Welcome to 'Bridging The Linguistic Gap'

This blog will follow my attempts to teach myself and my children Hungarian. I am half English, half Hungarian and have longed to speak the language. Now is the time.

Maybe I've gone a bit crazy or got a bit over enthusiastic one day -when I decided to do this, but I really do think I can ... teach myself and also teach my children to speak Hungarian and connect with a part of our identities that is usually hidden.

keep your language alive... Speak it, Read it, Keep it - this is the slogan for my online bookstore - Mother Tongue Books. My store sells bilingual children's books, you can visit at the link below.

So now it's time to stop telling everyone else with a foreign connection to develop their mother tongues and start doing it myself.

Search This Blog

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Hungarian Tescos

In Hungary Tescos have a whole aisle dedicated to glass candle lamps and flowers for putting on loved ones graves on all saints day - November 1st.

We've brought a few home for our dearly departed family and have had many friends asking for some brought back for theirs. The graves look beautiful all lit up at night.

I wish our superstores paid more attention to celebrating souls of the good as well as the halloween frenzied evil spirits

Friday, 28 October 2011

Speaking Hungarian

I was really surprised that I could start conversations with my Hungarian family in Hungarian. I didn't realise how many words I had, and after a few days I could begin to understand them a little when they spoke to me.

It is like when a child starts to say words for the first time and you begin to get a fresh insight into their emerging personality. I feel that they are beginning to get a taste of who I am and I am beginning to get a sense of their personalities.

I even managed to say a few humerous sentences to break the ice just like I would in England.

It was a very brief real glimpse of my dream. Can't wait for the next trip.

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

We are going to Hungary.  This is the first time I have taken my daughter so it is a really big event.

My aims for this trip are firstly for d to meet everyone and her second cousins who she chats to on facebook. And also for d to realy experience that she is partly Hungarian. I think up to now it has not been very real for her. Her papa lives 300 miles away and there are no other Hungarian relatives in England.

I hope this sparks of a renewed interest in learning more Hungarian and is the first of much more regular trips.

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism - February 2011

These blogging carnivals are great. Each month a new host puts out a plethora of blogs from around the world each dedicated to bilingualism. You can read many uplifting stories from families raising children to speak two, sometmes three languages. Even some like me who are trying to teach their children a language that is not the parent's mother tongue.

Check it out at:

http://solnushka.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/blogging-carnival-on-bilingualism-february-2011/

Thursday, 10 February 2011

Blogging on Bilingualism - Carnival

http://speakingintonguesfilm.info/blogging-carnival/a-blogging-carnival-on-bilingualism/

This month sees Speaking in Tongues hosting the blogging carnival for all those somehow connected to being bilingual and living in a multicultural society.

Check it out for great discussions and new information.

Thursday, 13 January 2011

The best Hungarian birthday cake - Dobos Torte


We ordered this gorgeous cake for d's 12th birthday. It's a must for anyone celebrating in good Hungarian style. The cake has many layers of thin sponge and mild coffee cream with a notorious hard toffee style coating on top. mmmm!! simply yummy.

We had the cake made by Sweet Passion Cakes based in Weybridge by a great patissier István Gaál.