Sunday 2 March 2014

Hopefully exciting developments

Unfortunately, this blog has been rather dormant for the last year or so. My linguistics dissertation took up all my writing energy and made me neglect all other ramblings. I've now completed my Masters, and we're planning big changes which make this blog relevant again!

The plan (if the current geopolitical turmoil settles down) is for us to move to Russia for a couple of years and send the kids to French school while we are there. This big decision has many ramifications, but, purely on the languages front, it will be fascinating to see how the kids' languages are affected, how soon we'll see an impact, and what differences we see between the three children.

In many other respects, this will be a fascinating experience as we as a family will get a chance to live in today's Russia and experience near-total immersion in Russian culture - near-total as we will also partly be immersing in French school culture, and presumably international expat culture if there is such a thing.

This decision is not without its challenges however, and the first major one of these is linked to what is happening in Ukraine as I write. Can we move to a country which has seemingly declared war on a neighbour? Would it be easier to do this if one of us were not Russian? Is it safe? Is it economically viable? Is it ethical? We are still wrestling with these questions.

In any case, for all concerned on the ground, and for the wider world, I hope for peace.