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.

You could give it a shot but it will be difficult. My son is being raised bilingual (German / English), and we live in Germany. His dad is German and only speaks German to him (very involved dad but works full time) DS understands everything and occasionally speaks it but his English is far superior as he's with me all the time (he's only 3). He prefers to speak English even with his dad and speaks it to the other children despite nursery twice a week fully in German. So give it a shot - I even think introducing a language young will at least let them hear different sounds, different flow and they'll pick something up. Just don't expect them to become fluent without a native German around all the time / or not living in a German speaking country!

I think you are approaching this in the wrong way. Take the focus off being bilingual and instead focus on exposure to the language and encouraging an interest in the language and, as your child gets older, holidays there, TV, radio etc.

My DS is 12 and has been learning French at school for 1 year. He really, really likes it. So, we have switched his radio over to a french station, he subscribes to a French magazine, he has changed his Xbox settings into French, he subscribes to French slow news (great site!) and this summer is travelling solo to France for a two week immersion camp.

He obviously isn't bilingual but that isn't the aim, it's more about encouraging the love of the language and giving him a platform to take things further when he is older if he wants to - A-level, study overseas, living and working in France etc.

My dad is a native German speaker and used to use a few German phrases with us at home. Just little things, like 'dinner is ready', 'it's time to go', 'goodnight' etc. Not much, but when I learnt German at school I'd already got used to the sound of the language, which definitely helped.

I lived in Germany for a few years when my DS was little, and he went to a German primary school for 3 years. We then kept up his German by using an online tutor, and then he went to a private German school in the US for a few years. Now that he's a teen, he goes to German Saturday school in the US and has German friends here (teen speak!). He's also going to be taking a German course at high school next year.

It's really difficult to raise a bilingual child if you don't speak the language and it takes a lot of effort (and money) to keep up their language skills. Someone I know managed to raise French-speaking kids even though they didn't speak French and they lived in the US. They employed a French-speaking nanny, went on holiday to France every year, put their kids in after-school French language classes, etc.

And even then, most of Europe is nowhere near fluent in English even by adulthood, let alone at the age of 12.

But in some countries a large percentage of the children can manage to hold a conversation in English by the age of 12, even if they are not fluent, and they are often very keen to do so. From my own experience, the Scandinavian countries, Netherlands, Austria, Germany - all places where English is taught from an early age, where English-language music, films and computer games are popular and where it is considered the norm to be able to speak English - and a requirement for many jobs in adulthood.

In some countries, yes. Not most of Europe though.

And they tend to be countries where basically nobody outside of their country speaks their language, so speaking English as a lingua franca is necessary.

They don't?I think this is a myth - I lived in France and went to a social group where most of the people were working class. Very few of them spoke fluent English, a few more could struggle with broken English and many spoke little to none.

I also asked a German colleague how come his English was so good - he learnt it when on a placement overseas at university.

You should find other german speakers.Possibly a student or aupair who can speak to your child in german.

Or just wait until your child can learn at school and get them to do a school exchange as long as they learn at school uni age, they can still learn a language pretty well.If they go to germany and immerse themselves in the language.

I wouldn't speak the bad german to them, this means they would learn your language mistakes.

Just wanted to say I learnt german at age 30 and I am quite fluent understand nearly everything.I can write quite well as well now.So it is possible as an adult.Everyone can tell I am not a native speaker, though.I do make grammar mistakes.

You should go back to lessons improving your German abd send your child to German school. Absolutely. Speaking more than one language is hugely beneficial for children. Go for it!!!

I lived in Germany for a few years and my German is well beyond GCSE.
I could not even begin to teach it to a toddler.
Are you planning for them to learn nouns or speak to them in sentences?
Will you just do this when you are alone or would you do it at mixed gatherings?

Hiring a tutor and learning with your toddler might help. And lots of visits to Germany.

Lots of good advice by posters OP. Just to add, if you're London-based you could look to enroll DS in the local Deutsche Schule starting age 3 or so. It's a fully certified German curriculum graduating with a combination of IB and German Abitur. They'll be teaching mostly in German with some classes in English and pupils will be a mixture of expat and local families.

Not sure if there's any other schools around that do bilingual teaching. It's increasingly common in Germany, several of my nieces and nephews have/are attending the mixed German and French language programme at their local gymnasium, with some subjects taught entirely in French, but I haven't heard of this approach catching on in the UK.

I agree with others. If you talk like a German 2 year old, you're not much use as a teacher.

Surely you must be having a laugh 😂

A lot of nationalities have schools at the weekend precisely so their children are around others of the same origin and share cultural capital when their parents may be losing their fluency (if they had it in the first place). There are definitely German Schools like that (used to be one held at one of my previous workplaces), just as there is Greek School, Polish School and Chinese School.

It's worth googling for somewhere within travelling distance.

My kids are growing up trilingual but we are native speakers in the languages we speak to them in. It still takes a long time.
I am bilingual in German myself but owing to ‘one person one language’ I had to choose not to speak it to the kids.
Based on that, I would have the following observations:

• Your toddler already has a mother tongue. Don’t take that away!
• As others have said, your German is far from being at a level to pass it on, but even if it were, would it be the language of your heart or of your authentic self? That’s the language your child needs to hear from you, with all the little features of your speech that only you have.
• You can become an excellent model for your child of learning a language in a lesson based way. Get someone to come and teach you both. Modelling learning is also a great thing to pass on.

That's very much dependent on the primary school though. It's still only a small proportion of primary schools in the Netherlands (around 20% I think) that teach English in reception/Y1. Lots of schools only teach English in the last two years of primary, which is compulsory. There are also a few studies from the Netherlands that show that kids who started learning English in Y1 don't actually master the language any better by the time they leave school than those who only had English classes in the last two years of school.

We are a bilingual household, but we speak mostly English at home and school, activities etc is in the second language. The children are learning German at school as well.

Language is picked up socially from a young age so you singing, reading to him will be much more helpful than watching tv shows in German. Or chatting in German with others.

I would find myself some German speaking friends in your area. Improve your German, and practice, practice, practice.

Goethe Institut may have German language activities for children like alliance Française and Institut français used to.

My DC are fully bilingual French/English. And it takes a LOT of work and commitment.

French = we live in France, DH is French, they go to French school.

English = me. I speak 95% of the time with them in English (the other % is when their friends are round/Im asking them exactly what happened in school/ discussing their homework....). They spend all school holidays at least partly with English family in England.

Films, TV and books are a mixture of languages. But I was careful to expose them to both when younger. Now we tend to go with whatever the original language of film/book is (so Indiana Jones can NOT be watched in French! ).

Having a 9 and 12 year old its important for me to
A) understand everything my DC are saying (I'm bilingual too). I have previously had to teach my parents all the French swear words my kids weren't allowed to use / I pick up when one is being mean to the other even in French

B) be able to speak naturally to my kids. I want to say things like "silly billy" and call them "darling" not call them "ma puce". I wanted (and did) to sing them "my" nursey rhymes from my childhood not foreign ones.

Lastly, you can expose your DC to languages all you like but it takes a LOT of rigor to make them use that language daily. If its not used it gets lost.

We never bothered with English language playgroups etc cos whenever we met English speaking families in France the DC were bilingual....and all played together in French regardless what adults told them to do...

As for the pp saying about language changing, they have a point.
My uncle was nicknamed Padre in the RAF as hé never swore. One day he was muttering je m'en fous, I don't give a fuck. I told him off and he was quite indignant and fetched his CM2 dictionary out from the 1930s. I countered with my kindle dictionary in French from 2012. He was quite shocked and said he'd have to tell his cousin Liliane as they both said it all the time. Then for the whole of the rest of the day, he went around muttering je m'en fous under his breath.

Films and music is mostly in English language. Influence of the USA.

You can't raise a bilingual child unless you are bilingual. And how do you know your toddler is a year ahead in English? A year ahead of what?

The other things here is lots of posters are talking about bilingualism, but perhaps OP wants her child to be comfortable around German as a second language, which is entirely different.

@justrude this thread has been really helpful. My little one has been spared my awful GCSE German 😂, it'll be tuition and spending time with people we know who speak German

From what I've read for a child to learn a language fluently they need to be exposed to it for their 30% of the time (ie of all the time that they come into contact with any language I think).

I am from Germany originally and tried to raise my kids bilingually. Till my older one joined school we almost always spoke in German and she was as fluent in German as she was in english. Now we don't speak that often in German anymore and she's forgotten a lot of it. She still understands most of it but her active vocabulary is much smaller and her grammar isn't great. The younger one hears even less German and only knows a few words. So it does take quite a bit of exposure. Apparently about 30% (of the time that they are exposed to language) to learn a language. I also used to read a lot of German books to DD and I think that actually helped a lot.

I think, books more than Tv Shows or music, would help to teach your kids as they are more interactive. You can point to things to make.clear what is meant or do voices or enact stuff to help with understanding. Reading German books to.your kids would also improve your German.

Alternatively, when your DC is older you could put them in German classes or both of you could learn German together even

I do think it's doable actually. Good luck.