to think that if you grow up in UK but have a German parent, when you learn German at school, you will speak it in a better accent because of your heritage?

[vdbfamily]

My DH is half German but grew up in UK speaking English mostly. He did not speak German to our 3 children but they all do well in German and speak it without obvious English accent. I say it is because they are a quarter German but they all laugh at me and say the genetics make no difference. In contrast to this, I know a fair bit of German but they all fall about laughing if I try and speak it. Anyone agree they have an advantage?

@Longtalljosie what's the book? My toddler is starting to speak more fluently and I'm fascinated by her language acquisition and would love to read a good book on it

I am German, my 3 DC's speak fluently because I only ever speak German or Dutch (I am a native in Dutch too) to them. This has been the case since birth. ExH was Italian/American and spoke to first DD that I had with him solely in Italian, she is fluent. Her Dad is convinced she sounds Italian no English undertones.

Current DH is Swedish, his DS (my SS) speaks fluent Swedish, German and French, his mother is French but he struggles with French at school and cannot stand it despite her speaking it to him most of his life. He also does not sound French. More like an English speaker who learned the language. So the advantage of learning the language before school doesn't seem to have worked for him, although I suspect he's just not that interested in the language. His German is excellent and he sounds native, even though his father doesn't and is not a native speaker. He's doing very well in German too at school.

DS and DD from current marriage speak Swedish fluently although DH says you can tell that they have an English undertone. This is not the case with their German or Dutch they sound native to me. We all speak English fluently however, I do find that DH has a Swedish accent even when he speaks German (he's fluent in German but not native) and he was raised in mostly English speaking countries.

I guess it depends on the individual. But don't think there's an automatic advantage.

There's a German lady - born and brought up in Germany- at work who speaks English fluently with a very heavy Dublin accent because her mum is Irish.

And also the French exchange school we had in the 1980s all spoke English with a broad Scouse accent as their English teacher was from Liverpool.

What's your native English accent?

That could be making your spoken German sound funny to them.

My German teacher learned whilst working as an agricultural labourer/farm hand and then came back here to train as a teacher.

According to DD1's first (German) boyfriend, I sounded like a country bumpkin - the equivalent of my DP's Dartmoor accent.

No, there is no genetic link.
More likely sociological- either that they heard it around them as children from family or have a vested interest in learning it due to their heritage

If they have heard German off and on through their lives that will have made a difference. Young children absorb sounds in a way that older language learners do not.

My personal experience of having bilingual (English-French) children who learnt German as a third and fifth language respectively is that German sounds aren't that difficult for an English speaker to produce. (It's a much harder language for a French speaker for example.)

Genetics alone mean nothing. Your children may well have benefited from hearing their father and grandparents speak German. That sort of "ear training" can help with pronunciation. But without any prior exposure to another language, a learner's pronunciation will depend on a variety of factors (including age and aptitude). Genetics don't enter into it.

Do they really have no English accent, as in a native German speaker would think that, or does it just sound good to you? My MIL is from a European country and whilst my DH wouldn't call himself bilingual, he speaks the language pretty well, and to my ear he has an excellent accent. But whenever we visit that country - in big cities or tourist areas anyway - people like waiters and shop assistants tend to answer him in English despite the fact that he has addressed them in a technically very good version of their own language. They can obviously tell very easily that he is not a native speaker even though to English ears he sounds to have a very convincing accent. So I wouldn't be too sure that what sounds like "no English accent", really is the case. Its also a good point that it will depend on the teacher's accent. I've been told in Germany that I speak German with a noticeable Black Forest accent. Makes sense, because that's where my school German teacher lived for a good few years.
Incidentally, my husband's siblings are nowhere near as good at his Mum's language and none of our children or nephews and nieces have a linguistic ability that is any different to the typical British school pupil. The big difference is that my DH spent a lot of time with his maternal grandparents as a young child and they spoke very little English. Hence in those formative years he was exposed to a lot of the language and when he subsequently studied it at school he excelled with virtually no effort. The amount of time spent with the grandparents reduced with each of his siblings and by the time his youngest sibling was born both grandparents were dead. There's a parallel drop in their ability to speak the language, though they all studied it at school. Could be coincidence of course as its hardly a large sample size, but its something I've observed in other families too. If I had to guess, I would say that the single biggest factor in most people's ability to speak a particular language is exposure to lots of it in their early life.

I teach German at GCSE and A-Level and the 'native' speakers or those who speak it al home have no real advantage.

That's....pretty different to the story I have heard from almost every other MFL teacher I've ever met. The usual story is MFLs have been made harder in the last 15 years or so because they are increasingly aimed at bilingual students who speak the language in question at home. As a result, students with no home advantage in the language tend to find the grade boundaries too high and MFL are increasingly regarded as "hard" subjects, which has contributed to a decrease in their uptake.

I live in Japan and know a lot of kids including my own who are bilingual in English---the idea it doesn't give them a massive advantage over the kids who start from scratch at 10 or 12 is laughable!

My neice is 1/4 Spanish and not fluent. Her granny speaks English to her. She has a lousy Spanish accent but got a B in her Spanish language GCSE. Her mum is almost fluent, so she got some advantage.

On my side of the family, we are fluent in b*ocks.

Not a B! It's an 8.

We had so many native French speakers on my degree course at university. Did I feel they had an advantage? 100%, yes. Of course they did. But, fair enough really. They were a lot better at it, so fair enough really. I did at a man once who was panicking at the start of a French test in first year. He was a native French speaker and this was not the most advanced grammar test. Resisted the urge to say "you are French ffs"!

On the other hand, I wasn't allowed to take english classes during my erasmus year in Paris. I wandered into the wrong classroom once and when I'd realised I'd made a mistake - I needed economics and they were all doing English - I was all flustered and muttered in broken French that I had the wrong room. Without hesitation, the lecturer who was French and speaking French, switched to the most perfect, cut glass, english accent and said "oh what a pity, it would have been so helpful to have you here". Was really funny. He sounded like British royalty!

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/apr/21/german-native-speakers-a-level-grades-ofqual?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

(Posting this in response to the PP's post suggesting that native speakers do not have an advantage when studying languages at school. Definitely not suggesting a genetic link! Kids' German will only sound better if they have been exposed to it)

Why do they fall about laughing if you try to speak it? That's not very helpful to learners is it?

And yes it's likely that you will speak it better if you have a German parent, even if you were not brought up bilingually. Two girls at my school had a German mum, they were not bilingual but they spoke the language well, even though they weren't any better than I was at writing it.

That's....pretty different to the story I have heard from almost every other MFL teacher I've ever met. The usual story is MFLs have been made harder in the last 15 years or so because they are increasingly aimed at bilingual students who speak the language in question at home

And yet ds' Spanish A level teacher (who is a native speaker) says that it is not at all guaranteed that native speakers get A stars because they still have to put the work in. She said she had one girl who she quite literally had to drag out of bed for the exam and she got a D.

I'm a languages teacher and teach several European languages (including German). No, their part-German genes won't make any difference, but having heard properly-pronounced German words even occasionally from family will give them a bit of an advantage.

I teach German at GCSE and A-Level and the 'native' speakers or those who speak it al home have no real advantage.

I've taught French and German up to A Level for over 20 years and am utterly baffled by that statement. It literally makes no sense. How can being able to speak the language fluently or semi-fluently not give you a massive advantage?! A Level obviously requires more than just fluent language, but it's still a huge advantage.

Agree with previous posts. They've probably heard some of the language during their early years.

We speak exclusively English at home, but I occasionally listen to the radio in German, and watch German TV. DS(2) astonished me the other day when he repeated a phrase that he must have overheard somewhere because it sounded (for a 2 year old) very natual and almost perfect.

I still don't think he'll have an advantage at school unless I do his homework for him and there's no chance of that happening!

@cologne4711

That's....pretty different to the story I have heard from almost every other MFL teacher I've ever met. The usual story is MFLs have been made harder in the last 15 years or so because they are increasingly aimed at bilingual students who speak the language in question at home

And yet ds' Spanish A level teacher (who is a native speaker) says that it is not at all guaranteed that native speakers get A stars because they still have to put the work in. She said she had one girl who she quite literally had to drag out of bed for the exam and she got a D.

Is that not because A level includes Literature? Or at least I think it did in my day I think. There's no guarantee that a native speaker will be interested in tbat is there, or indeed that they will have perfect grammar. If that were the case, every native English speaker would be get A* for English A level. But it has to be a help. Maybe that girl would have got a U if she didn't have the advantage of being a native Spanish speaker. My MIL did A levels in English and her native language at night school some years ago, just for fun. She did better on tbe English course as she found the content and the teacher more engaging. She was very highly educated in her own country, so there's no doubt about her ability to speak her own language. That may have been her undoing actually as she probably disagreed woth the A level examiners.

These comments have all been really interesting and have made me realise a few obvious things that I had not thought about. DD1 does not consider herself to be English and curiously all her friendship group are at least 50% something else, Turkish ,French & Lithuanian close friends. This obviously gives her a strong motivation for excelling in her German. She struggles with studying ( possible ADD) and got 4/5 in most GCSE'S but a 9 in German which she is now studying at A level. Her 1-1 German speech teacher tells her her accent is great.
My son does well but accent not as great. He is not so bothered about it.
Youngest DD was what made me start thread as she is online gaming in random teams of people and was chatting on German yesterday to someone who was living in Germany but Albanian, and they thought she was actually German. However, she is very good at mimicking and when she was about 4 she spoke for several months in an American accent after watching something on TV. Everywhere we went people asked why she sounded American.
We have travelled to Germany most years ago they have heard it spoken but not via grandparents( that is a whole other thread for brought up in stately homes or whatever it is!!) DH will discuss homework with them and speaks like a German as his parents spoke to each other in German at home but to the kids in English. So...I think there are different reasons each of them are good but now accept none of these are genetic and will now have to accept that I am at no more of a disadvantage than the rest of them ( other than having never been taught German, so will have to try a bit harder!!)
FWIW, I have 2 half French nephews and neither got A's as they could speak it fluently but not so good at the writing and grammar.

In speaking - yes, but in reading and writing - not really.

[quote worriedmama1980]@Longtalljosie what's the book? My toddler is starting to speak more fluently and I'm fascinated by her language acquisition and would love to read a good book on it [/quote]
@worriedmama1980 it’s actually aimed at a good deal later although it dives back into babyhood - Inventing ourselves: the secret life of the teenage brain by Sarah Jane Blakemore

If he was speaking to them
In German when they were younger the right sounds can come back gradually when they retake the language provided they get enough practice with other German speakers.

It does’t come naturally or is ingrained in their genes. They may be good at picking up another language but that would be in a general way rather than specific to their ancestry.

I'm half German - I spoke German when I was little, but my mum said my siblings and I refused to when we went to school. It was the early 60s, still pretty close to the end of the war and very few non English people where I grew up.
However, I've heard German spoken all my life and because of that, if I buckled down and learned to speak it I think I'd have an advantage pronounciation wise. But not because of genetics.

I was told by someone working in the international school system that pupils who learn the basics of any language from a native speaker when little will have better accents when they learn languages more formally later. I can say if this is true as my DC went to a bilingual English Italian nursery and then took Italian - rather than a different language. Their Italian accents are said to be very good - although "Milanese" (their teacher is from Naples which is apparently a bit different).

It's down to exposure and brain plasticity, not genetics, I'm afraid