sometimes parents feel when a child answers back in a community language that's unexpected. The presence of being the only one holding a home language, the tenderness of wanting your child to feel connected to grandparents but also to their
current community and to be part of themselves they can't fully name yet. If you've ever moved countries, you know this isn't about speaking the language. It's also about identity and belonging. It's about what gets carried forward from home and what quietly starts to slip away when life gets busy in a new country and a new dominant language takes over, when your identity or the identity of your loved one starts to shift. In this conversation we explore what it really takes to raise confident multilingual children
or be in a multilingual household without turning your home into a classroom or a war zone. We talk about why home languages get lost, what that can cost over time, and how language becomes a bridge not just to communication, but to connection with family, with culture, with the country you find yourself in, and with self. If you're raising kids abroad, partnered across cultures, or thinking about leaving your home country, or simply curious about how language shapes who would become,
Take a listen. This episode is for you. Welcome, Mimi. I'm so excited to have you on today.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (02:40)
I'm very excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
House Of Peregrine (02:44)
Please tell us what you are up to with growing up multilingual.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (02:49)
⁓
I am very passionate about simplifying the journey of raising multilingual children by bringing research and science together with everyday family life and making it as easy as possible for people to raise confident multilingual children.
House Of Peregrine (03:10)
What is the thing that you see? I wanna ask you about what makes you passionate about this eventually, but what is the number one lie you think people tell themselves or hear about having kids that speak multiple languages?
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (03:27)
One of the biggest things that I hear and that people kind of slip into believing is that it's just going to happen. that it's just somehow going to work out on its own. And then people wake up one day and their kids are older and then they look back and then they are surprised. How come their children, you know, can have a basic conversation or with their family, extended family or
How come their children are drifting away from from their culture, from their language? And I see this also as the biggest setback. I wouldn't call it a failure, but a biggest loss is that when children gets that the children get detached from their languages and culture.
House Of Peregrine (04:12)
Yeah. And that is what I want I think you're approaching this from a very interesting when I hear things about multilingual kids, it's all about how to get them into language, how to support them in the language they ha they need to learn for the country they're in. But you are actually talking about language holistically in the life of a person or a child, which includes the language of their parents or their country they've come from, heritage language, I don't know the right word.
And that is a huge part of the story as well. And so I've told the story on this podcast many times that when we moved to the Netherlands, we put our kids in Dutch school. And this gentleman, the teacher, came up to me one day after a few months and said to me, Ma'am, your son doesn't speak Dutch at school. And I said, I'm sorry, but he didn't learn ask to learn Dutch. And the teacher to his credit just said, you're right. But and so that's one part of it.
Is that the language learning sometimes is most heavily felt by the children. But then there's the other part which you're speaking to so beautifully, which is what if your language is being lost, the language of your heritage. And so I love how you're bringing this lens to the full experience of language in the human exp human life and children. And so that is is that.
When did that research start for you and then when did it meet real life? Or were they at the same time?
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (05:43)
Gosh, for me this started really early. and I wasn't even aware of this because it was in the last few years that I realized this work kind of chose me and I didn't choose it myself, not intentionally because I I grew up with my grandparents and my grandfather was
He was a peregrine himself, if you want, a wanderer. he left so I was born and raised in Bulgaria. And he was he left Bulgaria when he was two. And so that was in nineteen thirteen, I think, and went to the Ukraine and he lived there with his family, learned Russian, went to university there, and then they came back to Bulgaria. And he I
grew up with them and he taught me how to read and he taught me how that you can say things differently the same things differently in a different language so I would read in Russian because it's the same Cyrillic script and he would translate it for me and I was absolutely
baffled and speechless that you can say the same things using different words. And this is when it started kind of this is where he when he planted the seed. And then it went throughout my life. And I was exposed to English also v from a very early age because both my aunt and uncle are English professors and they lived in the same
very big house. So we always had English speakers coming. And for me this was incre I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it. It was incredible because it showed me that there is so much more out there than what I knew. And this opened up my curiosity about different languages and different cultures. And this proved to be very, very useful. life changing.
Throughout my life.
House Of Peregrine (07:43)
Yeah. And so growing up in literally a multicultural home where languages are being played like music throughout your house, that's what it sounds like to me.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (07:52)
Yeah, absolutely. This is this is what it was. this is what it was and it sort of gave me the bug to explore and to look for what's beyond the words and what's beyond what's being said. because every language is a different way of living, every language is a different way of being.
a different way of doing life. And this is something that's been yeah one of the main driving forces for me to get into this work.
House Of Peregrine (08:27)
Wow, you just gave me goosebumps. Every language is a different way of living life. That is a very powerful statement. And I don't think that people actually realize that a translation is just that a translation. It's not a transmission.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (08:41)
Yes, yes, absolutely.
House Of Peregrine (08:42)
That's so beautiful.
What did you notice? What did you notice? How did you notice that? So this might surprise a lot of people, right? Because now the world's so connected because you can translate a language and you can understand what someone's saying. but I think those that learn a language from childhood actually learn it through the resonance of looking beyond the words in a way. Is that true? Like when you're learning it as a child? When you learn a language as an adult, you're learning vocabulary, you're learning
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (08:53)
Mm.
House Of Peregrine (09:11)
This. But yeah. But with children, it's more, at least this is what I've noticed. I'm not multilingual. I'm so jealous. I'm so happy that my children are. That was one of my goals for them. But they describe now learning languages, now that they're older because they're teenagers, as hard. They're like, this is not fun. This is not hard. This is like I learned it like water. It was coming in and out of my body. And like it's a very different experience.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (09:12)
It's more conscious, yeah.
When they're younger it's a more
It's a more unconscious process. It's a more playful process in a way, because you don't have to consciously think about the fact that okay, I'm learning now a new language, I'm learning a new word, because you learn through play. And this is the best way for children to learn or to acquire a language because it's the they're acquiring, they're not consciously learning it like we do at school. Because as you said so lovely in the intro, at home.
it's not it's not a classroom. Parents are not teachers when they pass on a language to their children. And I've worked with with families and w and I was asked, you know, like this is one of the one of the most interesting and eye opening question for me. you know when you're when we're passing on a language and when we're doing all this language work
Would the child have time, would my child have time for free play? And I'd never seen it from this perspective because for me, language and play, they're always connected. It's always the same. and it made me look at it from a different way and realize that people do make this very strong distinction sometimes. and it's not because we children learn best through play. And
This is how their mind
House Of Peregrine (10:58)
Do you think it
do you think it might be everybody learns better through play? I always wonder this.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (11:04)
Yeah, I think adults we we're taught to learn how to unlearn playing, right? As we grow up. We need to unlearn this and be serious and be more adults. And now and
House Of Peregrine (11:19)
Yeah, sit in a classroom,
learn vocabulary, have structure. But you know, the people that have learned the languages best as adults always say they learn it from a lover or a like a partner.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (11:29)
Yeah, because there is a connection there, right? There is this language is emotion. And language when you have this motivation to learn it for something special, like a partner, somebody that's very close to your heart or a very dear friend, there is a lot more to it. There is a lot more emotion behind it, there is a lot more motivation because ⁓
House Of Peregrine (11:51)
Just more surface
area. There's just more surface area. And I wonder, that's what makes me wonder. So people always say this, and and you and I spoke about this a little bit briefly, is that children learn languages so quickly, they just pick them up, which is just not necessarily true. And it wasn't true for my journey. My son did not like learning Dutch. He speaks it very well now, but he did not want to. He did not have the desire. He did not have the surface area. But like he he just we plopped him in a school because everyone told us.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (12:07)
No.
House Of Peregrine (12:20)
kids will pick it up. It's it'll be fine. But I wonder now, and of course that's both terrible advice and I don't know how else I would have done it, you know, without a tutor and stuff, when he's five, but I just wonder that often is that if everybody learns better through play.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (12:23)
Yeah.
about this point that you made before that children there is this misconception circulating that children are like sponges, you know. I've been told this so many times as well. because my kids are also in Dutch school and they started with varying levels of Dutch, but very little Dutch, both of them. And everybody was telling me their kids, you know, it's it's gonna be fine. it's not like that. It's not like that at all. And
you basically negate the child as a personality when you say things like this. You negate the individual differences that children have. You the the you know, the the ways that children learn. Some children enjoy it, others not so much. Some children are super fast and don't care if they talk and make mistakes. Other children are very different. A lot of children would retreat and be quiet for a while.
before they start talking. But those are all personality traits and it depends on so many factors. And to say that a child would just pick it up, I f I find it's a gross understatement and a very an over oversimplification of a very complex process. Because children would acquire a language truly effortlessly within the first year of life.
After that the process starts to change and it's different for every child. Very individual.
House Of Peregrine (14:06)
Yeah. And at five or three or one, like my kids were, they did not have like, I just really want to learn Dutch. Like there was no ⁓ and so then it became about survival. That's what they'll say now. Like we just had this which is not again, they will learn it. They they did. and so what they're saying is true. They will pick pick it up. but it's not it's not a
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (14:15)
Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah.
House Of Peregrine (14:30)
delightful process always. The they it's k can be grueling, it can be lonely, it can cause trauma in that, ⁓ yeah.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (14:36)
can be very longing. Yes,
absolutely. And it can be very traumatic as well. So we need to also be very vigilant and pay attention to how our children are doing because things like this can come out in different ways. Feelings about feeling misunderstood, not being able to express yourself, not feeling that you belong, they can come out in different ways of misbehaving and being labeled the difficult child and whatnot.
And there is always a reason for this. There is always a a cause for this. And sometimes we we're very quick to blame and say, you know, okay, you need to drop everything else, you need to focus on Dutch and you need to push, push, push. But it's not because it it doesn't bring results like this without going back to the cause and see what it is that's causing him to feel like this of her.
House Of Peregrine (15:30)
Yep. Yeah. And for us again, it's it's it's what what I learned and I think what you're teaching people is you need to increase the surface area for them to understand why they're doing this, if that's what you're asking them to do. And recognizing you are asking them to do that. It's something you're asking them to do for your family or for whatever, is they are on the front lines often of this language learning, especially in the Netherlands, maybe not in other countries, if you speak English, of course.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (15:42)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (15:57)
But the the amount of of context that we gave our kids to be like, okay, every single day going into the going into the fire, right? thank you for doing this. We you can always we can always discover if you want to go to an international international school. But we didn't know that for probably three years till COVID. And so that was well, more than that. So maybe nine, eight years, five years. I can't remember now time is warped.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (16:07)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (16:24)
But so I would like for you to tell us, and then I want to move on to the other part of your very interesting work. Tell us what's the realistic things you can do or parents can do if they've made this choice to put their kids in a school, whether they're younger, older, teenagers, it doesn't matter. What are some of the ways that that we can make that less traumatic if that's what we need to do or want to do?
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (16:48)
The first and foremost thing is talking to your children, something that you said you did a lot. And this is something that some people forget to do, or because it's so stressful when you move to a different country and you decide to put your child in in a school in the local language. First of all, first of all, you need to think about are you going to stay in this country longer term or not?
Because you will if if you put your child in a school in a different language, they're academic language skills, because we need to differentiate between communicative language skills and academic language skills. And the communicative language skills they build fairly quickly within year, two years, depending on the child. and sometimes this can mask the fact
That the child is struggling academically because their academic language skills are not are taking longer to build. They usually take between three and eight years. you know, to be able to express themselves in an academic way, to compare and contrast and all those things that children need to do as they progress in school as well. And if you're only planning to stay in a country for two, three years.
It is really highly advisable to continue educating your child in the same language that they were educated before, or have a plan that's more sustainable long term, because putting them in a school in a different language for two or three years, then moving in a different, it's just not, it's going to be really traumatic for your child, and it's going to really interfere with their academic development. And
House Of Peregrine (18:27)
Yeah. And interfere
is a really good word. So that so you can do it, but it's gonna interfere. I love that word interfere with their progress, how they see themselves, how they they measure up against their peers. Yeah. So there if you take them for two years to the Netherlands, two years to Tokyo, and two years back to the US, expect that they are academically going to be behind, even though they may have picked up or heard these languages.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (18:38)
It's going to hinder. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (18:53)
They're not picking them up academically and also they're using their academic time differently than their peers. Yeah.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (18:58)
Yes, because when
a child starts school in a new language, they have to wear two backpacks of sorts because they're learning the language and then they're learning the content through that language. And then and they might be super smart. And this is the case for a lot of children. They they know so much in their home language, in the language that they were educated before, or in the language they speak at home. Perhaps that was the same language.
But they cannot express it. And this is also very traumatic for them. And as you said, interferes with you know how they see themselves within the group, within their peers. And this is so very important. The social aspect of it, you know. The I the the academic is one and the social is a whole different thing.
House Of Peregrine (19:43)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And that that's just something it sounds obvious, but you do not think of it when everyone's like, they'll pick it up. That's the advice. That's the advice pretty much across the board is ⁓ their kids, they'll pick it up. It's no big deal, especially if they're small, their language centers are still open. That this is all like potentially true, but just not the whole story.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (19:57)
Yeah no, yeah no
Yeah.
No, and yes, younger children they do learn differently than older children. And yes, they're more receptive, but they also tend to forget more quickly compared to older children. my son was born in Germany because I lived in Germany for twenty years before moving here. And he was three and a half when we moved to the Netherlands. he was going to German daycare five days a week, and his German was very decent.
Focus, he was learning it through the environment and through daycare. And when we moved here, I decided that we need to focus on Dutch because we knew we're gonna be staying longer term. And we completely dropped the German. Within a year, it was almost gone.
House Of Peregrine (20:52)
And that's maybe it's living in his brain somewhere, but that's the difference also is like, do you want your children to hear languages or do you want them to learn languages? And that for me was a big moment of distinction when when I moved here, I thought, we'll move here for a year, and then my children will learn a new language. And that, of course, at the time, this was 10 years ago, that was kind of going around, but that's when it set in, is but then we stayed two years, then we decided to stay longer.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (21:12)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (21:19)
was learning a language and what you experienced growing up, hearing all these languages, that was what I actually wanted was that perspective for them to know that life is lived through different lenses. That's what I actually wanted for them. That was the actual wish. Then there's another wish of them being multilingual, which is a different wish. And that was what I realized is that they they already have the outsider's perspective now after a year or two.
That's a little bit of trauma actually. but then learning language is a whole other thing. And so that's that's something I want people to consider when they're thinking about this is language learning is actually it be has to become and not in a way of a classroom where people are like, it has to become a priority in your family. It's more like you have to make decisions like which language to let go of and what how you spend your time and how you spend your emotional conversations with your kids.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (22:09)
So okay.
House Of Peregrine (22:12)
We talk a lot about language because it is hard and that's what they're doing right now. and so that it just it's it's more than it has to be your priority, like, you have to become a tutor. That's not it. It's like it really does become part of your family life to have multiple multiple languages and the experience of that. So now I want to talk to you about this other part, which is so vast and so beautiful, and I love that you're talking about it, which is when your home language may
start to disappear. Let's dive into that a little bit. Tell me your story around that and then I know this is present for a lot of international people.
Not being able to c communicate with grandparents, all this sort of thing.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (22:53)
You mean my personal story with my children? Yeah. Well, I left Bulgaria when I finished high school and I always knew I I wanted to see different things. I had a very very difficult teenage period. Very, very difficult because it was a lot of issues in my family and
House Of Peregrine (22:55)
Yeah, you can start there. Yeah, you can start there if you'd like and then yeah.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (23:14)
I survived. I I only realized this recently because I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life and my journey. I survived because of language. I had a because my grandfather had planted this seed and I had so many pen pals in high school from all over the world, literally Brazil, Japan, Papua, New Guinea, anywhere. Because for me this was my lifeline to
know that they were and and kids my age and they were telling me about their lives. And for me this was incredible because it helped me hold on. and ⁓
House Of Peregrine (23:54)
For those who don't know, I just want
to just for those who may not know or younger listeners, a pen pal back in the day before before the internet, a pen pal was someone that you never may never have met, but you wrote to them and sent letters back and forth. And it's such a an excruciatingly beautiful concept. But having a pen pal is tell tell us how did you
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (24:00)
Yes, sorry.
House Of Peregrine (24:21)
Like that that was like magic. I remember having pen pals. Yeah.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (24:24)
It was. It
was. It started. I don't even remember how I started this whole thing.
House Of Peregrine (24:30)
I don't either. That's what I was gonna ask you. How
did you get to have a pen pal? How did that manifest in your life?
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (24:35)
The the
first the first two girls I started writing with, they were in Helsinki in Finland. and one of them, because I loved rap music and I played basketball, and back in the day we didn't really have much access because Bulgaria was in this transition phase from communism into the real world, let's say. So she would send me cool magazines and cool tapes. Okay, for those who don't know tapes.
House Of Peregrine (25:02)
Tapes.
Now we have to explain tapes. All right, let's do it. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it for the people. What was a tape? A mixed tape is what I called it.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (25:04)
Yes.
This was a means, that a mean a way to listen to music that was before CDs, maybe some kids, some people, before Spotify, before Apple music and all that. but but after the records. So we're not that old.
House Of Peregrine (25:18)
Before Spotify, before C
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (25:29)
But yeah, she used to send me all kinds of cool stuff that was not available. And somehow through those girls I got addresses to other kids and then I just reached out, sent letters, and then they sent letters back and they sent me cards from where they lived and they wrote me stories about their lives, and so did I, and it was incredible and this really, really bridged those
five, six years for me. when I had to grow up very early and be an adult at 14 years old. so this really showed me that the world is so much bigger than what I had. And there's so many windows that you can look through and explore and so many different ways of doing life. And this was so incredible for me. So I knew that
I couldn't stay there and go to university there. I knew I would leave once I finished high school. And I ended up going to Germany because this was the only opportunity for me to be able to study and work and support myself financially, but fully. I didn't want to go because I didn't like the language. It didn't sound as melodic as English.
But I went and I spent twenty years there and it's truly the other half of my heart right now because I grew up there. I was eighteen when I went. And yeah, so this has been a running a running theme through my life.
House Of Peregrine (27:05)
So when you were growing up, you spoke which language at home? I know you had a lot going through, but what's your what's your mother tongue if you can say? Okay.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (27:10)
I I I only spoke Bulgarian. I went to
school in Bulgarian, my parents were Bulgarian. That was a truly monolingual household. I had a bit of Russian with my grandfather, then I had English and German, 'cause I went to an English language high school that we had twenty hours of English and we had various subjects in English as well, your geography, history and so on. And it was magic.
It was for me this was incredible and so interesting and I was devouring it all because for me that was a window, you know. I keep repeating myself, but that was truly what it was. and it was a lifeline as well. and and I studied linguistics when I went to Germany. I studied English linguistics and applied linguistics. And one of my
focus point was second language acquisition as well. And because I've been very passionate about this ever since I can remember.
House Of Peregrine (28:04)
Yeah, that's how life goes, isn't it? That is how life the thread the thread shows up in hindsight very much, but ⁓
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (28:06)
Yes. Yeah.
Yes, you
don't know why you do certain things the way you do them. And then when you look back you think, okay, okay, that makes sense. That tracks. Yes.
House Of Peregrine (28:20)
It's all connected. It's all connected. ⁓
and so you didn't speak Bulgarian very often after you left home, is that true? Okay.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (28:28)
No, no.
I when I left Bulgaria and when I went to Germany, I knew that there was no going back for me. it was a door and it was an opportunity that I took and I tried to fit in as best as I could. And I did, but for me
Fitting in, a part of fitting in was also disconnecting. I had some Bulgarian girlfriends, two, three Bulgarian girlfriends, and that was it. I wasn't a part of any community, I wasn't a part of any cultural events that were going on, I was avoiding them on purpose. and it became a habit.
throughout the years because and I would go home every year to visit my very small family. but
I never entertained the idea of going back or no matter how hard it was, because it's at some point you end up being a foreigner everywhere. You're never quite at home anywhere. But I felt I felt truly integrated in Germany where I was. I had my studies, then I had my jobs, and I had my life. And I felt
out of place when I went back home.
House Of Peregrine (29:47)
You've just described our entire proposition, by the way. House of Peregrine. Peregrines exist on every continent of the world world, but the word means outsider. So you've you've just described something else striking that I've noticed throughout our conversation is you describe doors and windows. And a door is something you walk through, a window is something that gives you insight. And that that's a beautiful notion that that you've noticed that there were windows in two different worlds and then doors that you walked through.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (29:53)
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm I'm a very visual person. and it the visualization really helps me with internalizing things for myself and connecting to myself because I had a very long time when I first went to Germany when I was
Perhaps hiding, you know, as much as language gave me windows to see what else is out there. it also gave me a refuge of sorts, if you will. It helped me hide and look for something else, but I was very much disconnected from myself. and yeah, I try to I it's just my mind conjures up.
visuals to help me understand all those things and connect back to myself and my own experience.
House Of Peregrine (31:00)
Yeah, that's amazing. I just wanted to call it out because I think your story has weaved you you weave windows and doors in. So you walk through the door to Germany, never to come back. It wasn't a two way door, and you knew that. And that's really hard. That's really it's like a movie when everyone thinks, she'll come back and you're like you know in your heart, I'm never coming back. and you know you're breaking everyone's heart, including your own. but you have to go where you need to go.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (31:28)
Yeah. At the time it was it was an escape as well. And I didn't really realize that I was breaking my own heart. I was
a big mix of anxious because I was excited but also very scared because I was alone. I was truly alone. I very quickly understood that the help that I thought I might have in Germany, I didn't really have, wasn't really there. so it was really interesting. a really interesting experience, let's say.
House Of Peregrine (31:58)
Yeah.
Well it's a different experience and and I I say this very carefully, but it's almost like even if you weren't and maybe you were as well, even if you weren't escaping war, you become in a way a refugee when you're going somewhere to escape. And again, I use that word very, very carefully in a different layer of the human human experience. And so maybe you were also f fleeing away from some sort of physical war.
But there can other there can be other wars that make you in more of that bodily experience of a a refugee, maybe. and that tr that's kind of what you're living in and I think that can be at any any point in this journey of living in different countries. but is that does that feel accurate to you that you were experiencing it more as a escaping something? and so that gives you this more survival
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (32:33)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (32:52)
bend to what you're experiencing.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (32:54)
It was a mix. It was
truly a mix and I never I've never thought about it this way, but but you make a very, very good point because I was it it it was a re I was a refugee and it was it's a completely different connotation than you know as you said using it very carefully. It was in an emotional aspect. but I was
And this was the the part that I was scared and again mixed feelings. I was excited to go, but also yes, yes, because I didn't know where I was going and what's going to happen and how it's it all going to pan out. but also I was excited because I really wanted to learn new ways of doing life. and
House Of Peregrine (33:26)
Yes. It can be both.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (33:43)
see what else is out there. And I think it's such a waste sometimes when and I I I say disrespectfully, I don't want to be misunderstood, but there are people who go somewhere and then they live in their own kind of bubble without making connections to the world that surrounds them. And I think this is so sad because there is so much out there that you can learn from that you can
benefit from and and it i yeah and it's scary. Yes. and and but it's it's can be so enriching and contribute to a person's growth.
House Of Peregrine (34:13)
And benefit. Benefit from Yeah.
Yep. And so I want it so true. And s and contributing and letting the place affect you is such a rich and important journey. it's also very vulnerable and all the fun things, but you're right, there's so many experien ways to approach living in a different country. and it is indeed sad, but also jet extractive for the place you're moving if you're not also
Giving of yourself and experiencing where you live. and so that I totally agree. and again, not to say it's wrong or bad or so everyone should, you know, it's just that's it's it is a shame that I would agree with it's being a shame. And so what I want to though, I want to make sure we get to in this last little bit, is what was the experience like? Do your children speak Bulgarian? They do. So
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (34:57)
Absolutely.
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (35:14)
Tell me about that and then what can go wrong or like you said, people wake up one day and your kids cannot communicate in a language and that wasn't your intention. Tell me about that.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (35:23)
Yeah, well,
let's start with this. it happens very often that people think it might be confusing when their children are exposed to too many languages. Let's say if one parent speaks one language, the other parent speaks another, then they live in a country where a third language is spoken and they are willing to
Sacrifice a home language in favor of the societal communal language. But speaking a language to your child that you can express yourself in emotionally and build a bond with your child through this language is the absolute most important thing. Because some sometimes people say, I want you I want my child to speak.
a specific language. It's not my my native language. I can't really express myself in this language, but we're gonna make it work. And
House Of Peregrine (36:16)
Yeah, so they what
they do effectively is they take on that language themselves, they learn it well enough, and they make that their home language. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (36:24)
Yeah, and this is absolutely
possible. This is absolutely possible. But you need to make sure that the language that you use to speak to to speak in to your child is a language that you can build a bond through with your child. And very often this is the language that you grew up with that is your native language.
House Of Peregrine (36:41)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Because it's really hard it's really easy to now, it's not easy to speak a language, but you can speak a language and then not be able to express your feelings in that language. And that's very important that you are able to express your feelings authentically in the language you speak to your children in. And that is such a that is such an important distinction because we we know that family connections are not just logistics. ⁓
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (36:53)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Абсолютно, абсолютно.
No.
No, and because you you you talked about the trauma of moving and and this is something that also anchors your child when you move locations often. This is something that your child always comes back to. This is one constant that doesn't change. You have the language that you s use with your child, the language that you've been using since they were born, the language that you've
build an emotional connection with your child and this is a constant that they can keep coming back to even if they or even if and even when they start responding in a different language to you. You're the constant, you know, you adapt, you adjust as they grow, but you have this one constant that they keep coming back to. Even if they say, you know, you're annoying or you're embarrassing or whatever. It doesn't matter.
House Of Peregrine (38:03)
I have this I you're you're bring bringing me something that I hadn't thought this is an aspect I hadn't thought of th in my own journey, which is my kids, I would say, you know, after a few years, they I started I started bringing my Dutch learning to them and like trying to speak Dutch and they would be like, Mama, you're so bad at this. They're little still, right? They're like five or six. Mama, you're so bad at this, you should just speak English. And they got really uncomfortable whenever I would speak Dutch. And I always thought it was just 'cause I was doing it poorly and they were embarrassed, which is
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (38:16)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (38:30)
Could be one thing, but you're bringing something else, which is what they might have been afraid that I would stop speaking English to them like everyone else at school. And so that's something I had never thought of before is that maybe I was taking their safety away by trying to learn the language that everyone's speaking. And they were still pretty little, right? So there were three at this point, like three, five, and six or seven. And so
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (38:52)
And especially
yeah, especially if you said that they struggled with Dutch in the beginning and it was something that they weren't particularly enjoying. so English was something that they kept coming back to you for comfort and like a refuge of sort. We keep coming back to that word, but
House Of Peregrine (39:01)
Yeah. So like not you two. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
Such a good point. Okay, well thanks for teaching me that. What else? So so that's a huge deal is that safety and relationality within the safety of your bond.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (39:23)
Yeah,
and also heritage languages and and home languages are something that is a part of them. It's something that is a true part of their identity and of who they are. And it's so important to I don't want to say teach them, but show them that this part of them is also very, very important and it's a very big part of who they are because
they don't just learn languages, the languages also shape them. The languages also shape who a child is and they're all a part of them. And being able to live all those languages as a child, to be able to live all of them and celebrate them and make all those languages their own, whatever that means for every child,
For me, this is what success looks like. This is what success looks like for me personally. and it's so important also to connect to the culture where they come from as well. Because it's one thing for me to talk about, let's say, a specific custom in Bulgarian and translate it in English. It's a completely different thing when I can explain this in Bulgarian and I can
use a Bulgarian text and my kids can read it. Not everybody wants to their children to learn to read and write in their home language. That's okay. I didn't expect my children to want to learn to read and write, but coming back to the emotional aspect of it, because my husband comes from Canada and when we went to Canada, my son was you know,
he was excited and he's excited when we go anywhere. And I asked him, So do you like Canada or Bulgaria better? And I expected the answer, Canada is much cooler because more more this, more that, and it's just more stuff to do. where we were, and he said, I like Canada better because in Bulgaria I have I need help reading everything. And I had never thought about this aspect.
And that was my cue to say, okay, heritage language school, how about that? so he started mid year. He started, I but I really wanted to use this opportunity and use my cue to just give it a try and see, and now he's been in heritage language school for three years. and I cannot express how happy I am. and this has also opened up.
House Of Peregrine (41:42)
Mm-hmm.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (41:46)
A lot of wounds for me as well, because we also spoke about my own journey with reconnecting. And I was as happy as I was, I was also very reluctant to do it out of my own selfish reasons because I was scared. I was absolutely petrified. I had certain expectations of how people would be, of how
Everything is going to happen of how I would be supposed to talk to people, and I wouldn't want to. and I still had Bulgarian friends, but this is different. It's you choose single people, but this was a completely different stage. And
House Of Peregrine (42:28)
So it was a coming home for you to to this language school and show up and communicate in your home language, in your cul cultural language. So not only was your son going into it, you were putting him there, this was a re coming home for you to something painful and something you had dis had escaped, as you put it. I see.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (42:29)
Yes.
Absolutely, yes. And
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And the beauty of it and
what was really great about it, you know, I so I decided to surrender, to take whatever comes my way and see how I deal with it. it wasn't easy, but it's been a fabulous way to reconnect with a lot of childhood experiences with the help of my child. and
because you know, they they speak they do language teaching, but they also do history and culture and geography and customs and just they do a lot of they're fabulous. And I'm getting a little bit emotional, but it's been
A fabulous way to reconnect and rediscover and yeah, rediscover through him and with his help as well. Because we've made I'm I'm shaking them. we've made our own memories, you know, with through the language and through all the different experiences. our little inside jokes of
you know, making mistakes or different things that he learns and how I experienced it and how he experiences it. And then it's a completely new memory that we make together. So this has been very healing for me.
House Of Peregrine (44:09)
If I do I dare say that it has helped you, Mimi, come home and appreciate all the languages and things you have in yourself?
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (44:18)
Yeah, yeah, even more so, absolutely.
House Of Peregrine (44:21)
Yeah, wow. Wow. Well that is I can't think of a more beautiful beautiful story to to demonstrate what you're doing with others and for others.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (44:33)
Yeah, for me, this is a very emotional, a very emotional experience. And this is why this work goes for me, it goes way beyond. Okay, let's see what strategy to use at home to manage our languages. not that it's not important, it's a building block of the whole thing. And for me it's
people's stories are so important because there is there's so much below the surface and when you start talking to somebody and when you start peeling the layers you discover things that sometimes they didn't even want to admit to themselves. And sometimes we laugh, other times we cry, but it's a journey for everybody.
And in a way homecoming. You said it so beautifully. because we truly discover that the language, the linguistic aspect is just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much so many more layers underneath. And for me it's so important that when I talk to somebody, I work with somebody, I I am there for them.
emotionally as well and not just as the multilingualism specialist who's there to throw the research at them and tell them to use this approach and this approach and then we're done. I can't do this. I really can't do this. And for me every story matters because it's people are so different and even if two family look
the same on paper, then never the same because there is so much more below in their minds, in their hearts, in their subconscious even.
House Of Peregrine (46:21)
In their bodies, yep.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (46:23)
In their bodies, right? Because
the body remembers everything and then it starts releasing once you start talking about it.
House Of Peregrine (46:30)
It's a journey. It's a journey. And and the a beautiful one at that. Yeah.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (46:30)
Yeah, it is. It and it it
absolutely and it never ends, right? Like you make a ba breakthrough, you use it as a stepping stone, and then you keep going and then you keep learning. But you have to be open and you have to be willing to do that. You have to be vulnerable, as you said before.
House Of Peregrine (46:51)
Yep. It's not just a language, people.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (46:53)
No, it's
never just about the language.
House Of Peregrine (46:57)
But it is incredibly beautiful.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (47:00)
Yeah, very much so. Because it's it's rediscovery and rediscovering of yourself, but also learning so much new, so many new things.
House Of Peregrine (47:12)
And
as you said, it's a new way of looking at the world and a new way of living, which is the real gift of learning a language and being in a different culture. Yeah. Mimi, you're so beautiful. I love talking to you. I want people to know that you if they work with you, they are going to be held in the most beautiful and next level way. I wanna be respectful of our time and
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (47:16)
Absolutely.
Yeah, yes, absolutely.
House Of Peregrine (47:39)
Please tell us how people can reach out to you to work with you and your beautiful method.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (47:44)
well people can reach me through my website, which is growing upmultilingual dot com. I'm on Instagram as well, growing up underscore multilingual. I recently started a sub stack as well, which is called Multilingual Ish. So I write about anything and everything that has to do with this journey. comfortable and
Very uncomfortable. But yeah, yeah.
House Of Peregrine (48:11)
Beautiful.
Perfect. We'll link that all below. And I wanna thank you for coming on and going so deep into the minutiae and the spiritual layer and the your personal story of this because this is what I want people to not miss. This is what I want people to know they're signing up for and also just the richness that is there and the actual reality of what a language is like living in your body, and in your heart and in your soul. And that's
What I when people say, we're just gonna move abroad, this is the part they sometimes miss.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (48:47)
Absolutely, absolutely. And as you said and as we said before, yeah, it's never just about the language. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
House Of Peregrine (48:50)
And it would it would be a shame.
Yep. Yep. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing your story. I loved talking to you and I can't wait for our listeners to reach out and yeah, we will have you on again. I have a very strong feeling to talk more.
Maria (Mimi) Potvin (49:10)
Thank you so much for having me. It was truly a pleasure. It was excellent, amazing. Thank you so much.
House Of Peregrine (49:17)
Thank Thanks everyone for listening to the House of Peregrine podcast. I hope you will like, subscribe, and leave us a comment. We read everyone. Please feel free to go to house of peregrine dot com and check out everything we have going on in the international community, including language learning. And please follow along for more.