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Ute Limacher-Riebold PhD | The Sustainable Multilingual™️

@utesinternationallounge

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🌍 Multilingual life. Communication. Change.
📚 Author · 🎥 Creator · 🎙️ Interviewer
🌿 The Sustainable Multilingual™

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🌱 How sustainable is multilingualism in your family?

We often talk about raising multilingual children, but much less about maintaining multilingualism over time.
Languages do not simply stay alive because they were once learned. They require opportunities, meaningful use, motivation, and support.

In my latest video, I introduce the Multilingual Sustainability Continuum – a core component of my The Sustainable Multilingual™ framework I developed and that helps us understand the mechanisms of multilingualism not as a fixed state, but as a dynamic process.

Languages can grow, stabilize, weaken, or even disappear from active use depending on the conditions surrounding them.

This perspective can help parents, educators, and policymakers move beyond the question: "How many languages does a person speak/use?" and instead ask: "How sustainable is their multilingualism?"

🎥 Watch the video here:
https://youtu.be/dFQxTBH12tM
(on my youtube channel Ute's International Lounge, you find it in the Playlist "The Sustainable Multilingual")

I also invite you to have a look at my page "The Multilingual Sustainability Continuum" on my website.

I would love to hear your thoughts:
What factors do you think make multilingualism sustainable in the long term?

#Multilingualism #LanguageDevelopment #HeritageLanguages #BilingualEducation #MultilingualFamilies #LanguagePolicy #Linguistics #LanguageLearning #MultilingualEducation #SustainableMultilingualism by @utesinternationallounge

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4 months ago

Over the past months, I’ve been taking a closer look at my work – and at the questions that keep coming back to me in multilingual families, workplaces, education and professional life.

And one thing has moved to the foreground:

When communication happens across languages and cultures, it is rarely just about language.

What people mean and what others understand can be shaped by linguistic repertoires, relationships, expectations, cultural perspectives, identity and context.

So rather than focusing on “What should we do?”, I usually start with a set of questions and explore:

What is actually happening here?

That is at the heart of my Multilingual & Intercultural Communication Advisory.

I help families, professionals, educational institutions and organisations make sense of complex multilingual situations — so they can make informed decisions, communicate more effectively and develop approaches that can adapt over time.

This is the work I’ve been building for many years.

Swipe through to see what I mean.

Thank you for reading and for being here.

#MultilingualCommunication #InterculturalCommunication #Multilingualism #CommunicationAcrossCultures #MultilingualFamilies #MultilingualWorkplace #SustainableMultilingual #TheSustainableMultilingual by @utesinternationallounge

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a month ago

🌿 The Sustainable Multilingual 🌿

I love that multilingualism is gaining more visibility and appreciation – you have probably seen posts from other accounts about this (they refer to (Keijzer et al., 2025; Nature Aging, 2025).

But I must say that I’m tired of seeing families, educators, and professionals feeling pressured: to do more, speak perfectly (whatever that means…), or make sure no language is “lost”...

As I said already in a previous post, multilingualism is not a sprint.

It’s a lifelong relationship with our languages that needs care, patience, and attention.

I have published an article about this on Linkedin (see picture)
and am inviting parents, educators, professionals working with multilinguals to slow down, be (more) realistic, and nurture languages in ways that truly last.

💬 How do you nurture your multilingualism – or that of your children, students, or clients – in ways that can last?

#parenting #brainhealth #sustainablemultilingualism #lifelonglearning #wellbeing #multilingual by @utesinternationallounge

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a year ago

I hope you are all having a nice weekend.

In the past weeks I noticed that people around me were talking about accents.

Some were not sure that they could speak a certain language with their toddlers because they "had an accent", others shared that they were upset and tired that people would point out their accent – even after many years living in that country or working in that language – and yet others were asking me how to "train their pronunciation to become as standard as possible" as their colleagues seemed not to understand them because of their accent.

And today I talked about this with a group of parents from a private school who were complaining that they couldn't understand the other parents, i.e. parents who "had an accent" and didn't seem to make an effort (!) to become more intelligible.

💡Accent bias is real. The common assumption is that a "native-like pronunciation" (whatever "native" means!...) is the ultimate goal of every language learner. – Is it though?

👂People really need to train their ear to be able to really listen to people and focus on understanding instead of judging.

🗣Accents shape who we are and, yes, we can work on them. Sometimes we even do this unconsciously by mimicking people around us (I know I used to do this to "blend in"), which is the chameleon effect in speech I talk about in one of my articles.

😐Fact is that accents feel personal and so do all comments around accents. We all have them though, no matter if monolinguals or multilinguals. We pronounce sounds, words, sentences in the way we perceive them and we can reproduce them based on what we hear.

😊If you can carve out some time, I invite you to have a look/read of my posts on Linkedin about this topic, or to watch some of my videos on my youtube channel ( you find them in my playlist "Intercultural Communication": https://l1nq.com/26d8ow6 ).

And you can find the series of articles on Linkedin and/or my website on the page "The Accent Series: Voice, Power and Belonging".

What is your experience with accents, your own, the one of a colleague or friend?
https://utesinternationallounge.com/the-accent-series-voice-power-and-belonging/ by @utesinternationallounge

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7 days ago

What happens to our decisions when we make them in another language?

Research on the foreign language effect suggests that using a later-learned language can sometimes create a certain psychological distance and influence how we respond to moral dilemmas, risk and framing.

But there is another side to this that I find particularly interesting when we look at multilingual lives: A language that once felt “foreign” does not necessarily stay that way.

We may learn a language in a classroom, but later fall in love in it, work in it, raise children in it, argue in it, think in it and eventually feel in it.

So what happens when a foreign language becomes a lived language?

And can a language that initially creates emotional distance eventually become our emotional language?

I explore these questions, and what the research can – and cannot – tell us about multilinguals, in my LinkedIn article: "The Foreign Language Effect and Multilinguals"

(you can also find a link to my video about this "myth" about the first language being our most emotional language (...) in the article)

#Multilingualism #LanguageAndEmotion #ForeignLanguageEffect #MultilingualLives #LanguageUse by @utesinternationallounge

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14 days ago

🌏 Raising Children with Our Heritage Languages

Does your child understand your heritage language but always answer in Dutch? Or do you wonder how to pass on a language you’re not fully fluent in yourself?

You’re not alone! 💛

Join our next ONNI Asian Moms Meetup with Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold, linguist and multilingualism advisor. Together, we’ll explore practical ways to raise multilingual children, nurture their connection to their heritage and share experiences with other parents.

💬 Have a question for Ute?

She’d love to hear about your experiences and challenges beforehand so she can address them during the workshop! Send your questions to connect@onnirotterdam.nl.

📅 Wednesday 14 October | 10:00–12:00 📍 Studio de Bakkerij, Rotterdam ☕ Tea & coffee included 🎟️ Pay what you want 🔗 Sign up via our link in bio.

📚 Bringing your little one? Combine the meetup with Studio de Bakkerij’s Koekie Boekie storytelling session!

Whether you recently moved to the Netherlands or grew up here as a second- or third-generation Asian Dutch parent, you’re warmly welcome at our table! 💜

With thanks to Gemeente Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Vrouwenfonds, Soroptimist International Club Rotterdam and Van Beek-Donner Stichting for making these meetups possible. 💛

#rotterdam #asian #mom #community #parent taken in Studio de Bakkerij by @utesinternationallounge

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19 days ago

“My child understands everything — but always answers in the other language.”

Sound familiar?

A child can understand a language very well and still rarely speak it.

But what does that mean?

In Thinking Across Languages #2, I explore this question through five languages & five perspectives:

🇩🇪 Experience
What are we actually observing?

🇫🇷 Nuance
Is understanding without speaking really a problem?

🇳🇱 Hierarchy
Why do we so often treat speaking as proof that a language is truly “known”?

🇮🇹 Sustainability
How can we keep a family language alive without turning it into a battle?

🇬🇧 Synthesis
What does all of this tell us about multilingual repertoires?

The answer is not simply about whether a child speaks a language.

It is also about understanding, relationships, context, opportunities, expectations and the possibilities a language has in a child's life.

🌱 Multilingualism is not a collection of levels. It is a living, changing relationship with languages.

Watch the full video on my YouTube channel.

– And: yes, I am challenging the system, by using all 5 languages in one video, the translation on youtube won't work (yet)...alas...

#ThinkingAcrossLanguages #Multilingualism #MultilingualFamilies #FamilyLanguages #HeritageLanguages #SustainableMultilingualism #MultilingualChildren #LanguageAndIdentity by @utesinternationallounge

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23 days ago

What if the language we teach through is *not* the best language for learning?

It sounds obvious:
The language of schooling.
The language the teacher speaks.
The language the learner knows best.

But multilingual learners have something monolingual learners don't:
a repertoire of languages they can draw on.

And those languages may not all serve the same purpose: One may offer a better bridge to grammar, another may make vocabulary click, yet another may help the learner recognise a sound or pattern.

So instead of asking:
“Which language should we teach through?”
we should focus on:
“Through which language can this learner best make sense of what comes next?”

That small shift changes how we think about the starting point of language learning.

I explore this in my article on Linkedin (as always...: find the link in the bio or follow the QR code)

#Multilingualism #LanguageLearning #LanguageEducation #MultilingualLearners #LanguageTeaching #Linguistics #InterculturalCommunication by @utesinternationallounge

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a month ago

Where does a multilingual learner actually begin when learning a new language?
We often talk about levels: beginner, A1, A2…

But a learner can be a beginner in a language without being a beginner in everything that may help them learn it.

And for multilingual learners, the question becomes even more interesting:
Which linguistic experiences might provide an entry point into something new?

Not every learner has the same entry point.
Not every language in their repertoire will be relevant.
And what looks like a helpful connection may sometimes create a competing expectation.

In my new article on linkedin (follow the QR code on the picture), I explore this idea, and why I think we need to look beyond “What level are they?” and ask: "Where can this learner enter?"

I am also developing this perspective into a longer resource for educators and would love to hear about your experiences and observations.

👉 I invite you to read the article and share your thoughts.

#Multilingualism #LanguageLearning #MultilingualLearners #LanguageEducation #Linguistics #MultilingualEducation #TheSustainableMultilingual

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/where-does-multilingual-learner-actually-begin-limacher-riebold-phd-i5wne by @utesinternationallounge

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a month ago

🌿 Thinking Across Languages 🌿

One topic. Five perspectives.

What happens to our children’s languages after the summer?

In this first series, I explore the question through five languages — and five different ways of looking at multilingual life:

🇮🇹 Experience
🇩🇪 Nuance
🇫🇷 Hierarchy
🇳🇱 Sustainability
🇬🇧 Synthesis

Because multilingualism is never just about how much of a language someone knows.

It is also about experiences, relationships, identity, space — and what makes languages meaningful over time.

What do you notice in your own multilingual life?

#ThinkingAcrossLanguages #Multilingualism #MultilingualFamilies #MultilingualChildren #SustainableMultilingual #multilinguisme #plurilinguisme #meertaligheid #Mehrsprachigkeit #Plurilinguismo by @utesinternationallounge

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a month ago

🌿 Na de vakantie: welke taal krijgt weer de meeste ruimte?

Als de school weer begint, krijgt de schooltaal vaak vanzelf meer ruimte.

Maar betekent dat dat andere talen minder belangrijk worden?

Duurzame meertaligheid betekent niet dat alle talen evenveel gebruikt moeten worden.

Welke talen krijgen bij jullie thuis ruimte — en hoe verandert dat door het jaar heen?

#meertaligheid #meertaligekinderen #gezinstaal #duurzamemeertaligheid #SustainableMultilingual

🌿 After the holidays: which language gets the most space?

When school starts again, the school language often naturally takes up more space.

But does that make the other languages less important?

Sustainable multilingualism doesn’t mean using every language equally.

Which languages have space in your family — and how does that change throughout the year?

#multilingualism #multilingualchildren #familylanguages #SustainableMultilingual #nederlands #nederlandsetaal by @utesinternationallounge

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a month ago

🎒 La rentrée : quelle place pour les langues de nos enfants?

À la rentrée, la langue de l’école reprend naturellement beaucoup de place.

Mais qu’en est-il des autres langues de l’enfant?

Pourquoi certaines langues semblent-elles avoir plus de valeur, de place ou de légitimité que d’autres?

Comment cela se passe-t-il chez vous?

#plurilinguisme #enfantsplurilingues #languesfamiliales #rentrée #SustainableMultilingual #français #lalanguefrançaise

🎒 Back to school: what place do our children’s languages have?

When school starts again, the school language naturally takes up more space.

But what happens to the child’s other languages?

Why do some languages seem to have more value, space or legitimacy than others?

How does this play out in your family?

#multilingualism #multilingualchildren #familylanguages #SustainableMultilingual by @utesinternationallounge

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a month ago