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bilingual

UK/baɪˈlɪŋ.ɡwəl/US/baɪˈlɪŋ.ɡwəl/
adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,410 of 15,258mostly written

Bilingual means speaking two languages like a native. A bilingual child, bilingual signs, fully bilingual.

Most of the world is bilingual or more, and the monolingual countries are the unusual ones. A bilingual child often mixes both languages early and sorts them out later, which alarms parents needlessly. Bilingual signs show both languages together.

Ashraf Hendricks · CC BY 4.0

Definitions of bilingual

  1. 1adjectivebilingualSpeaking two languages like a native.B2+

    “Their children are bilingual, speaking English at school and Italian at home.”

bilingual is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin bilinguis means two-tongued — bi, two, plus lingua, a tongue or language.

  1. Latin

    bilinguis

  2. English, today

    bilingual

From Latin bilinguis al; equivalent to bi- + lingual.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in News & Communication

Practise this word

bilingual in the wild

  • In bilingual education, students are taught in two (or more) languages.

    Bilingual education

  • The Bilingual Education Act provides support for bilingual education and educational efforts for Native Americans and other groups.

    Elementary and Secondary Education Act

  • Children acquiring two languages natively from these early years are called simultaneous bilinguals.

    Multilingualism

  • A bilingual dictionary or translation dictionary is a specialized dictionary used to translate words or phrases from one language to another.

    Bilingual dictionary

  • A California Department of Education spokesperson anticipated a shortage of bilingual teachers after the passage of Proposition 58.

    1998 California Proposition 227

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.