Thu 3 Aug 2006
It’s been an awfully long time since I last sat down to write something or since I last looked at my blog. Not too sure … maybe this thing isn’t really for me though I like the idea of reflecting on things that are happening or that I’m thinking about. And I think it’ll be wonderful to reread and relive my current experiences in a few years time or maybe when the girls are grown-up (scary thought!).
Regarding the language situation at the home front I’m finding myself struggeling in vain to hold back the floodgates. I’ve been trying so hard over the last 2 1/2 years to create a bit of Germany inside our house. This probably sounds ridiculous. What I mean is that I’ve been trying to present a German-language environment to the cildren at home and compensate as much as possible for the flood of English that comes streaming into their lives.
This has worked pretty well as long as Michael was speaking German as well but around 6 months ago that just wasn’t possible anymore as Mim’s life has gotten more complex than what Michael was able to express in German. But it seems that that tipped the scales and English is taking over now.
Mim is talking more and more English increasingly at the expense of her German. She’ll talk to herself in English and unfortunately she’ll also talk to E in English and what hurts me the most is that she’ll talk to me in English the majority of times. I try to just say “Kannst du das auf Deutsch sagen?” (Can you say that in German?) and she’ll repeat it in German, but I fell if I don’t keep doing that she’ll loose her ability to express herself in German really quickly. It just is so tiring and frustrating, she must feel like I’m forever criticising her.
As if raising children in itself isn’t demanding enough: teaching them about themselfes, about the world around them, skills, manners, discipline … well no, I’m also on her back about this language thing. I feel like crying at times. I feel like I’m loosing this battle. How can one single person substitute an entire society?
Whenever I feel this way I want to buy more resources for the children to make myself feel better and hope that more books, CDs and DVDs will back me up and enforce German in our house. But that’s just where I get even more depressed about this whole thing because it is just unaffordable. Having to buy every single piece of German language that I want to expose the children to is just impossible which means that they’ll always only ever have a few books which will further weaken my hopeless attempts to keep their German equally strong as their English.
I know giving up is not an option, but I do feel increasingly that it would just be the easiest and most pleasant thing for all of us (in the short term at least).
August 7th, 2006 at 4:41 am
Just keep speaking it to her consistently and maybe have special game or so you just speak in german. Your kids will chose their own language ‘of the heart’ and english usually wins over german. You can’t force them anyway.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Hi Lillian,
that English will win over German.
yes, that’s my fear
I’m working my butt off (cause I do only ever speak German to the kids) and then they’ll still end up with fairly weak German anyway.
At the moment it’s still similarly strong as English but once they start school German won’t have much of a chance and that’s what’s so depressing.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Hey, Fran, didn’t realise you felt that you were losing the battle. You do a wonderful job of teaching, mothering, disciplining etc, please don’t feel down about the German v English thing. M is so clever and adaptable I’m sure she will be multi-lingual (if as you say such a thing exists) and at the very least
very proficient in both. She may just need to
catch up a bit depending on where she is at the time! Same with E when she’s older.
Love from Grandma
August 14th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Thanks for the encouragement!!!
Don’t really know what to say either than that I still think it’s an awfully hard job to raise ‘bilingual’ children. And with M I feel, because she’s so clever and adaptable that she wont see the point in speaking German when everybody around her (who she wants to fit in with) is speaking English.
I think it’d be a different story if I didn’t speak or understand English. But as is she knows that she can speak English to me and I’ll understand everything she says.
Anyway, we’re still at the beginning of this journey and still waiting to see what’ll happen when you try to raise children with two languages.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Hi Franzie,
It seems like a long time since I was on the internet.
Your blog really touched me and I want to wish you luck raising bilingual children. I am not suprised that you sometimes feel like crying it must be frustrating and exhausting raising a family so far away from your own.
It must be anoying people giving advice all the time, but I can’t help myself -
Have you tried the Goethe institute in Sydney? I know in Melbourne there is a casual conversation group that you don’t have to pay for because it is not organised by the institute but they just email the details on their mailing list. Maybe you could ask them to put something in their monthly newsletter asking for other interested German/Australian famillies for a regular play group.
The Goethe institute also has a library which might be a good resource for resources. Your local library should also have German resources - admittedly they are probably crap and falling apart.
My cousins in Melbourne go to Boronia primary school which is a bilingual school - half of the classes are in German and half in English. Prehaps there is something like this in Sydney.
Finally if you are always speaking to them in German at the very least they will understand and when they do get a chance to visit Germany the language will be much easier for them to pick up!
Good- luck, I know what it feels like to live so far away from ‘home’ and I think it is important for you to pass some of Germany on to your children.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:26 am
After looking at your pictures I just realised you probably don’t live in Sydney! oops not very helpfull ‘advice’ above
August 15th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Hi Cathy,
thanks for visiting again. Know what you mean, I’m very rarely writing posts or reading other blogs these days too.
I don’t mind so much to get some advise as there can always be something worthwhile in it, and especially when you’re in a state of desperation any idea can be great.
We live in the Blue Mountains so Ryde is just too far to go for us, but funny enough when I did a search for “German School Sydney” I found a forum of a parenting magazine in Sydney and there was people looking for German speaking playgroups. So I just left my details there, which is kind of exciting. So thank you for the tip about the German School
I’m at the library all the time, but our local library is shocking they’ve got about two German books and our kids are too young for them. I did try doin interlibrary loans through the State Library but that always takes ages (after 4 weeks I’m still waiting), costs a fair bit of money and then you can only keep them for two weeks. So I’ve decided that buying them is better.
The Goethe Insitute is a great idea too. I hadn’t tried them yet. This might be another possibility.
I love having options and you’ve provided quite a few possibilities, so thank you for the ideas.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Hi Fran,
Don’t give up. My sister’s kids speak English and German perfectly because they live in Germany and speak English at home, so you just have to keep on trying. Like someone else said at least their understanding will be better.
Also when my sister was growing up and was a teenager, her parents didn’t let her speak English at home on the weekends. She had to pay 20c or something for each word of English that she spoke, so maybe when the kids are a bit older you can try bribing them or punishing them! It might be necessary…my sister is now completely bilingual, so I know it’S possible.
As far as buying books and videos cheaply, maybe you can get some deals on amazon.de and/or ebay.de
Also, when I get a chance, I’ll ask my sister if she has any old children’s books or videos in German that they don’t want anymore. They’re moving to Australia in December so maybe she can bring them with her…
Try not to give up. Any exposure is a big help and if you are serious about coming to Germany in a few years they will pick the language up really quickly once they get here. Kids are incredible that way! After 6 months of total immersion they’ll be fluent, don’t worry. If they are familiar with the language before they get to Germany, that’S a bonus.
Keep in touch,
Alex
August 24th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Thanks, Alex.
I know, any German is better than none and given the circumstances M’s German is probably pretty good.
I had also thought about this bribing thing, but then decided not to do that, at least not at the moment. I don’t really wanna confuse language and politeness-issues. Speaking Englis isn’t rude or wrong, so I don’t want to treat it as if it was, though it might be effective.
Amazon.de is good, whenever I feel down I do buy a few things there, but it’s still frustrating not being able to access stuff from the library easily but have to pay for it all.
Thanks for the offer of asking your sister for stuff, but don’t worry too much. If they’re moving to Australia they’ll probably want to keep every bit of German language material that they have (I know, I would if I was them) plus we don’t actually have a Video-player anyway. But thank you anyway!!
Bis bald!