August 18, 2025 • 49 mins
19 - In this episode of The Language Experiment, Kaisa and Camillo sit down to reflect on their family’s first full year of living in Portugal. From leaving Canada to navigating cultural surprises, adjusting to a new environment, and balancing multiple languages at home, they share the highs, the challenges, and the lessons learned along the way.
Discover what it really feels like to uproot a multilingual family, how language dynamics shift in a new country, and why Portugal turned out to be the right choice for them. Whether you’re curious about expat life, raising bilingual kids, or simply love honest storytelling, this episode offers a refreshing behind-the-scenes look at their journey.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kaisa (00:01):
Hello and welcome to another episode of
The Language Experiment.
Camillo (00:06):
Hey everyone, welcome back.
Kaisa (00:08):
So this episode is called Our First Year in
Portugal, the Unfiltered Recap.
So actually we decided to,do this kind of a casual
episode where we're justchatting between the two
of us and, talking a littlebit about how our first
year in Portugal has been.
So actually now it's beenone year and one month
(00:31):
that, since we moved here.
Camillo (00:32):
Yeah.
I think it's gonna beinteresting to give this
little perspective to everybodythat is listening to us to
understand how the change haveimpacted po potentially the
languages around our families,the kids, and so forth.
Kaisa (00:50):
let's talk a little bit about how it all started.
So just a little recap of whywe decided to move from Canada
to Portugal the main reason wasthat we wanted to be closer and
more accessible to our family.
So Camillo's familylives in Brazil and my
(01:11):
family lives in Finland.
And, when we were living inCanada, we were pretty far
from both of our families.
And while my familywas able to visit us.
Every now and thenCamillo's family was not
able to visit us at all.
So there were, of course, otherfactors as well, such as the
pandemic that changed a lot ofboth of our families', travel
(01:35):
plans and things like that.
And then after the pandemicwas over, the flight
prices had just soared.
So it was very difficultto, to find, reasonably,
priced flight tickets.
Camillo (01:49):
Yay.
On top of all the difficultiesthe pandemic ended up bringing.
Our parents are notgetting younger, right?
So the long flightswere actually really
challenging for them.
For them.
it was getting really tiringto, to be able to, your parents,
for example, to visit us moreoften is not getting, easier
(02:10):
to anyone, not even for us toactually get the family and
leave Canada to VA to visiteither Finland or Brazil.
So we, we were looking forsomething that would make sense
from the family point of view,from our immediate family point
of view perspective, such aswe need to move to a country
where the girls, need to adapt,but the level of adaptation
(02:33):
shouldn't be too high.
Also for us to the point thatwe didn't want to move to a
country where everybody in thefamily would have to learn a
new language and adaptationwould become way more,
difficult than it should be.
Kaisa (02:49):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That was an importantfactor for us.
So of course it is possibleand, and we can see that
a lot these days as well.
There are many people fromall over the world moving
to different countries,especially Portugal, and
many of these people don'tspeak the language at all.
So they start learningbefore they relocate or they
(03:10):
start learning only whenthey get to that country.
And while it is doable, Ithink it, it is definitely
much more challenging anddepending on what the language
of that country is, the levelof challenge also varies.
And I think Port Portuguese,while it's not the most
difficult one based onother people's experiences,
(03:31):
it's also not the easiest.
Camillo (03:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think on, on ourconfiguration, our family's
configuration, Portuguese wasalready part of it, so we kind
of eliminated, this, or no, wedidn't eliminate because the
two Portuguese are differentand you have to navigate
through those differences andadapt to those differences.
(03:54):
But we eliminate amajor part of it.
And what we didn't want to,to have to go through was
because all this adaptationwith language was already
being done in Canada becauseof our main language.
And when I say our mainlanguage, my, you and myself.
(04:15):
The girls were leavingthe community language
within French and learning.
And, and, if you watch myinterview with, Philip, on
the past episode, you seethat, you'll see that he
says that the French youlearn in the Portuguese,
you catch, and the girlswere catching this English,
while living in Montreal.
But we were doing theadaptation at home with,
(04:37):
with Portuguese and Finnish.
So to move to Germany,for example, we have
another, adaptation thatwe need to go through.
We didn't want that new one.
So although we have, withinour listeners families moving
to a completely differentcountry where nobody speaks
the language, and if this isyour first move, we will never
(04:59):
discourage you to do that.
We have, we alreadydid that, but we didn't
want to do it again.
Kaisa (05:05):
That's right.
Yeah.
I think there were a lot ofchallenges anyway, so we were
definitely looking at a countrywhere some of the language
related concerns would besomehow alleviated or that we
would be relatively preparedfor that change already.
So yeah, I'd say that wasthe main factor for moving
(05:29):
and choosing Portugal outof all the countries that
we could have chosen.
So then thinking about theearly days after we moved,
what are some of the thingsthat come to your mind?
Some of the surprises,the challenges,
Camillo (05:47):
to me, I think, I was, I was really
well adapted to Canada.
I've never felt, Toodifferent there maybe because
of my own personality.
And when I came toPortugal, what I, what,
I think what struck methe most was how similar
(06:09):
everything was from Brazil.
And, what I'm saying is noteven the, the Portuguese
society itself, it's more likethe environment around me is.
the architecture for obviousreasons, the architecture
are really similar to,to the Brazilian, setup.
And, people here, althoughthey're a little bit more
closed, they're way more openthan the, the Nordic countries.
(06:34):
And we see that when wego, to a restaurant where
everybody speaks to us,but also with the kids.
And they're really,they're way more touchy.
They like to, to, touch thekids on their hands and tap
them and kind of tickle themand say, Hey, how you doing?
So these kind of things wherethe difference more the, the,
(06:54):
the, the biggest differencefor myself, is, is kind of
give a step back when it comesto the surroundings, because
Canada absolutely doesn'tlook like Brazil at all.
And when you come back, youkind, I was kind of feeling
that, oh, I'm, I'm back where.
(07:15):
I used to be.
And then once you startliving the Portuguese Society
and interacting with thePortuguese people, then you,
then that's when you see thatindeed they are different.
But at the same time, there'sa lot of things that I
could identify and kind ofrecognize, oh, that's why we
(07:39):
do things like that in Brazil.
It's because it comes from here.
We just, I dunno, we justput a little bit of different
seasoning on the behavioror something like that.
Kaisa (07:47):
That's funny.
So you could recognizethe heritage.
Camillo (07:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
I, I can, I can absolutelyunderstand, a lot of
Brazilian behavior, afterliving here in Portugal.
And, and it's notthat they're equal.
I understand, for example,that the Portuguese people
are way quieter than theBrazilian people are in general.
(08:11):
But at the same time, you seethings that at, I don't know,
some, some, some things that,how they deal with, let's say a
specific problem within societyand the Brazilian people do, and
you kind of, oh, I understandwhere, where this comes from.
If it's bureaucracy, if it's ifit's traffic, if if it's the,
(08:32):
the line of the supermarket.
I can see these traces then.
And then I'll be, oh,I understand why we
do the way that we do.
I understand why we adoptedthis kind of behavior.
And of course, like I said,it's ob for obvious reasons.
And yeah, it was just weirdfor me to come back to this.
Kaisa (08:50):
I bet.
Yeah.
For me, the early days, theearly months, I don't even know
if I remember what happenedduring the first months
because it was a time of just.
Major overwhelm and therewas, there were so many things
to take care of and we wereso tired from the, from the
move and the preparationthat had lasted for a
(09:11):
long time, several years.
And then once we got here,there was more stuff to do
and in a strange environment.
And, yeah, it was definitelypretty overwhelming.
But then on the other hand,I also started noticing some
things that were similar to me.
So certain supermarkets orcertain ways of doing things
(09:34):
that actually remindedme of Finland or reminded
me of Europe overall.
But then the majority of thingsfor me were definitely new.
I think Finland and Portugalare very different in many ways.
They're almost the more, almostthe opposites if you think
on the scale of, of Europe.
(09:57):
They're very oppositein, in many things.
But I think there arealso some similarities.
Like you said, Portuguesepeople are a bit different
from Spanish or Italian people.
They're a little bit moremelancholic, they're a little
bit more quiet, and thoseare very Finnish traits.
so I found that, Ifound that interesting.
(10:17):
but overall, I think duringthe early days and I still
feel that, yeah, Portugalstill feels very exotic to me
and at the same time familiarbecause, because it's Europe.
Camillo (10:31):
Do you think Portugal could be a Southern Finland?
Kaisa (10:35):
That would be nice.
I think a lot of Finnish peoplewould really appreciate that.
So, the next thing that Iwas thinking is, of course,
it's hard for us to talk onbehalf of our kids, but what
do you think was the, was ourkids' perspective on Portugal,
especially in the beginning?
Camillo (10:52):
I had this conversation a few times with our six
years old one, and I wasasking her what she thinks
about Portugal, in different.
Times of our move.
In the beginning, she wouldsay that she didn't like it
and she, she would say thatshe wanted, she missed, Canada.
(11:12):
She wanted to go back.
She missed her friends.
And most of the sentiment,I understand it was
because of her friends.
She was, right in the beginningof this social life, this,
this self-identificationof social life.
Right.
Go.
She had moved fromdaycare to school.
(11:34):
She had, although she wasin preschool, she was still
in this, she was alreadyin this school environment.
That would be the firstschool of her first cycle.
So she was already gettingfamiliar with teachers and the
environment and the facilities.
So everything was being born.
And then we moved her.
(11:55):
to a new, completely d sorry,a completely new place.
Understandable that shewould feel like that.
But then months were passing andshe started the new schooling,
past September, and she startedto make new friends and she
started to, to go through allthose changes that are expected.
(12:19):
And one day I asked her again,so, do you like Portugal?
How are you feeling?
And she said, that shereally liked her new friends.
She really liked the schooland, and that, and that was,
was already a com a hundredpercent change from the
first, from the first answer.
Then I don't knowwhat, what happened.
(12:40):
We were talking aboutsimilar stuff and.
I think I said that I missCanada at some point, and this
was another day and she said,oh, I, I also miss Canada.
but you know what, dad?
I really wanted to goto Canada, but my school
(13:01):
should be this one.
I wanted this school withmy friends in Canada.
So you see that on this answer?
She kinds of, yeah, stillmisses Canada was where she
was born and she was, startingher social life there, going
to friend's house afterschool or during weekends.
(13:21):
But at the same time, shealready started adopting the
new country and now she alreadyprefers the school in Portugal
with the friends in Portugalbecause that's where she
spent most, of her time now.
interacting with them, playingwith them, going to play
dates and birthday parties.
You see that the sociallife is being built,
(13:42):
her mind is changing.
She still loves where she'sfrom, but she loves to be here.
Kaisa (13:47):
Yeah, that's, that's really true.
And one year is a relativelyshort time, because I mean,
we were six years in Canadaand then here in one year we
can see that she has alreadystarted laying down her roots.
And of course the progressis going to be slow.
It's gonna take multiple years.
(14:08):
But I think this isa very good start.
And I agree.
I think we've found agreat school and a great
take daycare for them.
And what has made the adaptationreally easy is that we have
met so many nice people, notonly from their school and
daycare, but also from theFinnish community, from our
(14:29):
neighborhood, and just allover the area where we live.
And there are all kindsof activities and events.
There are actually way toomany for us to attend 'cause we
also need to relax sometimes.
But there's always a placewhere we can go, like some
kind of an event for kidsor a festival or something
(14:52):
else, and we can go thereand meet new people or meet
people that we already know.
And this is, this isvery special, I think.
And it's, it's somethingthat didn't exist in
the same way in Canada.
And then also our girlsare both one year older.
(15:14):
So also the social socializationand how they make friends and
how they, how they become more,I guess, outgoing and brave.
That also changes.
So I think both of our girls.
They are, they're abit shy and they were
definitely shy in Canada.
But I think the level ofshyness has shifted this year.
(15:39):
And part of it is, isthat they are growing
older, they're learningnew things, they're being
exposed to different things.
But definitely another aspectis this amazingly warm community
and amazingly welcomingpeople that we have met.
I think that has helped a lot.
Camillo (15:57):
Absolutely.
And, just trying to switcha little bit back to the, to
the topic of the podcast, howthat, influenced, our six years
old language, for example, isalso part of this adaptation.
'cause I can see already,it's been a while, but
I can see already she,completely adopting the
(16:22):
European Portuguese language.
And her accent is changingthe terms that she used.
they, they are changing.
She's adapting way too well.
So, so basically, if by anychance you're listening to
this episode for the firsttime, sorry if by any chance
you're listening to thepodcast for the first time and
(16:43):
you picked up this episode.
I always, spoke BrazilianPortuguese to my kids since
we live in Canada, and Kaihas always picked Finnish.
So her Portuguese was Brazilianto the point that when
she started school here inPortugal, the kids asked her
if she was Brazilian and shesaid, no, my dad's Brazilian.
(17:07):
Okay, but you come from Brazil.
No, he comes from Brazil.
I come from Canada.
I am Canadian.
And that just messed up theother kids' brains because
they kind of, why are you,why are you talking about,
do you speak Brazilian portu?
And now I can see her usingthe pronouns that they use
here for specific, situations.
(17:28):
I can see that shestarted to name, things
differently such as buses.
She was talking to me abouttaking the bus now to going to
our school event and insteadof using the Portuguese
term, which is bu, she usedotca, which is what they
use here in, in Portugal.
(17:49):
the same for vans we use, wejust got the English word and we
call it van in Brazil, but he orshe says, and this really shows
how well and easily she startedto adapt to her environment,
adapt to the new language.
yeah, the, the, theaccents changing.
(18:10):
The rs are, are, arerolling a little bit more.
So it's, it's interesting to,to see it to the point that
I, I'm already suggestingto, I already suggested
to her so we can switch.
I would speak French, so Idon't want to lose my French.
she, initially she wasa little bit, on the
negative side for that.
Afterwards, after we receivedCanadians from Quebec here
(18:35):
where everybody speaking French,she got interested again.
She started to sing some,some, some songs in French.
So I think I need to pick upthat hook and fly with it.
Kaisa (18:47):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I think now we finally,well we made a lot of
friends during this year.
But it has mostly been otherinternationals, Portuguese
people, Finnish people.
But, I think now we, wemight have a couple of
potential friends, newfriends who, who are from
France, so that would be,that would be pretty exciting.
(19:08):
So maybe we can have someplay dates where we all only
speak French and, yeah, let'ssee how it goes from there.
And, speaking of the kids'perspective, so for our
younger one who is now threeyears old, I think, well her,
her, her perspective is abit of a mystery, but, I can
see that she is starting tounderstand the different places.
(19:33):
So she knows that beforewe were in Canada, now
we are in Portugal.
And during Easter I wasable to take a two week trip
to Finland with the girls.
So.
So, although she has been,they have both been in Finland
before, but for our youngerone, this is definitely the
first time that, that she,she knows that she's there and
(19:57):
the first trip that maybe shecan remember when she's older.
And there we saw my parentsand other family that
they are familiar with.
So, so now she, yeah, now, nowshe understands that different
countries exist and now welive in Portugal and but we can
(20:18):
also go to Finland and Canada.
But then sometimes it's funnybecause when we are here
at home and suddenly you goto the supermarket or you
leave the house, and thenshe asked me, where's papa?
did he go to Canada?
Well, no, no, no.
He, he just went to the store,so, yeah, so, so it's, it's sort
(20:39):
of still the, the perspectiveis not, not fully there.
And also I think even for ourolder one, like now they, they
think that we can just decideto go to Canada this weekend
and, and we can just do it.
So we try to explain tothem like, well, it's,
it's, it's not that easy.
It's not that close andwe need some planning and
(21:00):
we need to take vacationand this kind of stuff.
But,
Camillo (21:04):
well maybe when we buy our private jets,
we'll be able to do it.
Kaisa (21:06):
Yeah.
Maybe, maybe when ourfinancial situation changes
drastically, it'll be different.
But, yeah, so, so itis interesting that.
They are starting to have thisperspective of, of the world.
And of course we are oftenstudying, studying maps
and showing them where thedifferent countries are.
So it's, it, it'sreally interesting.
(21:27):
But I think, so far, evenfor our younger one, I think
she really likes it here.
She enjoys it and I cansee how she's also opening
up, she's speaking more,her speeches is developing.
I mean it's developing atits own pace, so definitely
a little bit, slowerthan for our firstborn.
(21:48):
But she speaks Portuguese,she speaks Finn.
We still read to her inFrench every now and then.
And she's definitelystarting to dabble more
with English as well.
So if they watch tv, theylisten to music often
there's some English there.
And yeah, I think whathas really helped.
(22:08):
Us keep the finish going inthe family is that, yeah, we've
been able to go to Finland.
My parents have visitedus multiple times.
We are very involved inthe Finnish community.
So Finn School in Lisbon isevery other Sunday and I think
we are there almost every time.
So we have, we have met allthese finished families and
(22:33):
other Finn speaking kidsand that has really helped.
And also just outside offinished school, we do
birthday parties, play dates.
We even did a little trip inJune, together with everyone
who goes to finish school.
So I think all of this,all of this is just amazing
exposure that maybe we didn'tnecessarily have in Canada.
Camillo (22:55):
yeah, and I think our listeners can see that we.
We really try to do, and welive by what we oftentimes
comment here in a podcast.
It's what we try to do with ourkids is basically what we are
trying to shine a light on whenit comes to multi language,
(23:18):
children, multilingual,sorry, multilingual children.
It's, it's the, the adaptationis the mix of strategies is to
understand their environment andsee where the kids will sh will
shine more and try to adapt.
That strategy is tryingto build communities where
time and place takes place.
it's, it is the Sundayon the finished school.
(23:40):
it's the, the, the timethat we read in French
is in and so forth.
So even when I'm reading French,the kids, I don't comment on the
books in Portuguese, you commentin French, it's the French time
at that, at that specific time.
So we.
We are always trying toadapt to the situation.
We're always trying toadapt to the place that we
(24:02):
are, the people that aresurrounding us this way,
they always feel confident.
They, they don't feel shywhen I speak in French or
when I ask them to speak inFrench because, well, dad is
speaking French right now.
Why can't I speak French?
Why can't I answer?
And suddenly, when we had,people in the house speaking
(24:23):
French, you can see their,their eyes shining and look
at it and just waiting forthat opportunity to give their
opinion also in French and,and, and was great to see.
I didn't know what toexpect after almost a year.
but it was great.
And it kind of sparked thatlittle flame of curiosity to the
(24:47):
point that now we were asked.
To read the books in French.
Oh, can you read my, my, thisone in French and the all
that because of those littleinteractions and strategies that
you go around and put in place.
Kaisa (25:01):
It's true.
Yeah.
And I, I'd like to say thatas exhausting as this whole
process of relocation has been,so it was multiple years of
research and planning and thenexecution, then the actual move.
And I would say that nowone year in, it's still not
over, we're still in theprocess of adapt adaptation.
(25:24):
We're still in a processof putting our house and
our life together here.
So we still havesome unpacked boxes.
We're still missinga lot of furniture.
And, these things justdon't happen fast.
and especially when you havetwo, two kids and you work
full time, it is not easy tomake anything happen fast.
And I would say that mostdays we are pretty tired.
(25:47):
but this LA language, sospeaking our own languages and
trying to keep the exposurefor the other languages.
So English and French issomething that we have
ingrained in our life so deeplythat we don't consider that
extra work is just somethingthat's part of our family.
(26:10):
And, we will, we will keep it upand we're not even considering
it as this extra work.
So most other things are extra,but that's something that's
just part of our life and,we'll, we'll keep going with it.
And we hope that the childrenare perceptive to it.
And so far they have been.
Camillo (26:32):
Absolutely.
This is our life I'mnot considered as an
extra part of our life.
And you mentioned, for example,the, the, the English and
French and I, I think it'sinteresting for people to see
what we mean on what we mean.
Well at least an, a resultof all these strategies.
(26:56):
English for example,wasn't the language of
choice back in Montreal.
French was the, the communitylanguage school, daycare.
And when we were on thestreets, at least when I
was looking for services andwe go to restaurant, I was
always speaking French becausework, my work, our work is in
(27:17):
English, so I didn't want toget rusting in French, so that
means outside of the house,I'm going to speak French
because I need to exercise.
That's my personal thing.
And English was always beingworked on because my work's in
English, and we speak Englishbetween ourselves, but what
that mean to our kids, we haveour six years old, for example,
(27:40):
where English was picked upbased on our dialogues, since
we don't speak English directto her based on potentially
music or some cartoons that shewatching every now and then.
Great.
We go to, someone else'sparty and that person speaks
English and then we are always,always interacting in English.
(28:03):
So these kind of English is theEnglish that she was used to.
Then we move toPortugal and everything
surrounding the community.
Portuguese, she startsfirst cycle and one of
the subjects is English.
And she finds boring.
She finds boring becauseon the first cycle and the
(28:25):
first year they were, theyare starting here, learning
English and to her was tooeasy, wasn't challenging, and
she came back home complainingbecause she wasn't speaking
English already and was to me.
It was amazing to seethat coming from her.
We had to talk to the schooland the teacher, and afterwards
(28:49):
they came out with a plan.
It would be a little bitmore challenging for her.
So can she can be a little bit,she can engage more with the
content and she's doing great.
All based on the Englishthat was picked up
We never spokeEnglish to our kids.
We never had this, oh, you arein a French school here, but I'm
(29:13):
going to put you in an Englishcourse, in parallel because
I want you to learn English.
She learned from the specificbubbles that we would insert
her as a, let's say as apassive listener while we
were in friends' houses,while she was listening to you
(29:33):
and me talking in the housewhile she was listening to
music or watching something.
And then she goes to schooland for the first year
she's just crushing it.
Kaisa (29:43):
It's true.
It's true.
Yeah.
I think that's, that's beeninteresting, like now seeing
her test results at the endof the year and throughout
the year on, in, in firstgrade, is that Well, she's,
she's doing great overall.
She's getting the best gradesin, in all the subjects,
but what impressed me themost is that her Portuguese
(30:06):
and English are excellent.
so that, that makes me feelthat we made the right choice.
And, because of course, likeI was ready to, I don't know
if it was, I was expecting,but I was ready to accept
that she would have challengeswith Portuguese because it's a
different kind of Portuguese.
And, you know, she has, shehas always spoken Portuguese.
(30:30):
You have always spokenPortuguese to her, but.
She didn't have thePortuguese community.
So essentially the kids thatshe's now studying with, they
should, they should be ahead.
And I guess in some waythey are ahead of her in the
language, but at least basedon how she's doing in the
classes, the way that she iswriting, the way that she's
(30:52):
reading and her test results,it does not show any signs
of her being behind at all.
And she's actuallyahead of some people.
So I guess that just speaksof the effectiveness of our
strategy on you speaking inPortuguese to her since birth.
And of course, I'msure there's a factor.
(31:12):
I'm sure it is a factor thatshe's a person who is good
with languages and reallylikes languages, so that
definitely helps as well.
Camillo (31:20):
Yeah.
And on that, on that,comment on the being,
either, Behind on Portuguese.
I've noticed that on theacademic Portuguese, meaning
the grammar that you're beingtaught in school, the exams
that you need to go there, sheis, basically native, right?
She, she goes on a Plusesand A's and, and the same
(31:45):
as the Portuguese kid thatwas born and raised here.
And then when it comes to.
Being behind the Portuguese,I've noticed that she's behind
on the day-to-day Portuguese onthat cultural Portuguese, which
comes with the references thatshe didn't have in the beginning
because she was in Canada.
So a lot of things that shecomes to me and sometimes she
(32:08):
asks, I noticed that I wasbecause of a specific cartoon
or specific, figure from tv orwas Christian Ronaldo that does
something and then in school,all the kids, they do it.
So these kind of culturalreferences is where her part
is, is lacking for the moment.
But at the same time, after ayear, I started to notice that
(32:30):
she comes to me with a referencethat I don't pick up because the
kids are talking about somethingin school that happens in the
Portuguese, kids' culture.
I'm not part of it.
I'm never been part of that.
So sometimes I missed outon something that I, I, I
need to ask her, what it is.
But from the academic pointof view, she's really good
to the point that we had her,the school had this, reading
(32:54):
competition, and she went allthe way to the final and she
didn't go to the final itselfbecause she's really shy.
The final would be on this,improvised stage where all
the classes would be therewatching people reading texts.
(33:17):
And her teacher came to meand said that, Hey, she's
not there today, becauseshe didn't want to go.
She was too shy, but wehad to find a replacement.
And she had commented that, theday before, two days before with
us here in the house, that shedidn't want to go, that she was
shy, that she didn't feel good.
We tried to have some sortof incentive for her saying
(33:39):
like, Hey, this is great.
But when I was talking to theteacher, I said basically this
part of, the conversation that Ihad with us that I had with her.
And I said, look, youwere born in Canada.
You learned Portuguese, fromtalking to dad and reading some
books that we had, and you werealready getting to the final.
(34:02):
Competition of reading inPortuguese in a country where
Portuguese is the mothertongue and you, you are
not born and raised here.
This is amazing.
And the teacher was encouragingher as well based on
like, yeah, this is great.
And I think that these showshow, how much she loves
(34:24):
languages, how much she paysattention, how much she wants
to, to understand it, andall the question that comes.
But also that if you stickto a strategy and really
want, your kid to speak anylanguage, and if you dominate
that language, if you arethe best teacher who can be.
Kaisa (34:43):
Exactly.
so thinking about everydaylife here now, we have
more or less fallen into arhythm of where the girls
go to school and daycare,where we work and we receive
guests every now and then.
Actually quite often.
And during weekends, we hangout with friends, go to birthday
(35:07):
parties, go to play dates ordifferent kind of activities.
I think something that feelsfeels super normal now that
didn't really feel normalbefore is that I definitely
feel that we are lessisolated than in Canada.
And I'm not quite surewhere that feeling of
(35:28):
isolation came from.
So of course, one part was thatwe didn't have family nearby,
and that basically hasn't reallychanged because we are not in
Finland, we're not in Brazil.
So our families have betteraccess to us and they've been
able to visit, but they arenot here on a daily basis.
(35:49):
But somehow I don'tfeel as isolated as I
did in Canada at all.
And of course, I think onereason is that, again, our
kids are older because whenyou have little kids or little
babies, that tends to be.
Really isolating.
(36:10):
So you are not able to go toplaces and do things and see
people in the same way andyou're much more tired than you,
than what you normally would be.
But then I think one thingthat I notice here compared
to Canada is that normallyduring the weekend if you don't
have anything to do and youjust text or call someone and
(36:33):
suggest that maybe we shouldall go to the beach or to the
park or anything, I feel likeeverybody's generally available.
So I feel like we're doing somany more social things here
than we were in Canada andwhereas in Canada, I feel like
many people were either tooexhausted from the week to, to
(36:55):
do anything during the weekend.
And I feel like that was ourcase too, somehow, or sometimes.
That you would just have tocatch up with everything at home
during the weekend and catchup on anything house related.
And then another thing was thata lot of people were totally
wrapped up in the scheduledactivities during the weekends.
(37:15):
And of course I think herepeople also do activities,
but I see that way less so.
I feel like people's schedulesare way less full and kids'
activities are much lessscheduled than in Canada.
Camillo (37:32):
Yeah, I think part of it, makes sense due to,
let's say geography itself.
the weather during most timeof the year invites you to go
outside, although during thewinter, the Portuguese people,
they don't go outside oftenbecause to them it's cold.
And us it's not, and we wantto be outside and if it's
(37:53):
rains, we want to be there.
But also I think, the waythat our life changed.
in Canada when we had kids,like you said, you get, small
kids who are more restrictedon movement and you are
more tired at the same time.
(38:13):
When our first one was gettinginto the age that we would
be able to have an activity,active, let's say young parents'
lifestyle, the pandemic hits.
So we stay two years,virtually two years without
being able to move arounddoing what kids' parents do.
Then we come back afterwards,we are trying to adapt the new
(38:37):
life, whatever new was, and youhave the responsibilities that
start like, the first year,for example, when we thought
that we would have our kids,our, our, our daughter in the,
in, in the daycare, then youhave basically no daycare.
Then it comes back.
And you have adifferent adaptation.
And so all that, mix of thingsallied to the fact that you
(39:03):
are in a different countryaway from your family and
your family cannot visit.
I think I have this feelingof isolation a little bit
more, let's say out there.
And, and it's notnecessarily the, the
truth, but was our truth.
And now when you come toPortugal with a five years
(39:28):
old, turning six, turningseven, really soon, then
the, the two years willbecome three years old.
So it's kind of, it's more,you have more time and you
have more access to things.
Family comes visitway more often.
Friends that we made in Canada.
(39:50):
Come to visit us.
So it kind of, the localsthat we would hang out on the
weekend, they're coming, they'recrossing the ocean to visit us.
Our family are visitingus more European friends
that wouldn't go to Canadafor any given reason, they
are go, they're now cominghere because it is closer.
I think this feeling of,interaction and socializing is
(40:13):
higher because of those reasons.
We, we are now in a placewhere we didn't know anyone,
but we have at least threedifferent countries where
people come from to visit us.
Kaisa (40:28):
It's true.
Yeah.
And I feel like here alsobecause the culture is
slightly different, likeyou mentioned before, people
are much more open to kidsand interacting with kids.
So here it's easy to go anywherewith our kids, whether it's
the Carnival party, whetherit's, so we recently went to
(40:50):
this place called, KidZaniain Lisbon, which is a place
where this kind of like indoorplace where kids can role play
different professions and theycan learn the KidZania, they
can earn KidZania currency fordoing these different jobs.
And, Just in a place likethat, you, you strike up a
conversation with some coupleand their kid and, this happens
(41:15):
to us everywhere, whetherit's at the park, whether
it's at the grocery store.
So I feel like especiallyPortuguese people sometimes
are just looking for a way tostart a conversation and, it
often starts through our kids.
So I think, people arevery eager to interact with
you and, and it's nice.
(41:37):
I think it's, it's a goodway to socialize our kids
and make them more bravein using their Portuguese
and, and making friendsand, and things like that.
Camillo (41:49):
This episode is not sponsored by Kazana,
but Kazana, if you'relistening to us, we are open.
Kaisa (41:55):
So I guess to wrap up this conversation, maybe,
is there anything that we'velearned during this first year?
I mean, of course there's,there's lots, but maybe
something that wouldspecifically have to do
with multilingual parenting.
Any kind of insightsfrom our first year?
Camillo (42:20):
I think, insights themselves, let,
let's say new insights.
I, I don't think I had the timeto think about it actually,
but like I said, a few momentsago, I think this move, this
ear, gave me the confirmationthat sometimes, Whenever we're
(42:46):
talking about these strategies,I had this a little bit of
doubt when I was talkingabout the strategy because I
was already established in aplace and I had the, basically
the, the plan in front of me.
I just had to to follow.
So when I was talking aboutstrategy, and even when we're
(43:09):
talking about conversationson the streets with people,
friends, talking about thepodcast and talking about all
those, different strategiesthat we are, that we are
discussing the podcast, wealso had this, this thing
of, eh, but I'm not moving.
Right?
it's different from somequestions that we see online.
And now I did move and I didmove, and I can actively work
(43:34):
on the strategist from scratchfrom this perspective of I was.
Already in a stablecondition, and I made a
move that brought chaos.
How do I fix things?
How do I move frompoint A to point B?
And I, I don't lose qualityon the, on the subject,
(43:57):
whatever subject it is,if it's finished, if it's
Portuguese, and so forth.
And day after day, I startedto see the, the strategies
being put in place and the,the bubbles being formed and
the kids being comfortablewhenever we we're, we
were, on those situations.
(44:19):
I, I don't have new insights,but I can say that there's
no single strategy for youto, to, to adopt and follow.
It's always about, no.
What those strategiesare and apply them based
(44:41):
on your own situation.
Don't go.
I, I would say don'tgo to any, don't, don't
follow any kind of advice.
That is, you know what, oh,Paul is the strategy to be
and follow nothing else works,or time and place is the,
(45:01):
there's no single strategy.
our brains arecompletely, different.
Our kids are differentfrom ourselves.
Environments are different.
Try to apply several differentstrategies based on your life.
Kaisa (45:14):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I, I completely agree.
And I think, what I've learnedthis year is that when making
a big move and this kind of abig life change where it's not
only you but it's also yourfamily, your kids, I think
planning is so essential.
(45:35):
And I think that's onepart where we, we put, we
put a lot of effort intoplanning and thinking about
what it is that we wantto do in several aspects.
Not only in terms of language,but also in terms of where
we want to live and why andwhat kind of school we want
(45:55):
our kids to go to and allthese, all these other things.
There are a lot of tiny and alot of really major decisions
and we didn't take any ofthose decisions lightly.
We really thought a lot aboutthem and even when some of
our decisions were, Let'ssay unpopular or when we
(46:16):
told other people about them,they said that we were crazy.
So I would say a couple ofexamples were that we decided
to buy a house remotely,site unseen in Portugal.
Instead of renting somewherefor a while, most people told us
that we were absolutely out ofour minds, but we knew that it
(46:37):
was the right decision for us.
And while it wasn't easy, it wasdefinitely the right decision.
and always try to make decisionsbased on your situation
and not based on what otherpeople think is good or bad
or, or normal or abnormal.
So good planning and verythoroughly thinking through
(46:59):
these important lifedecisions based on your family
needs is really important.
And this whole experience hasjust solidified that, And,
of course it would, it wouldbe easy to just say like,
yeah, whatever, we'll, we'lldecide on that later, or.
Whatever, we'll do this nowand then in a year we'll see
(47:20):
how we feel when it comesto these big life decisions.
Maybe it's notthe best approach.
Okay.
So I think that's a good recapof our year and we would like
to say to our listeners, thankyou so much for sticking it
with us and thanks so much foryour messages and emails that we
(47:41):
always receive and, sometimes.
When we're still in the thickof it and still in the middle of
putting our life together here.
Sometimes it is challengingto stay motivated and
keep, releasing episodes,but all those messages
from, from you really giveus a lot of inspiration.
(48:02):
so please keep them coming.
If you have any questions, ifyou have any comments, if you
have ideas for future episodesor interviews that you'd like
to hear, please let us know.
Our contact information isgonna be in the show notes.
and that's it.
Any last words from you, Camilo.
Camillo (48:22):
Thank you and we'll see you in the next episode.
Kaisa (48:24):
Bye-bye.
Hello and welcome to another episode of
The Language Experiment.
Camillo (00:06):
Hey everyone, welcome back.
Kaisa (00:08):
So this episode is called Our First Year in
Portugal, the Unfiltered Recap.
So actually we decided to,do this kind of a casual
episode where we're justchatting between the two
of us and, talking a littlebit about how our first
year in Portugal has been.
So actually now it's beenone year and one month
(00:31):
that, since we moved here.
Camillo (00:32):
Yeah.
I think it's gonna beinteresting to give this
little perspective to everybodythat is listening to us to
understand how the change haveimpacted po potentially the
languages around our families,the kids, and so forth.
Kaisa (00:50):
let's talk a little bit about how it all started.
So just a little recap of whywe decided to move from Canada
to Portugal the main reason wasthat we wanted to be closer and
more accessible to our family.
So Camillo's familylives in Brazil and my
(01:11):
family lives in Finland.
And, when we were living inCanada, we were pretty far
from both of our families.
And while my familywas able to visit us.
Every now and thenCamillo's family was not
able to visit us at all.
So there were, of course, otherfactors as well, such as the
pandemic that changed a lot ofboth of our families', travel
(01:35):
plans and things like that.
And then after the pandemicwas over, the flight
prices had just soared.
So it was very difficultto, to find, reasonably,
priced flight tickets.
Camillo (01:49):
Yay.
On top of all the difficultiesthe pandemic ended up bringing.
Our parents are notgetting younger, right?
So the long flightswere actually really
challenging for them.
For them.
it was getting really tiringto, to be able to, your parents,
for example, to visit us moreoften is not getting, easier
(02:10):
to anyone, not even for us toactually get the family and
leave Canada to VA to visiteither Finland or Brazil.
So we, we were looking forsomething that would make sense
from the family point of view,from our immediate family point
of view perspective, such aswe need to move to a country
where the girls, need to adapt,but the level of adaptation
(02:33):
shouldn't be too high.
Also for us to the point thatwe didn't want to move to a
country where everybody in thefamily would have to learn a
new language and adaptationwould become way more,
difficult than it should be.
Kaisa (02:49):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That was an importantfactor for us.
So of course it is possibleand, and we can see that
a lot these days as well.
There are many people fromall over the world moving
to different countries,especially Portugal, and
many of these people don'tspeak the language at all.
So they start learningbefore they relocate or they
(03:10):
start learning only whenthey get to that country.
And while it is doable, Ithink it, it is definitely
much more challenging anddepending on what the language
of that country is, the levelof challenge also varies.
And I think Port Portuguese,while it's not the most
difficult one based onother people's experiences,
(03:31):
it's also not the easiest.
Camillo (03:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think on, on ourconfiguration, our family's
configuration, Portuguese wasalready part of it, so we kind
of eliminated, this, or no, wedidn't eliminate because the
two Portuguese are differentand you have to navigate
through those differences andadapt to those differences.
(03:54):
But we eliminate amajor part of it.
And what we didn't want to,to have to go through was
because all this adaptationwith language was already
being done in Canada becauseof our main language.
And when I say our mainlanguage, my, you and myself.
(04:15):
The girls were leavingthe community language
within French and learning.
And, and, if you watch myinterview with, Philip, on
the past episode, you seethat, you'll see that he
says that the French youlearn in the Portuguese,
you catch, and the girlswere catching this English,
while living in Montreal.
But we were doing theadaptation at home with,
(04:37):
with Portuguese and Finnish.
So to move to Germany,for example, we have
another, adaptation thatwe need to go through.
We didn't want that new one.
So although we have, withinour listeners families moving
to a completely differentcountry where nobody speaks
the language, and if this isyour first move, we will never
(04:59):
discourage you to do that.
We have, we alreadydid that, but we didn't
want to do it again.
Kaisa (05:05):
That's right.
Yeah.
I think there were a lot ofchallenges anyway, so we were
definitely looking at a countrywhere some of the language
related concerns would besomehow alleviated or that we
would be relatively preparedfor that change already.
So yeah, I'd say that wasthe main factor for moving
(05:29):
and choosing Portugal outof all the countries that
we could have chosen.
So then thinking about theearly days after we moved,
what are some of the thingsthat come to your mind?
Some of the surprises,the challenges,
Camillo (05:47):
to me, I think, I was, I was really
well adapted to Canada.
I've never felt, Toodifferent there maybe because
of my own personality.
And when I came toPortugal, what I, what,
I think what struck methe most was how similar
(06:09):
everything was from Brazil.
And, what I'm saying is noteven the, the Portuguese
society itself, it's more likethe environment around me is.
the architecture for obviousreasons, the architecture
are really similar to,to the Brazilian, setup.
And, people here, althoughthey're a little bit more
closed, they're way more openthan the, the Nordic countries.
(06:34):
And we see that when wego, to a restaurant where
everybody speaks to us,but also with the kids.
And they're really,they're way more touchy.
They like to, to, touch thekids on their hands and tap
them and kind of tickle themand say, Hey, how you doing?
So these kind of things wherethe difference more the, the,
(06:54):
the, the biggest differencefor myself, is, is kind of
give a step back when it comesto the surroundings, because
Canada absolutely doesn'tlook like Brazil at all.
And when you come back, youkind, I was kind of feeling
that, oh, I'm, I'm back where.
(07:15):
I used to be.
And then once you startliving the Portuguese Society
and interacting with thePortuguese people, then you,
then that's when you see thatindeed they are different.
But at the same time, there'sa lot of things that I
could identify and kind ofrecognize, oh, that's why we
(07:39):
do things like that in Brazil.
It's because it comes from here.
We just, I dunno, we justput a little bit of different
seasoning on the behavioror something like that.
Kaisa (07:47):
That's funny.
So you could recognizethe heritage.
Camillo (07:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
I, I can, I can absolutelyunderstand, a lot of
Brazilian behavior, afterliving here in Portugal.
And, and it's notthat they're equal.
I understand, for example,that the Portuguese people
are way quieter than theBrazilian people are in general.
(08:11):
But at the same time, you seethings that at, I don't know,
some, some, some things that,how they deal with, let's say a
specific problem within societyand the Brazilian people do, and
you kind of, oh, I understandwhere, where this comes from.
If it's bureaucracy, if it's ifit's traffic, if if it's the,
(08:32):
the line of the supermarket.
I can see these traces then.
And then I'll be, oh,I understand why we
do the way that we do.
I understand why we adoptedthis kind of behavior.
And of course, like I said,it's ob for obvious reasons.
And yeah, it was just weirdfor me to come back to this.
Kaisa (08:50):
I bet.
Yeah.
For me, the early days, theearly months, I don't even know
if I remember what happenedduring the first months
because it was a time of just.
Major overwhelm and therewas, there were so many things
to take care of and we wereso tired from the, from the
move and the preparationthat had lasted for a
(09:11):
long time, several years.
And then once we got here,there was more stuff to do
and in a strange environment.
And, yeah, it was definitelypretty overwhelming.
But then on the other hand,I also started noticing some
things that were similar to me.
So certain supermarkets orcertain ways of doing things
(09:34):
that actually remindedme of Finland or reminded
me of Europe overall.
But then the majority of thingsfor me were definitely new.
I think Finland and Portugalare very different in many ways.
They're almost the more, almostthe opposites if you think
on the scale of, of Europe.
(09:57):
They're very oppositein, in many things.
But I think there arealso some similarities.
Like you said, Portuguesepeople are a bit different
from Spanish or Italian people.
They're a little bit moremelancholic, they're a little
bit more quiet, and thoseare very Finnish traits.
so I found that, Ifound that interesting.
(10:17):
but overall, I think duringthe early days and I still
feel that, yeah, Portugalstill feels very exotic to me
and at the same time familiarbecause, because it's Europe.
Camillo (10:31):
Do you think Portugal could be a Southern Finland?
Kaisa (10:35):
That would be nice.
I think a lot of Finnish peoplewould really appreciate that.
So, the next thing that Iwas thinking is, of course,
it's hard for us to talk onbehalf of our kids, but what
do you think was the, was ourkids' perspective on Portugal,
especially in the beginning?
Camillo (10:52):
I had this conversation a few times with our six
years old one, and I wasasking her what she thinks
about Portugal, in different.
Times of our move.
In the beginning, she wouldsay that she didn't like it
and she, she would say thatshe wanted, she missed, Canada.
(11:12):
She wanted to go back.
She missed her friends.
And most of the sentiment,I understand it was
because of her friends.
She was, right in the beginningof this social life, this,
this self-identificationof social life.
Right.
Go.
She had moved fromdaycare to school.
(11:34):
She had, although she wasin preschool, she was still
in this, she was alreadyin this school environment.
That would be the firstschool of her first cycle.
So she was already gettingfamiliar with teachers and the
environment and the facilities.
So everything was being born.
And then we moved her.
(11:55):
to a new, completely d sorry,a completely new place.
Understandable that shewould feel like that.
But then months were passing andshe started the new schooling,
past September, and she startedto make new friends and she
started to, to go through allthose changes that are expected.
(12:19):
And one day I asked her again,so, do you like Portugal?
How are you feeling?
And she said, that shereally liked her new friends.
She really liked the schooland, and that, and that was,
was already a com a hundredpercent change from the
first, from the first answer.
Then I don't knowwhat, what happened.
(12:40):
We were talking aboutsimilar stuff and.
I think I said that I missCanada at some point, and this
was another day and she said,oh, I, I also miss Canada.
but you know what, dad?
I really wanted to goto Canada, but my school
(13:01):
should be this one.
I wanted this school withmy friends in Canada.
So you see that on this answer?
She kinds of, yeah, stillmisses Canada was where she
was born and she was, startingher social life there, going
to friend's house afterschool or during weekends.
(13:21):
But at the same time, shealready started adopting the
new country and now she alreadyprefers the school in Portugal
with the friends in Portugalbecause that's where she
spent most, of her time now.
interacting with them, playingwith them, going to play
dates and birthday parties.
You see that the sociallife is being built,
(13:42):
her mind is changing.
She still loves where she'sfrom, but she loves to be here.
Kaisa (13:47):
Yeah, that's, that's really true.
And one year is a relativelyshort time, because I mean,
we were six years in Canadaand then here in one year we
can see that she has alreadystarted laying down her roots.
And of course the progressis going to be slow.
It's gonna take multiple years.
(14:08):
But I think this isa very good start.
And I agree.
I think we've found agreat school and a great
take daycare for them.
And what has made the adaptationreally easy is that we have
met so many nice people, notonly from their school and
daycare, but also from theFinnish community, from our
(14:29):
neighborhood, and just allover the area where we live.
And there are all kindsof activities and events.
There are actually way toomany for us to attend 'cause we
also need to relax sometimes.
But there's always a placewhere we can go, like some
kind of an event for kidsor a festival or something
(14:52):
else, and we can go thereand meet new people or meet
people that we already know.
And this is, this isvery special, I think.
And it's, it's somethingthat didn't exist in
the same way in Canada.
And then also our girlsare both one year older.
(15:14):
So also the social socializationand how they make friends and
how they, how they become more,I guess, outgoing and brave.
That also changes.
So I think both of our girls.
They are, they're abit shy and they were
definitely shy in Canada.
But I think the level ofshyness has shifted this year.
(15:39):
And part of it is, isthat they are growing
older, they're learningnew things, they're being
exposed to different things.
But definitely another aspectis this amazingly warm community
and amazingly welcomingpeople that we have met.
I think that has helped a lot.
Camillo (15:57):
Absolutely.
And, just trying to switcha little bit back to the, to
the topic of the podcast, howthat, influenced, our six years
old language, for example, isalso part of this adaptation.
'cause I can see already,it's been a while, but
I can see already she,completely adopting the
(16:22):
European Portuguese language.
And her accent is changingthe terms that she used.
they, they are changing.
She's adapting way too well.
So, so basically, if by anychance you're listening to
this episode for the firsttime, sorry if by any chance
you're listening to thepodcast for the first time and
(16:43):
you picked up this episode.
I always, spoke BrazilianPortuguese to my kids since
we live in Canada, and Kaihas always picked Finnish.
So her Portuguese was Brazilianto the point that when
she started school here inPortugal, the kids asked her
if she was Brazilian and shesaid, no, my dad's Brazilian.
(17:07):
Okay, but you come from Brazil.
No, he comes from Brazil.
I come from Canada.
I am Canadian.
And that just messed up theother kids' brains because
they kind of, why are you,why are you talking about,
do you speak Brazilian portu?
And now I can see her usingthe pronouns that they use
here for specific, situations.
(17:28):
I can see that shestarted to name, things
differently such as buses.
She was talking to me abouttaking the bus now to going to
our school event and insteadof using the Portuguese
term, which is bu, she usedotca, which is what they
use here in, in Portugal.
(17:49):
the same for vans we use, wejust got the English word and we
call it van in Brazil, but he orshe says, and this really shows
how well and easily she startedto adapt to her environment,
adapt to the new language.
yeah, the, the, theaccents changing.
(18:10):
The rs are, are, arerolling a little bit more.
So it's, it's interesting to,to see it to the point that
I, I'm already suggestingto, I already suggested
to her so we can switch.
I would speak French, so Idon't want to lose my French.
she, initially she wasa little bit, on the
negative side for that.
Afterwards, after we receivedCanadians from Quebec here
(18:35):
where everybody speaking French,she got interested again.
She started to sing some,some, some songs in French.
So I think I need to pick upthat hook and fly with it.
Kaisa (18:47):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I think now we finally,well we made a lot of
friends during this year.
But it has mostly been otherinternationals, Portuguese
people, Finnish people.
But, I think now we, wemight have a couple of
potential friends, newfriends who, who are from
France, so that would be,that would be pretty exciting.
(19:08):
So maybe we can have someplay dates where we all only
speak French and, yeah, let'ssee how it goes from there.
And, speaking of the kids'perspective, so for our
younger one who is now threeyears old, I think, well her,
her, her perspective is abit of a mystery, but, I can
see that she is starting tounderstand the different places.
(19:33):
So she knows that beforewe were in Canada, now
we are in Portugal.
And during Easter I wasable to take a two week trip
to Finland with the girls.
So.
So, although she has been,they have both been in Finland
before, but for our youngerone, this is definitely the
first time that, that she,she knows that she's there and
(19:57):
the first trip that maybe shecan remember when she's older.
And there we saw my parentsand other family that
they are familiar with.
So, so now she, yeah, now, nowshe understands that different
countries exist and now welive in Portugal and but we can
(20:18):
also go to Finland and Canada.
But then sometimes it's funnybecause when we are here
at home and suddenly you goto the supermarket or you
leave the house, and thenshe asked me, where's papa?
did he go to Canada?
Well, no, no, no.
He, he just went to the store,so, yeah, so, so it's, it's sort
(20:39):
of still the, the perspectiveis not, not fully there.
And also I think even for ourolder one, like now they, they
think that we can just decideto go to Canada this weekend
and, and we can just do it.
So we try to explain tothem like, well, it's,
it's, it's not that easy.
It's not that close andwe need some planning and
(21:00):
we need to take vacationand this kind of stuff.
But,
Camillo (21:04):
well maybe when we buy our private jets,
we'll be able to do it.
Kaisa (21:06):
Yeah.
Maybe, maybe when ourfinancial situation changes
drastically, it'll be different.
But, yeah, so, so itis interesting that.
They are starting to have thisperspective of, of the world.
And of course we are oftenstudying, studying maps
and showing them where thedifferent countries are.
So it's, it, it'sreally interesting.
(21:27):
But I think, so far, evenfor our younger one, I think
she really likes it here.
She enjoys it and I cansee how she's also opening
up, she's speaking more,her speeches is developing.
I mean it's developing atits own pace, so definitely
a little bit, slowerthan for our firstborn.
(21:48):
But she speaks Portuguese,she speaks Finn.
We still read to her inFrench every now and then.
And she's definitelystarting to dabble more
with English as well.
So if they watch tv, theylisten to music often
there's some English there.
And yeah, I think whathas really helped.
(22:08):
Us keep the finish going inthe family is that, yeah, we've
been able to go to Finland.
My parents have visitedus multiple times.
We are very involved inthe Finnish community.
So Finn School in Lisbon isevery other Sunday and I think
we are there almost every time.
So we have, we have met allthese finished families and
(22:33):
other Finn speaking kidsand that has really helped.
And also just outside offinished school, we do
birthday parties, play dates.
We even did a little trip inJune, together with everyone
who goes to finish school.
So I think all of this,all of this is just amazing
exposure that maybe we didn'tnecessarily have in Canada.
Camillo (22:55):
yeah, and I think our listeners can see that we.
We really try to do, and welive by what we oftentimes
comment here in a podcast.
It's what we try to do with ourkids is basically what we are
trying to shine a light on whenit comes to multi language,
(23:18):
children, multilingual,sorry, multilingual children.
It's, it's the, the adaptationis the mix of strategies is to
understand their environment andsee where the kids will sh will
shine more and try to adapt.
That strategy is tryingto build communities where
time and place takes place.
it's, it is the Sundayon the finished school.
(23:40):
it's the, the, the timethat we read in French
is in and so forth.
So even when I'm reading French,the kids, I don't comment on the
books in Portuguese, you commentin French, it's the French time
at that, at that specific time.
So we.
We are always trying toadapt to the situation.
We're always trying toadapt to the place that we
(24:02):
are, the people that aresurrounding us this way,
they always feel confident.
They, they don't feel shywhen I speak in French or
when I ask them to speak inFrench because, well, dad is
speaking French right now.
Why can't I speak French?
Why can't I answer?
And suddenly, when we had,people in the house speaking
(24:23):
French, you can see their,their eyes shining and look
at it and just waiting forthat opportunity to give their
opinion also in French and,and, and was great to see.
I didn't know what toexpect after almost a year.
but it was great.
And it kind of sparked thatlittle flame of curiosity to the
(24:47):
point that now we were asked.
To read the books in French.
Oh, can you read my, my, thisone in French and the all
that because of those littleinteractions and strategies that
you go around and put in place.
Kaisa (25:01):
It's true.
Yeah.
And I, I'd like to say thatas exhausting as this whole
process of relocation has been,so it was multiple years of
research and planning and thenexecution, then the actual move.
And I would say that nowone year in, it's still not
over, we're still in theprocess of adapt adaptation.
(25:24):
We're still in a processof putting our house and
our life together here.
So we still havesome unpacked boxes.
We're still missinga lot of furniture.
And, these things justdon't happen fast.
and especially when you havetwo, two kids and you work
full time, it is not easy tomake anything happen fast.
And I would say that mostdays we are pretty tired.
(25:47):
but this LA language, sospeaking our own languages and
trying to keep the exposurefor the other languages.
So English and French issomething that we have
ingrained in our life so deeplythat we don't consider that
extra work is just somethingthat's part of our family.
(26:10):
And, we will, we will keep it upand we're not even considering
it as this extra work.
So most other things are extra,but that's something that's
just part of our life and,we'll, we'll keep going with it.
And we hope that the childrenare perceptive to it.
And so far they have been.
Camillo (26:32):
Absolutely.
This is our life I'mnot considered as an
extra part of our life.
And you mentioned, for example,the, the, the English and
French and I, I think it'sinteresting for people to see
what we mean on what we mean.
Well at least an, a resultof all these strategies.
(26:56):
English for example,wasn't the language of
choice back in Montreal.
French was the, the communitylanguage school, daycare.
And when we were on thestreets, at least when I
was looking for services andwe go to restaurant, I was
always speaking French becausework, my work, our work is in
(27:17):
English, so I didn't want toget rusting in French, so that
means outside of the house,I'm going to speak French
because I need to exercise.
That's my personal thing.
And English was always beingworked on because my work's in
English, and we speak Englishbetween ourselves, but what
that mean to our kids, we haveour six years old, for example,
(27:40):
where English was picked upbased on our dialogues, since
we don't speak English directto her based on potentially
music or some cartoons that shewatching every now and then.
Great.
We go to, someone else'sparty and that person speaks
English and then we are always,always interacting in English.
(28:03):
So these kind of English is theEnglish that she was used to.
Then we move toPortugal and everything
surrounding the community.
Portuguese, she startsfirst cycle and one of
the subjects is English.
And she finds boring.
She finds boring becauseon the first cycle and the
(28:25):
first year they were, theyare starting here, learning
English and to her was tooeasy, wasn't challenging, and
she came back home complainingbecause she wasn't speaking
English already and was to me.
It was amazing to seethat coming from her.
We had to talk to the schooland the teacher, and afterwards
(28:49):
they came out with a plan.
It would be a little bitmore challenging for her.
So can she can be a little bit,she can engage more with the
content and she's doing great.
All based on the Englishthat was picked up
We never spokeEnglish to our kids.
We never had this, oh, you arein a French school here, but I'm
(29:13):
going to put you in an Englishcourse, in parallel because
I want you to learn English.
She learned from the specificbubbles that we would insert
her as a, let's say as apassive listener while we
were in friends' houses,while she was listening to you
(29:33):
and me talking in the housewhile she was listening to
music or watching something.
And then she goes to schooland for the first year
she's just crushing it.
Kaisa (29:43):
It's true.
It's true.
Yeah.
I think that's, that's beeninteresting, like now seeing
her test results at the endof the year and throughout
the year on, in, in firstgrade, is that Well, she's,
she's doing great overall.
She's getting the best gradesin, in all the subjects,
but what impressed me themost is that her Portuguese
(30:06):
and English are excellent.
so that, that makes me feelthat we made the right choice.
And, because of course, likeI was ready to, I don't know
if it was, I was expecting,but I was ready to accept
that she would have challengeswith Portuguese because it's a
different kind of Portuguese.
And, you know, she has, shehas always spoken Portuguese.
(30:30):
You have always spokenPortuguese to her, but.
She didn't have thePortuguese community.
So essentially the kids thatshe's now studying with, they
should, they should be ahead.
And I guess in some waythey are ahead of her in the
language, but at least basedon how she's doing in the
classes, the way that she iswriting, the way that she's
(30:52):
reading and her test results,it does not show any signs
of her being behind at all.
And she's actuallyahead of some people.
So I guess that just speaksof the effectiveness of our
strategy on you speaking inPortuguese to her since birth.
And of course, I'msure there's a factor.
(31:12):
I'm sure it is a factor thatshe's a person who is good
with languages and reallylikes languages, so that
definitely helps as well.
Camillo (31:20):
Yeah.
And on that, on that,comment on the being,
either, Behind on Portuguese.
I've noticed that on theacademic Portuguese, meaning
the grammar that you're beingtaught in school, the exams
that you need to go there, sheis, basically native, right?
She, she goes on a Plusesand A's and, and the same
(31:45):
as the Portuguese kid thatwas born and raised here.
And then when it comes to.
Being behind the Portuguese,I've noticed that she's behind
on the day-to-day Portuguese onthat cultural Portuguese, which
comes with the references thatshe didn't have in the beginning
because she was in Canada.
So a lot of things that shecomes to me and sometimes she
(32:08):
asks, I noticed that I wasbecause of a specific cartoon
or specific, figure from tv orwas Christian Ronaldo that does
something and then in school,all the kids, they do it.
So these kind of culturalreferences is where her part
is, is lacking for the moment.
But at the same time, after ayear, I started to notice that
(32:30):
she comes to me with a referencethat I don't pick up because the
kids are talking about somethingin school that happens in the
Portuguese, kids' culture.
I'm not part of it.
I'm never been part of that.
So sometimes I missed outon something that I, I, I
need to ask her, what it is.
But from the academic pointof view, she's really good
to the point that we had her,the school had this, reading
(32:54):
competition, and she went allthe way to the final and she
didn't go to the final itselfbecause she's really shy.
The final would be on this,improvised stage where all
the classes would be therewatching people reading texts.
(33:17):
And her teacher came to meand said that, Hey, she's
not there today, becauseshe didn't want to go.
She was too shy, but wehad to find a replacement.
And she had commented that, theday before, two days before with
us here in the house, that shedidn't want to go, that she was
shy, that she didn't feel good.
We tried to have some sortof incentive for her saying
(33:39):
like, Hey, this is great.
But when I was talking to theteacher, I said basically this
part of, the conversation that Ihad with us that I had with her.
And I said, look, youwere born in Canada.
You learned Portuguese, fromtalking to dad and reading some
books that we had, and you werealready getting to the final.
(34:02):
Competition of reading inPortuguese in a country where
Portuguese is the mothertongue and you, you are
not born and raised here.
This is amazing.
And the teacher was encouragingher as well based on
like, yeah, this is great.
And I think that these showshow, how much she loves
(34:24):
languages, how much she paysattention, how much she wants
to, to understand it, andall the question that comes.
But also that if you stickto a strategy and really
want, your kid to speak anylanguage, and if you dominate
that language, if you arethe best teacher who can be.
Kaisa (34:43):
Exactly.
so thinking about everydaylife here now, we have
more or less fallen into arhythm of where the girls
go to school and daycare,where we work and we receive
guests every now and then.
Actually quite often.
And during weekends, we hangout with friends, go to birthday
(35:07):
parties, go to play dates ordifferent kind of activities.
I think something that feelsfeels super normal now that
didn't really feel normalbefore is that I definitely
feel that we are lessisolated than in Canada.
And I'm not quite surewhere that feeling of
(35:28):
isolation came from.
So of course, one part was thatwe didn't have family nearby,
and that basically hasn't reallychanged because we are not in
Finland, we're not in Brazil.
So our families have betteraccess to us and they've been
able to visit, but they arenot here on a daily basis.
(35:49):
But somehow I don'tfeel as isolated as I
did in Canada at all.
And of course, I think onereason is that, again, our
kids are older because whenyou have little kids or little
babies, that tends to be.
Really isolating.
(36:10):
So you are not able to go toplaces and do things and see
people in the same way andyou're much more tired than you,
than what you normally would be.
But then I think one thingthat I notice here compared
to Canada is that normallyduring the weekend if you don't
have anything to do and youjust text or call someone and
(36:33):
suggest that maybe we shouldall go to the beach or to the
park or anything, I feel likeeverybody's generally available.
So I feel like we're doing somany more social things here
than we were in Canada andwhereas in Canada, I feel like
many people were either tooexhausted from the week to, to
(36:55):
do anything during the weekend.
And I feel like that was ourcase too, somehow, or sometimes.
That you would just have tocatch up with everything at home
during the weekend and catchup on anything house related.
And then another thing was thata lot of people were totally
wrapped up in the scheduledactivities during the weekends.
(37:15):
And of course I think herepeople also do activities,
but I see that way less so.
I feel like people's schedulesare way less full and kids'
activities are much lessscheduled than in Canada.
Camillo (37:32):
Yeah, I think part of it, makes sense due to,
let's say geography itself.
the weather during most timeof the year invites you to go
outside, although during thewinter, the Portuguese people,
they don't go outside oftenbecause to them it's cold.
And us it's not, and we wantto be outside and if it's
(37:53):
rains, we want to be there.
But also I think, the waythat our life changed.
in Canada when we had kids,like you said, you get, small
kids who are more restrictedon movement and you are
more tired at the same time.
(38:13):
When our first one was gettinginto the age that we would
be able to have an activity,active, let's say young parents'
lifestyle, the pandemic hits.
So we stay two years,virtually two years without
being able to move arounddoing what kids' parents do.
Then we come back afterwards,we are trying to adapt the new
(38:37):
life, whatever new was, and youhave the responsibilities that
start like, the first year,for example, when we thought
that we would have our kids,our, our, our daughter in the,
in, in the daycare, then youhave basically no daycare.
Then it comes back.
And you have adifferent adaptation.
And so all that, mix of thingsallied to the fact that you
(39:03):
are in a different countryaway from your family and
your family cannot visit.
I think I have this feelingof isolation a little bit
more, let's say out there.
And, and it's notnecessarily the, the
truth, but was our truth.
And now when you come toPortugal with a five years
(39:28):
old, turning six, turningseven, really soon, then
the, the two years willbecome three years old.
So it's kind of, it's more,you have more time and you
have more access to things.
Family comes visitway more often.
Friends that we made in Canada.
(39:50):
Come to visit us.
So it kind of, the localsthat we would hang out on the
weekend, they're coming, they'recrossing the ocean to visit us.
Our family are visitingus more European friends
that wouldn't go to Canadafor any given reason, they
are go, they're now cominghere because it is closer.
I think this feeling of,interaction and socializing is
(40:13):
higher because of those reasons.
We, we are now in a placewhere we didn't know anyone,
but we have at least threedifferent countries where
people come from to visit us.
Kaisa (40:28):
It's true.
Yeah.
And I feel like here alsobecause the culture is
slightly different, likeyou mentioned before, people
are much more open to kidsand interacting with kids.
So here it's easy to go anywherewith our kids, whether it's
the Carnival party, whetherit's, so we recently went to
(40:50):
this place called, KidZaniain Lisbon, which is a place
where this kind of like indoorplace where kids can role play
different professions and theycan learn the KidZania, they
can earn KidZania currency fordoing these different jobs.
And, Just in a place likethat, you, you strike up a
conversation with some coupleand their kid and, this happens
(41:15):
to us everywhere, whetherit's at the park, whether
it's at the grocery store.
So I feel like especiallyPortuguese people sometimes
are just looking for a way tostart a conversation and, it
often starts through our kids.
So I think, people arevery eager to interact with
you and, and it's nice.
(41:37):
I think it's, it's a goodway to socialize our kids
and make them more bravein using their Portuguese
and, and making friendsand, and things like that.
Camillo (41:49):
This episode is not sponsored by Kazana,
but Kazana, if you'relistening to us, we are open.
Kaisa (41:55):
So I guess to wrap up this conversation, maybe,
is there anything that we'velearned during this first year?
I mean, of course there's,there's lots, but maybe
something that wouldspecifically have to do
with multilingual parenting.
Any kind of insightsfrom our first year?
Camillo (42:20):
I think, insights themselves, let,
let's say new insights.
I, I don't think I had the timeto think about it actually,
but like I said, a few momentsago, I think this move, this
ear, gave me the confirmationthat sometimes, Whenever we're
(42:46):
talking about these strategies,I had this a little bit of
doubt when I was talkingabout the strategy because I
was already established in aplace and I had the, basically
the, the plan in front of me.
I just had to to follow.
So when I was talking aboutstrategy, and even when we're
(43:09):
talking about conversationson the streets with people,
friends, talking about thepodcast and talking about all
those, different strategiesthat we are, that we are
discussing the podcast, wealso had this, this thing
of, eh, but I'm not moving.
Right?
it's different from somequestions that we see online.
And now I did move and I didmove, and I can actively work
(43:34):
on the strategist from scratchfrom this perspective of I was.
Already in a stablecondition, and I made a
move that brought chaos.
How do I fix things?
How do I move frompoint A to point B?
And I, I don't lose qualityon the, on the subject,
(43:57):
whatever subject it is,if it's finished, if it's
Portuguese, and so forth.
And day after day, I startedto see the, the strategies
being put in place and the,the bubbles being formed and
the kids being comfortablewhenever we we're, we
were, on those situations.
(44:19):
I, I don't have new insights,but I can say that there's
no single strategy for youto, to, to adopt and follow.
It's always about, no.
What those strategiesare and apply them based
(44:41):
on your own situation.
Don't go.
I, I would say don'tgo to any, don't, don't
follow any kind of advice.
That is, you know what, oh,Paul is the strategy to be
and follow nothing else works,or time and place is the,
(45:01):
there's no single strategy.
our brains arecompletely, different.
Our kids are differentfrom ourselves.
Environments are different.
Try to apply several differentstrategies based on your life.
Kaisa (45:14):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I, I completely agree.
And I think, what I've learnedthis year is that when making
a big move and this kind of abig life change where it's not
only you but it's also yourfamily, your kids, I think
planning is so essential.
(45:35):
And I think that's onepart where we, we put, we
put a lot of effort intoplanning and thinking about
what it is that we wantto do in several aspects.
Not only in terms of language,but also in terms of where
we want to live and why andwhat kind of school we want
(45:55):
our kids to go to and allthese, all these other things.
There are a lot of tiny and alot of really major decisions
and we didn't take any ofthose decisions lightly.
We really thought a lot aboutthem and even when some of
our decisions were, Let'ssay unpopular or when we
(46:16):
told other people about them,they said that we were crazy.
So I would say a couple ofexamples were that we decided
to buy a house remotely,site unseen in Portugal.
Instead of renting somewherefor a while, most people told us
that we were absolutely out ofour minds, but we knew that it
(46:37):
was the right decision for us.
And while it wasn't easy, it wasdefinitely the right decision.
and always try to make decisionsbased on your situation
and not based on what otherpeople think is good or bad
or, or normal or abnormal.
So good planning and verythoroughly thinking through
(46:59):
these important lifedecisions based on your family
needs is really important.
And this whole experience hasjust solidified that, And,
of course it would, it wouldbe easy to just say like,
yeah, whatever, we'll, we'lldecide on that later, or.
Whatever, we'll do this nowand then in a year we'll see
(47:20):
how we feel when it comesto these big life decisions.
Maybe it's notthe best approach.
Okay.
So I think that's a good recapof our year and we would like
to say to our listeners, thankyou so much for sticking it
with us and thanks so much foryour messages and emails that we
(47:41):
always receive and, sometimes.
When we're still in the thickof it and still in the middle of
putting our life together here.
Sometimes it is challengingto stay motivated and
keep, releasing episodes,but all those messages
from, from you really giveus a lot of inspiration.
(48:02):
so please keep them coming.
If you have any questions, ifyou have any comments, if you
have ideas for future episodesor interviews that you'd like
to hear, please let us know.
Our contact information isgonna be in the show notes.
and that's it.
Any last words from you, Camilo.
Camillo (48:22):
Thank you and we'll see you in the next episode.
Kaisa (48:24):
Bye-bye.
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