Thu 8 Jun 2006
I’ve been meaning to write an update of our family language situation ever since the last post in which I said that Michael was speaking English with the children now.
I think, it was a good decision, because M is not picking up Michael’s mistakes when speaking German, and her English has really taken off since then. She’s very comfortable holding a conversation in English now and can translate brilliantly from one to the other.
Unfortunately that means, that English has somehow become her more comfortable language and she’ll use English when talking to herself or even to her sister (which worries me a bit), but she’ll only speak German to me. So I suppose that only means, that she’s understood the contexts of the two languages now “The world is English and mummy is the only weirdo, who I’ve got to speak German with”. Oh well, we’ll see what’ll happen.
But the competition is certainly on now, as everything Michael teaches her he does in English. So when I “caught” them counting to 20 and beyond the other day I thought to myself, right she’ll need to learn how to count to 20 in German too. And I also catch myself repeating lots of things that Michael says to her in German just to be on equal footing.
The funny thing is that Michael seems to live in a postgerman era and still uses German occasionally with the kids, usually when he’s not concentrating but just wanting to say something really quickly. So now he tells them off in German and explains in English. Wonder what that does for their language development??
June 10th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I think “tells them off” is a bit strong honey. “M, Du musst auf Mama hoeren” oder “M, Vorsichtich mit E” are the things I usually say without time to think… just takes time to adjust
June 14th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
This is where I run into problems and it becomes obvious to me that English isn’t my first language!
I might be able to say everything I want and need to say, but some words have lots of implications that I’m not aware of and so I’ll be saying a totally wrong thing using perfectly correct words.
Sorry! You know what I meant!
June 19th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
thanks for this update. I have been really working on my husband being, well I guess the freak, because he is the only one speaking Chinese but we are starting to here babble that sounds chinese so it might just work.
June 20th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Hi Andrea,
Yes, it’s a bit strange at times to be the “freak” but in the end it’s not a competition over which language will win, but offering enough exposure so that both language (or all three) will survive and flourish. Though it is heartbreaking to see that youre language (or mine in this case) isn’t the ‘preferred’ option.
June 20th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Hey Fran,
Its been ages since I saw you guys. I keep forgetting that you have two kids now. I’ve not yet met the younger one.
Its pretty crazy that you guys are teaching your kids English and German. I thought about it a bit and well, it seems a bit strange but later on in life I reckon it will be a really good skill for them to know two langauges. So yeah, thats my 2 cents.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Yes, well you just need to come around (there’s always enough food for one extra person) and you’ll get to meet the little people too
I guess, with the languages, it’s not so much a matter of actually having to ‘teach’ them rather than just using it with them consistently right from the start. M isn’t even aware of the fact that she’s doing something, that lots of adults can’t do. To her it’s just different ways of expressing herself.