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<\/p>\nSometimes it strikes me how natural SMUL has become for us. My son is currently in Foundation Course G and will turn 12 in a couple of months. This is his fifth year at SMUL, and every week he logs in to his lesson without protests or sighs, rather with a sense of naturalness. It hasn’t always been this way, but that’s where we’ve arrived. <\/p>\n
My daughter, who is 14 today, has also attended SMUL for five academic years. Unfortunately, she is not participating this year, as school demands much of her time. However, she still enjoys attending Lucia and other SMUL events. For me, that says something important about the place SMUL has had in her life. <\/p>\n
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We have been living in Germany for nearly seven years now, but over the years we have moved around a great deal. We have lived in both the Middle East, Asia, and England. Our children have grown up trilingual: with a Swedish mother, a German father, and English preschool and school. During the early years, Swedish was the children’s strongest language. Not surprising, since I was at home during their early childhood years and spoke almost exclusively Swedish with them. When their father was home, German was the language, and outside the home there was a lot of English. The languages coexisted side by side, quite naturally. <\/p>\n
When the children started preschool and later school, English naturally took over \u2013 even at home. The children often spoke English with each other, and sometimes even with me, despite my responding in Swedish. After we moved to Germany, it didn’t take long before German became the dominant language \u2013 even for myself \ud83d\ude48 <\/p>\n
I have always wanted to hold on to Swedish, but everyday life is difficult to fight against. The children speak German at school and I use German at work. Their father, who doesn’t speak Swedish, also often works from home. Trying to preserve the language while the children do their homework in German, for example, doesn’t work at all. After some time in Germany, it became clear how easily Swedish could disappear from everyday life. It was in that context that SMUL became so important for us. <\/p>\n
For several years we did self-study at home. It was valuable, but also demanding, especially with two children who, usually on Sunday afternoons, both needed motivation and help. Last year our son started distance learning via Zoom instead, and the difference is enormous. Most things are completed during the lesson, sometimes there is a small homework assignment, but above all it flows much more smoothly and there are fewer discussions at home. He sees other children in the same situation, children from different parts of the world who also live abroad and persevere with the language. Swedish becomes something shared, not just something that comes from mother. <\/p>\n
![\"Books](\"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_9014-225x300.jpeg\")
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For us as a family, it is important that the children can speak with their maternal grandparents and relatives in Sweden. And who knows \u2013 perhaps one of them will want to move there one day? Today our daughter is also studying both Latin and Spanish at school, and it is noticeable how confident she is with languages in general. Fascinating and so exciting! <\/p>\n
During the two weeks each year that we are in Sweden during the summer, the pride comes creeping in for real. When I hear the children switch languages and express themselves, I know: it pays off. Every hour, every lesson, every small effort. <\/p>\n
SMUL has helped us keep Swedish alive. Not perfectly, not without effort, but alive. And for us, living outside Sweden, that is invaluable. \ud83d\udc99<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes it strikes me how natural SMUL has become for us. My son is currently in Foundation Course G and will turn 12 in a couple of months. This is his fifth year at SMUL, and every week he logs in to his lesson without protests or sighs, rather with a sense of naturalness. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,48,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-stories","category-multilingualism-in-everyday-life","category-the-smul-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smulakademin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}