To want to raise my child speaking German?

[BlauBlau]

So my family originally came from Germany, it was one of my grandparents who came from there. My grandparent spoke the language, but after emigrating, gradually forgot how to speak German.

I did German at school to GCSE level, and got an A*. So my German is conversational, but very basic (i.e: I speak German about as well as a 2 year old).

My monolingual toddler is over a year ahead in their English, so that's going well. Should I just swap to speaking German to them 100% of the time? Any music or TV I show them is in German.

How would I find other (probably much more fluent XD) German speaking families, so my little one could have playdates with German-speaking chilldren? I worry that, if it's only me speaking German to them, they won't be interested in speaking German.

YANBU to want your child to speak German, but if you don't speak fluent German yourself you aren't the best person to teach it to them IMO.

If this is important to you then I would have German lessons yourself to improve your own level. Meanwhile you can look for books and TV programmes and YouTube videos etc which have suitable German language content for your child, and then get them enrolled in private German lessons as soon as they are old enough. You could also visit Germany together.

Getting your child to be completely bilingual when you don't speak fluent German and you don't live in a German speaking country may be unrealistic though.

I can’t see how your child will grow up to be fluent without a parent or other constant influence speaking German.

How can a toddler be a year ahead given the range for their age is so vast?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if your German speaking grandparent didn't forget how to speak German at all, but just didn't want to speak German. Especially if they were living in the UK at a time when anti German sentiment was high after WWII.

My grandad always said he'd forgotten how to speak Welsh but that wasn't true.

Getting your child to be completely bilingual when you don't speak fluent German and you don't live in a German speaking country may be unrealistic though.

Agreed. All multilingual kids I know had native or native level speakers as parents or grandparents otherwise you may embed mistakes into their heads which may be hard to get rid off later.
Tv in German is good though.

I all for bi and multilingual children but unless you are fluent in the language I can’t see how this will work.

You can’t raise them speaking German yourself, or teach it to them by speaking it in the home, of you only speak it to GCSE level. It won’t work. To do it that way, yoi have to be fluent/ bilingual really.

You could find a CM or nanny who speaks German though, and supplement it as they get older with a German school on weekends. That’s what a lot of people I know do, even where the “second” language they want taught is their first language iyswim

Not an expert in this but if you aren't fluent I don't think you're the best teacher for them, your speech won't be natural and it may even do more harm than good if you're unintentionally using the wrong word/grammar regularly.

You could introduce German cartoons etc so they get exposed to the language while improving your own skills? I'm sure you can find language classes from quite young as well.

I think it will be difficult if you're only at GCSE level yourself, especially if you are only starting now. They won't understand anything you say and will probably get really frustrated. Even for a native speaker they have to be extremely disciplined and speak to the child in the language most of the time.
TV is good to provide some exposure, also you can read stories to them. But they will probably refuse and insist on English from.about age 3!
If you are really serious about this, move to Germany for a year or 2.

By all means encourage them, but…

You don’t have sufficient fluently to raise a bilingual child. German grammar is tricky. Unless yours is perfect, you shouldn’t be teaching your DC. Also, your pronunciation will be accented.

I don’t consider the language I have A level in, and can understand and speak in pretty well, to be one that “I speak” because I’m not bilingual in it - I don’t think in it, and don’t understand it the way I do English.

I happily watched tales in French at that age even thought I had no idea what they said😂 Don't speak french still🙈

I have been reading a book about bilingual families and the author says two things which I think are relevant here.

1. Just having one parent speaking the minority language is unlikely to be enough for the child to achieve complete bilingualism if the other parent speaks the community language and the minority language parent works outside the home and the child is also in a childcare setting where the community language is spoken. (This is the case with my kids, they get English from me and French from their dad and at crèche, and my two year old's French is much better than his English.) In this case the author says just having one native speaker parent is not enough and you need to put extra effort in to get the child to speak the minority language, through language lessons and finding a community which speaks that language.

1. It is a bad idea for a parent to speak to their child in a language which is not their native language. He uses the example of some immigrant families where parents whose native language is what he describes as a "low status language" have chosen to speak the community language to their children instead, even if they aren't fluent in it themselves. There are several negative consequences to this. Firstly, the child doesn't learn their parent's native language (which wouldn't be relevant in your case). Secondly, the child learns bad examples of the language because the parent doesn't speak the language that well. Thirdly (and I think most importantly) it hinders communication between the parent and the child, because neither can fully and freely express themselves so as to be perfectly understood by the other. He talks about the adult children of these families needing Google translate to understand what their parent is saying and communicate it to doctors in a medical setting as a practical example, but on an emotional level, it means you aren't expressing your truest and deepest feelings to your child because you are using a limited vocabulary and don't have full fluency.

Either way, it's generally agreed that this isn't a good idea.

But that absolutely doesn't mean that you and your child can't or shouldn't learn German together or that you can't both reach a high level.

YABU. A language you did at your GCSEs does not make you bilingual. You are certainly not at all qualified to be trying to teach anyone else German.

Your toddler is also not “over a year ahead” in their English.

I run home languages exams and yes it is easy to forget a language. One girl was born in Italy lived there until 9 (bilingual Italian/Ghanaian) came to the UK and found getting her Italian up to scratch very hard.

another said that they no longer spoke much Cantonese so she was rusty.

you simply don’t have the level of German or immersion necessary

(NB I'm assuming that you are in the UK from your user name.)

I don't think there is anything wrong with you wanting your child to speak German. As other posters have noted, you can do a lot to improve both your level of German (and ultimately that of your child), in terms of getting more language lessons yourself, immersing yourself in German culture, and making a point of visiting Germany. You could holiday in a homestay in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, for example, and ask your host to speak with you in German as you want to improve.

However, you shouldn't underestimate how difficult it might be to get your child to speak German, even if they understand you (and the cartoons they are watching). My partner is from another country and I speak that language quite fluently. At home, my partner speaks to our children (and me) solely in that language. I stick to English most of the time. The children understand that language very well, but they are extremely reluctant to speak it. Practically all their friends speak English (we live in the UK), and so they essentially follow the path of least resistance and do the same. If we visit my partner's home country, the children (5yo and 8yo) start to speak that language after a few days, but it is not entirely easy for them. This is still a form of bilingualism, but it's not what most people would consider bilingual. It is worth noting that at the beginning my eldest watched many cartoons etc. in the other language, but she eventually wanted to watch the same things her friends talk about at school.

So, while I think it's great that you would like your child to speak another language, you should be realistic about what that means in practice, and adjust your expectations accordingly. Make it a challenge for the long term. At 8yo my eldest now does Duolingo daily to improve her reading and vocabulary, and it's working well.

Also, although I am British and have British parents who spoke no other languages, I have (since the age of about 16) learned four other European languages to a pretty high level and the majority of that was achieved by living in the countries where those languages are spoken. If you can find work in a German-speaking country, go for it! It's not as easy as it was pre-Brexit, but well worth the effort IMO.

@MargotBamborough - good post - could you tell us which book you are reading? We are trying to raise our child to be bilingual in English and Spanish

Why not have German lessons once a week for you and your child with a private tutor. I wouldn't try and teach anything to anyone that I'd last studied at GCSE level.

While raising a child to be bilingual is great I would be worried that your own German is just not fluent enough and you could end up with strange sort of hybrid language. A family we know did this with French but mum had a degree in French and had lived there for a year and that’s all they spoke in the house but even then their accents weren’t right and because they weren’t regularly speaking with other French speakers some words had sort of changed a bit in the pronunciation without them noticing. They also spoke very old fashioned formal French as it had all mainly been learnt through books with no native speakers involved.

There is lots of German language content on the internet and YouTube etc. but a good way for your child to really get to grips with the language is through peer-group interaction. Where you live is there a local German Association or club for German families - e.g. Saturday morning language lessons? Are there any local employers that are subsidiaries of German companies and where there are likely to be many German employees with families and who might be able to point you towards a German social group?

When I originally moved back to the UK we found other families who spoke the same European language (in this case not German) as my partner and children simply by listening and asking around - we met one family by bumping into them in the supermarket one day, and they in turn introduced us to others. My dentist's wife, who turned out to be from that country, was the driving force behind an informal group of other similar families which met regularly so that the children could socialise and experience some of that country's traditions and foods.

If you are able to locate this sort of formal or informal group, not only will your child find it easier to learn the language, but you too will be able to practice and improve your language skills.

I did A level French, and am passable in conversation but what I'm realising with my kids now in y7 and properly learning French for the first time is that language evolves so much, some of the phrasing and expression I learnt are completely different now. Same with any language.

You won't be able to raise a bilingual child on gcse.

I think you are being unrealistic in your expectations. I have a foreign language as my mother tongue and spoke to my kids exclusively in that language when they were small and neither of them speak it (although both understand it and my first speaks a bit). DD was half and half untill she started nursery (at 1 so pretty limited vocab) and DS never spoke it at all.

I am not sure how a toddler can be "a year ahead" in English.

Everyone is being very negative OP. It’s a lovely idea to share your heritage with your child. Take the focus off him being bilingual and work on exposing him to German. Not sure where you love but for example where I am I know there’s a German speaking church which most certainly have a toddler group. Or local language schools may do playgroups for very young kids (again the local French consulate does this where I am). A German speaking nursery even if there is one, or perhaps get a local exchange student (if you live in a university town) to come and play with your child a couple of times a week. Perhaps this could be a chance for you to work on this skill too and take some language classes.
He may not be as confident as he is in English immediately but I wouldn’t disregard the idea entirely.

Yes, it's called "Bilingual Families" by Eowyn Crisfield.

Improve your German by taking a course. Just put kids tv on in German for your child and they’ll quickly pick up the language. As you aren’t fluent you’ll have to find other ways than yourself for your child to pick up the language correctly. A good way would be a German babysitter who would only speak German.

I also think this is unrealistic, sorry OP (based on my own experience raising a child multilingually)

By all means expose them to lots of German language and culture, I think it's enough to give them that family connection and hopefully a love of languages. They don't need to be totally fluent or bilingual unless they choose to be later in life.