By 12 months, babies understand about 50 words (Fenson et al., 1994) and by age 6 a typically developing child knows between 9,000 and 14,000 words!! That's learning about 9 words a day on average! Linguist Stephen Pinker called them 'lexical vacuum...

Ever wondered why we can identify our own baby's cry amongst others? Some fascinating research I've been reading about at uni this month has a theory that babies' cries are like a little melody, each with its own melodic arc.

German babies cry with...

Far from being confounded by the slew of sounds they hear from birth (and even before), babies are slowly and carefully piecing together evidence of how speaking works, what it's for, how it feels physically and emotionally, what all these sounds mean,...

Let's talk about the damaging and redundant term 'semilingualism' that has cropped up around social media recently.

You might have heard it? Sounds a bit scary. Semi = half. Half-lingual? It's not a term that researchers use now, and it is quite...

Yes, Babel Babies is a multilingual programme, but that's not to say that children can learn infinite languages simultaneously, or that a smattering of lots of languages is enough if there isn't at least one language learned to an age-appropriate...

There is so much confusion around mixing languages, and it worries me that parents and children are often left feeling ashamed of this very natural, normal, and creative by-product of bilingualism.

Mixing languages is a stage in the process of language...

Who doesn’t love a pancake? Whether you’re a savoury or sweet pancake-lover, ‘Pancake Day’ is celebrated around the world in many iterations. The tradition has roots in Christianity and enjoying a final indulgence before Lent...

Over my 20 years as a languages teacher, and the last ten years running Babel Babies, I've heard countless adults tell me they are 'rubbish at languages' and hope they can help their children skip this problem by starting them early.

Let's be clear: if...

I often hear people saying 'the earlier the better' when it comes to learning languages. But it's a more complex issue that needs some unpacking, rather than a universally applicable statement of fact.

A really important thing to consider when thinking...

We did it! We published the Multilingual is Normal book, an anthology of sixty voices, talking about talking, in just one month from launch on 10th July to publication day on 10th August 2020!

This was my first foray into book publishing, and I learned...

Don't you love hearing about how people got hooked on languages? About the funny times when words went wrong, the little moments when it was pure joy to hear the words coming out of your mouth, and the incredible stories about languages saving the day....

I am still learning.

I quote this all the time (it’s attributed to Michaelangelo, who apparently wrote it on a sketch when he was 87 years old…) but am I really learning? I mean, sure, I’m about to start a Masters in Applied...