Not Lost in Translation: The Journey of my Intercultural Family

As a Russian woman currently living in Finland, my family’s journey through languages and cultures has been full of unexpected turns. From meeting my husband in Germany, where we spoke English and German, to raising our children to be bilingual in Finnish and Russian, language has shaped much of our lives. This path was not always easy. It was full of beautiful moments like hearing my daughter call me ‘mama’ or my son wishing good night to my husband in Russian, but also full of painful ones, when I made a conscious decision to step away from my mother tongue. So in this story I reflect on how our multilingual household has shaped our lives, our children’s heritage, and my ongoing journey with language and identity. 

When my husband and I met in 2014 in Germany, where we both lived and worked, we communicated mostly in English and German. I hadn’t yet started learning Finnish, and although he had taken a few Russian classes at university, it was something he hadn’t used in years. Our relationship, much like many intercultural couples, was initially built on the common ground of a shared language that wasn’t native to either of us.

​As time passed, my husband took up Russian again with a teacher in 2017, and we gradually shifted to speaking Russian and English. My journey with Finnish, however, didn’t start until the summer of 2020 when I began online classes. Slowly but surely, Finnish started making its way into our daily lives.

In July 2020, our daughter was born - right in the middle of the pandemic. The isolation of having a "pandemic baby," combined with the overwhelming experience of being a new mother, led me into postnatal depression. Those early months were difficult; bonding with my daughter didn’t come naturally at first. Therapy helped me navigate this period, but what also helped was reconnecting with my mother tongue. I began reciting Russian poems I’d memorized from my school days, like Lilichka by Mayakovsky, to my daughter, finding comfort in familiar words.

​Together, my husband and I agreed that we wanted to raise our daughter as bilingual - Russian and Finnish. By the age of two, she was beginning to pick up Russian words, though Finnish became her dominant language, especially as she started interacting more with her surroundings in Finland.

Then, in 2022, the war in Ukraine began, and my relationship with my Russian identity was shaken to its core. Feelings of guilt and complicity overwhelmed me, and I made the painful decision to stop speaking Russian to my daughter altogether. The war coincided with another life-changing moment for me: a week after it began, I found out I was pregnant again. My son was born in December 2022, and I haven't spoken Russian to him either.

​For a long time, Finnish has been the main language in our household. I use it with the kids and my Finnish family, and my husband and I now communicate in a mix of Finnish and Russian. Recently, however, my husband and I had a conversation about how I truly felt about the Russian language. My husband, ever the advocate for our children learning Russian, suggested we try incorporating it again in a playful way - almost like a secret language at home. This approach has helped me reintroduce Russian into our lives, and we hope that our children will slowly become familiar with it.

It’s a delicate balance, being an intercultural family. My children are Finnish, but part of them is also Russian, and that’s a part of their heritage that I’m learning to navigate again. Despite everything, I believe they will learn Russian - whether through me or later in school.

As for my own language journey, my Finnish is now at an official A2.2 level. While my grammar might still be at A2, I feel my conversational skills are stronger. At home, we mostly speak Finnish, and with the kids, it’s always Finnish. My work language, before being laid off earlier this year, was English, and I still communicate with my family in Russia in Russian.

​Our family’s language story isn’t straightforward. But I do find sort of comfort hearing my kids laughing and calling me ‘mama’ when I come to pick them up from a daycare. 

Written by: Evgeniia Makhalina