“Uncle! Prata set please—one egg, one kosong—and one teh peng! Oh actually can change to kopi siew dai?”

As a Singaporean, we’re used to hearing many different languages and/or dialects in our daily lives. Whether it’s talking to an uncle at the hawker centre or switching between languages to talk with different people, communicating in more than one language isn’t a foreign concept to us. #multilingualisnormal

Multilingualism is the ability to communicate in more than one language, whether it’s speaking (or signing), writing, reading, or understanding. Today, most people on the planet are multilinguals. Here in Singapore, we’ve been brought up to learn English alongside our Mother Tongue Languages. And in most cases, we even pick up another language or two as we grow up. For some of us, learning language might be a useful business advantage, while some of us just want to learn another language so we can understand and communicate about more things around us!

Previously, we have posted stories about our language backgrounds and experiences in a miniseries called Singapore Snapshots. Starting today, we will be sharing stories of our multilingual experiences from childhood. Childhood is when most of us start learning languages, and we think that it would be fun to reminisce about those memories together. Let us know on our Facebook page whether any of our stories reminded you of your experience(s) with language, or whether you just want to share a different experience you had as you were growing up.

We’re also currently recruiting families and individuals to participate in our journey to understanding more about language. Click here to find out more about what we do and how you can participate!

The BLIP Lab team came from various language backgrounds! Want to read more about our various multilingual experiences? Click here!