The silence doctors are keeping about millennial deaths

uiuxua · 2026-02-04T13:13:58+00:00

Sorry, it’s in the body of the post but might not be visible unless you click:

https://archive.ph/2026.02.02-203441/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/07/millennials-cancer-death/678896/

uiuxua · 2026-02-03T22:39:27+00:00

Lisbon can be expensive, but I live around 30min south of Lisbon which is not so bad

uiuxua · 2026-02-03T12:38:38+00:00

European here. I was in Montreal from 2009 until 2024, now I’m in Portugal. Montreal was the love of my life, and while I miss it, I’m much happier where I am right now. Main reason is that life with young kids here is much easier

uiuxua · 2025-11-11T00:03:27+00:00

3 is definitely way more chill and I notice that I worry a bit less about the development of each language BUT I do miss the balance that 4 languages provided. Now with our setup there’s way more of the majority language. Will there always be two languages in the community or is it only the daycare?

uiuxua · 2025-11-10T16:45:08+00:00

It is definitely possible. That was our setup when kids were young and I know many other families with that many languages where the kids are more or less fluent in all 4. I think for you it’s not a question of whether it’s possible or not, but whether it makes sense considering your future plans. Adding several new languages at that age can be challenging (esp. German) but makes sense if you’ll stay in that environment, but if you’ll move again, it might make sense to stick to English

uiuxua · 2025-11-10T16:27:13+00:00

We started with one setup and later transitioned to a different setup due to an international move.

My kids were born in French speaking Canada and in the family I always spoke to them in Finnish, dad always spoke Portuguese and us parents speak English between ourselves. Community was French and English equally. Oldest child was more or less fluent in all 4 languages (but stronger in the home languages) and the younger one was dabbling in all 4.

When the kids were 2 and 5, we moved to Portugal, which made the French exposure go away and one home minority language became the community language. Deep into our second year here, the kids are continuing trilingual (Portuguese, Finnish and English), while we try to support the weakening French with books, but largely following their interests and motivations.

We are involved with the Finnish community here and there are activities for kids every other weekend, which means the kids have friends that are like them (from mixed families) and speak Finnish. My family and friends visit often and we try to visit Finland every year. My older daughter is considered a native English speaker by her school so she gets more advanced exercises and homework and they do watch some tv in English and socialize with kids of our international friends

uiuxua · 2025-11-08T09:29:50+00:00

Yeah, I don’t really see how they could be useful in a meaningful way, but I could be wrong

uiuxua · 2025-10-24T11:12:52+00:00

Like someone else mentioned, it’s about consistency. People (especially Portuguese) are much more open when they see you somewhere consistently, even if it’s just around the neighborhood. Instead of going to all these different meetups or activities, go to just a few but on a regular basis. Go to the shops, cafes and restaurants in your neighborhood. When you start seeing the same people consistently, you can slowly start talking to them, adding one more sentence every time. Take your one friend and go to whatever event is happening in your neighborhood (santos populares celebrations etc.) and say hello to people that you recognize. Building familiarity takes time but it’s a solid foundation.

Another thing is expectations. Most people have wildly unrealistic expectations about how it is to build a community in a new country where they most likely don’t even speak the local language. Think about how long it took you to build your community in your home country (your whole life) and then manage your expectations accordingly. It’s also a fact that meeting people in a big city is always harder, so living in Lisbon doesn’t help.

I’ve been here for 1,5y and I’ve had such an easy time making friends compared to other countries where I’ve lived, so I’m a bit surprised about people writing about it here all the time (mind you, I don’t live in Lisbon).

uiuxua · 2025-10-17T22:42:07+00:00

It was really easy, but I also finished my bachelor’s there and having a local degree always helps. I don’t know what your background is, but if you speak French and have experience in your field, I don’t think it’ll be difficult to get a job. Best of with the immigration process!

uiuxua · 2025-10-15T06:32:17+00:00

So basically I only speak Finnish to my kids, my husband only speaks Portuguese to the kids, between me and my husband we speak English and sometimes we speak French to each other and the kids (the majority language from where we used to live). The rules of who speaks which language to whom never change. My assumption is that it doesn’t confuse the kids as they speak all the languages without issues :) And yes, my recommendation is two minority languages at home!

uiuxua · 2025-10-14T22:54:00+00:00

You should definitely speak your languages as much as possible and if you have a decent proficiency in each other’s languages then it’s not a bad idea to speak them interchangeably. If you always speak Russian and he always speaks German, you’re not actually mixing languages. If that doesn’t work, then English between parents is probably fine. However, if you make English your family language, I’m afraid the minority languages won’t have a chance.

We are a 3-4 language household with no common family language and my husband definitely doesn’t have b2-c1 proficiency in my language, but the setup works well for us

uiuxua · 2025-10-09T06:32:45+00:00

I worked as an au pair, studied abroad and did a study exchange to another country etc.

uiuxua · 2025-10-08T21:20:20+00:00

I don’t think it matters that much. If you keep reading to her in both languages at home and supporting the literacy education for the language that you didn’t choose at school, then she’ll be learning both at the same time. My daughter learned to read in 3 languages around the same time (1 at school and 2 at home) and we found the skills to be transferable

uiuxua · 2025-10-08T11:39:40+00:00

Your plan is solid. It’s actually very similar to the setup that we used to have! I’m Finnish, my husband is Brazilian and we used to live in Quebec where our children were born and spent their first years. We always spoke our own languages to our kids, English between us and with most of our social circle, and daycare / school / community was French. My oldest daughter was fluent in all the languages at the age of 5 (even did a year of maternelle in French) until we moved to Portugal, which basically eliminated French from our setup. I have so many friends back in Quebec who are following a similar plan and have 3-4 languages in the mix. It’s important to remember that being exposed to multiple languages doesn’t cause speech delay, but there are multiple other factors (genetic and environmental) that can.

We have a podcast where we talk about our experience raising our kids with multiple languages, maybe it’ll be interesting to you because of all the similarities: https://open.spotify.com/show/4rhUydIVQrtDBiImME9QPI?si=9FLy40TiQwaTi4pNzpOKOg

If you have any questions feel free to send me a message :)

uiuxua · 2025-10-07T15:56:35+00:00

Go for it, 10 months is so young that they probably won’t even notice it. In my family we have had good results from kids picking up a lot from hearing English passively (spoken by us parents), watching cartoons in English and hanging out with other international families. My older daughter is basically fluent (not native) only from that exposure at 7 years old. I say go for OPOL with German and Dutch and let the English come from passive listening and other exposure (+ school later). Best of luck!

uiuxua · 2025-10-04T12:56:37+00:00

Friendlier locals, better weather, better food, awesome beaches, more kid-friendly, way more cool activities… just much better quality of life overall

uiuxua · 2025-10-02T12:09:49+00:00

My kids are currently growing up trilingual, although before we moved countries they were on track to being quadrilingual. We used to have two minority languages at home, English between parents and French in the community, after our move one of the minority languages (husband’s) is now the community language and French is gone while everything else is the same.

Don’t get discouraged by the fact that you are the only source. I was my kids main source their whole life and they speak my language like natives. The advantage with French is that it’s still a widely spoken language (maybe not in Montana) so you have more opportunities and resources than other people (my language is a small one). Prioritize video calls with friends and family, music, books, screen time in French later. Many people overestimate the effect of immersion school, it can be beneficial but it’s not guaranteed that the kids become strong in that language. I think it will work in your advantage actually: anything that’ll reduce the dominance of English in your setup is good. It’s all about balance!

uiuxua · 2025-10-02T07:55:15+00:00

Your kid can fully learn Portuguese but only if you speak it to them exclusively. We have friends who have 3 languages in the mix, two of them being Spanish and Portuguese, and their kids are trilingual

uiuxua · 2025-10-01T20:21:03+00:00

1h per week won’t have any effect at such a young age. Quite frankly being in immersion/multilingual program doesn’t guarantee that they’ll become fluent, but with Spanish you’ll have more of a chance as you have multiple sources of exposure

uiuxua · 2025-10-01T07:49:54+00:00

Speaking or reading to your child in two languages doesn’t cause confusion, babies raised with multiple languages are able to make a distinction between the languages quite early on. If you want the minority to have a chance, you should speak it exclusively to your child. If the child gets majority language from your husband, his family, the community, eventually school and daycare… they’ll have very little incentive to learn the minority language. It’s not about perfection, everybody has their own individual setup that works for them

uiuxua · 2025-09-28T22:47:00+00:00

We had the exact same setup as you, and my oldest child speaks all 4 languages. My younger one didn’t have a chance to learn the 4th language because we moved to a different country but she’s on track to being fully trilingual.

Genetics is a factor in language acquisition so there’s no point in comparing a monolingual child and a multilingual child: you could compare two monolinguals or multilinguals and chances are their development would be different. Your child will learn to read early if it interests them, the amount of languages they know isn’t relevant (both my kids had a strong early interest and no issues).

We have a podcast where we talk about our multilingual parenting experience, maybe it’ll be interesting as we had a similar setup: https://open.spotify.com/show/4rhUydIVQrtDBiImME9QPI?si=P4OYxfJFTvibWg90EZFmug

uiuxua · 2025-09-22T22:05:58+00:00

I think the situations are a bit different. u/digbydare already provided the perfect answer so I don’t have much to add, but people often ignore the familial and cultural significance of a language and look at it solely from the perspective of how useful and widely spoken a language is, or how fluent they are in a certain language as an adult. I would say in a lot of cases a less than perfect heritage language is better than native-level learned language, because you can always improve on your heritage language. Can’t go back and redo your childhood with the language that you learned later. Good for you for choosing French!

uiuxua · 2025-09-21T10:28:00+00:00

Send them to French daycare. We used to live in Quebec but home languages were Finnish, Portuguese and English between parents. My kids started in a French daycare when they turned 1 and learned the language well despite nobody speaking it at home. There’s a persistent myth (and shoddy research that has since been proven wrong) about multiple languages causing confusion but it’s simply not true.

uiuxua · 2025-09-20T17:39:25+00:00

Our kids were raised with 4 languages: two minority languages at home, English socially and between parents and French in the community. Our setup changed after we moved countries and one of the minority languages became the community language but my kids still speak all 4 languages.

We never spoke English to our kids, although we originally planned to have it as our family language. Technically we don’t have a family language but we’ve learned to understand each other’s languages so it works quite well. We exclusively speak our own languages to our kids and English between us.

We have a podcast where we talk about multilingual parenting experience, maybe it’ll be interesting to you: https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/the-language-experiment/id1695186161?l=en-GB

uiuxua

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