Monthly Archives: June 2014

Bilingual Celebrities (Video of the Week)

One of the challenges of dealing with the concept of multilingualism is that people living in monolingual culture such as the U.S. can’t fathom that a person can be fluent in multiple languages. That’s where videos such as “Bilingual Celebrities” comes in handy.

Not all celebrities are native in both languages, but you will be surprised at the different languages some celebrities do speak.

The Swedish interview with Malin Äckerman (3:03) is also a bonus intersentential code switching video because she actually mixes in English at one point. The social context is interesting because she assumes (probably correctly) that the Swedish audience will understand the English. English language instruction has long been part of the Swedish curriculum and many science courses at Umeå University are taught in English. Äckerman also grew up in Canada with a Swedish mother which is a classic code switching environment.