I'm always amazed how few words of a foreign language a child needs to get by, far less than any of us grown-ups. My nine-year-old Storme seems to have been born speaking something akin to Esperanto, with a natural knack at communicating across linguistic barriers that I can only put down to her age. Certainly her genes have nothing to do with it.

I speak just a few words of a couple of dozen different tongues, but don't know enough in any single one of them to have a decent conversation. When I give up this column, I'm going to turn my travel-writing talents to composing a phrase book called Two Beers Please in 20 Languages.

But when we go abroad I always attempt to learn a little bit of the language before we fly. We try and make it a family affair, with Storme usually leading the lessons. Previously we've used the BBC's excellent Get By In series (including Indonesian), which is simple enough for any age and comes in cassettes and booklets so is easy to dip into in the car (bbc.co.uk/ learnlanguages). But there are teach-yourself language courses aimed particularly at children. Berlitz Kids Language Packs (Spanish, French or German), come with cassette, books, flash cards and - the real winner - a certificate (berlitz.com). The AA even publishes pocket-sized phrase books just for kids (Essential French for Kids, Essential Italian for Kids, etc, etc), with the clever subtitle Phrases Teacher Never Told You (theAA.com). Storme immediately flicked through, finding "awesome miniskirt" and, more worryingly, "cool tattoo", especially when it's matched up with "how much would that be?"

The babies are too young to bother about such things. Just one year old this week, they sound like they're fluent in Finnish (or is it Hungarian?) anyway. Their English, however, is a bit ropey; they can't even say, "Two beers, please". Being twins, that might come in useful some day.