Languages play a big role in our family life. It is largely due to circumstance – we’re an Irish-German marriage – but partly due to interest. I was brought up by parents who adore France and all things French.

When I was small my mother would often say “Oui mon ange” instead of a plain “yes” when I would ask her something. Although I can barely string a sentence together in French now, there are certain phrases that throw me back to childhood memories.

I’ve written here before about bringing my children up multi-lingually; about trying to give them a few words of Irish as well as German and English. We bought the Little Linguist’s Alphabet chart for Number Two and it has been a great help to him in learning to read and write in both English and German.  He regularly consults it to check how to write his letters.

Recently Love Your Lingo, the creators of the Little Linguist’s Alphabet, brought out a range of posters that have me head over heels in love. Just like my mother when I was small, these posters combine French and English phrases. The idea is simple, but effective, pretty and endearing.

When I checked my e-mail today, I saw there was an update from Una, the founder of the company, to say that the bilingual posters are now available in German too. I popped straight over to the online shop and bought this one. It translates as “Sweet dreams my treasure” and is ideal for our household, where The Bavarian’s favoured pet name for the rest of us is Schatz.

While I was there, and since there is a flash Christmas sale with 30% off, I decided to buy this number chart for the boys too. It reminds me of school, but in a good way, and will make a nice addition to the corner of the kitchen where we have our map of Europe, our alphabet chart and our garden birds guide.

Several of the posters and charts are available to download too for just a few quid. We haven’t got a colour printer, but I am going to check out our local print shop and see if they can print me off some of the posters on good quality paper. Once I have that sussed out, I’ll be heading back to do a spot of online Christmas shopping.