Lieber Frühling, komm doch bald. A new Kaffeeklatsch thread for Spring - living in Austria and Germany

[Ploom]

All welcome - whether you're living in Germany or Austria, have questions about life in those countries or just want to chat.

Previous thread here

Phone has inserted lots of random extras into that post! Oops!

Hello all, hope it is OK if I join you here even if I am both American and currently in the US we are moving to Cologne for my husband's work in August with our two toddler daughters (and dog) and I have been reading through this thread and its predecessor with interest. DH is a native speaker but I am not (I'm American) what I know of German I have mostly learned from a) 1 year of university German, b) one summer spent in Erlangen on exchange, and c) listening to friends and family, working with some German clients etc. etc. etc. As a result my comprehension is fairly good but my spoken German is characterized by very poor grammar and frequent confusion between aktiv/dativ/genetiv, etc. For those of you who did not study German extensively at university, may I ask how you found things in terms of how easy or hard it was to pick up more German, make yourself understood, how long it took before you felt comfortable speaking socially in German, etc? I will be working but in an international firm where the majority of my actual work will still be in English, but with respect to socializing with others, I know I will need and want my German to improve.

Many thanks in advance! If you have any other tips to share about moving to the Cologne area, believe me, I am all ears.

Tabitha you will be fine. I spoke no German at all when we moved here, and have never studied it (aside from a night class I started while heavily pregnant and with a small toddler, which I gave up half way through). My German now is about the same as you describe yours to be . I am fine chatting to mums of the kids friends about topics I am familiar with, but my language skills are not good enough to "be myself" and make close friends, which is unfortunate but if you work for an international firm you will presumably make friends that way anyway.

I would advise you to get out there in your local area - playgrounds etc. and talk to any likely looking mums you can for your children's sake - getting to know as many locals as possible is the best way to integrate your children, and get them (and you) practising the language. I have got to know a few ex-pats recently (we live in the ountryside so I don't see English speakers much) who all say their children are excluded by the local children - strangely enough all the mothers socialise mainly with the ex-pat circle and generally got their kids together with the children of their ex-pat friends, rather than making any real effort with the mums of children their own children will end up at Kindergarten and school with, so they have made the way hard for their children both by not bothering to help them meet local children and by not giving them early opportunities to pick up the language, IMO) Talk to people, join local German toddlers groups, music groups, sport groups recommended by local mums rather than (or of course as well as) ex pat ones, if you are staying long term.

Of course if you are only staying short term, or intending to stay longer but use private international schools, there is no reason not to stay in ex-pat circles if you prefer.

As you will be working have you sorted child care? It is not always easy to do esp. for children under 3, unless your company ha an arrangement? I don't know Cologne though, Germany is wildly different in different states.

Thanks MrTumbles for your reply -- we have partially sorted childcare but will need to secure the rest. The girls have been enrolled in an international pre-school that DH has visited, toured, etc. but I will need to pin down aftercare. DH is going over 2 months before the rest of us, so we are hoping that he will be able to sort this before we arrive. As he is the native speaker, it is probably better that he is the one making the advance move. As of now, we are going over "only" for 3-4 years, but who really knows. Our last international secondment was for 3 years but we did not yet have kids at that time.

I think your advice about making the effort to integrate locally sounds incredibly sound, and I know I will need to make a real effort in this regard, probably mostly with weekends while not at work.

TabithaGraves as far as I know Cologne is a big enough city for there to be plenty going on. Have you started organising your move yet? Will you have any relocation help from your company? From the sound of it you'll be fine with that level of German and alot of Germans speak English and will love the chance to test it out on you!

Bertie sounds like you're settling in well. It's good that you've found some groups and got to know some locals too. Have you found a final place to live yet or are you still looking around? I'd say take something when you go to visit someone even it's just a bag of bakery donuts or brezels even.

outnumbered shame about the house but great aboutthe puppy! We had trouble just finding a flat with 3 bedrooms so the dc had one each. When we did find one there was always one tiny box room and 2 big bedrooms so difficult to put one dc in a box room and the other in a big room. In the end we found a place with 2 quite small dc-rooms and a big master bedroom (which I find a total waste of space, no need as we really only sleep in there). In an ideal world we need a house with cellar like tumbles so we can have a hobby and office too.

nutella hope that sleep pattern becomes a habit for you! That's what I had with my 2 for quite a while, later their get up time was between 8 and 9am so we had a struggle when kindergarden started as we were always the last to arrive!

Linzer how annoying that the ILs will ask you a question and then stop listening to the answer mid-sentence! Strange!

Well, the job offer should arrive tomorrow and I suppose then we'll have to face it and decide. He's employed here until 2015 - so what if this job is only for 2 or 3 years, is it worth it? How do you negotiate a relocation sum (I doubt universities give one)? I know they will match his pay here atleast as they asked for a copy of his last pay slip and I know they want him for sure so we should be able to negotiate.

Tabitha just saw your post! Great that your dh is German speaking so he can do all the sorting out at this end before you come! Good luck with the move, must be starting to get exciting now! Are you shipping all your stuff over?

Thanks, admylin, I am getting really excited now but also rather nervous the logistics just seem overwhelming so I am taking a bit of an ostrich approach about the whole thing at present. Yes, DH's company will organize the move and ship the contents of our house here over to Germany, so that is immensely easier to have that taken care of we need to finalize arrangements for housing in Cologne though so that we can have somewhere to send all of the stuff! We also need to get moving about renting out our house here in the States.

I have been following your posts about your husband's work and competing job offers, and all I can say is very best of luck to you guys in sorting out what makes most sense for him and for you as a family. These kinds of decisions can be so difficult to pull the trigger on either way.

No we're still looking. DP is on the hunt for apartments! We've got a viewing some time this week but not sure what day.

outnumbered linzer ItsMYNutella Where we are staying is quite small so I went to the Arztclinik and spoke to the receptionist - no Apotheke here. They were not familiar with the drug and I explained what it is for (not part of A level German syllabus). They had a look on their system and said they could issue me a prescription but couldn't supply the drug as they don't stock it. The nearest chemist is about 25 minutes away so I'm doubling up (TMI- sorry). outnumbered It is the most fantastic drug, you have to be under 45 & have regular periods but if you have heavy bleeding, which they count as needing to change towel more than every 2 hours, it increases clotting so you just don't have so much bleeding. You can get it on prescription or over the counter in the UK, £7.99 at my local chemist for 18 tablets. You have to take either 2 three times a day or 2 four times a day depending on how heavily you are bleeding. Without I have to go to the bathroom every 45 minutes or so if I'm moving around so it's a great improvement for me.

Eastpoint hope the rest of your holiday isn't ruined too much and you can get to an Apotheke easily enough. Well done on explaining that at the Klinik!

Bertie good luck with the house hunting! Are you trying to stay central or moving out abit?

Tabitha I really know what you mean about the logistics being overwhelming! I have been through a couple of moves that were nervous breakdown material and I'd say, taking an ostrich approach about the whole thing is quite a good tactic! It'll all fall in to place in the end!

Waiting for dh's formal job offer to come today.

He's so fed up - someone has written a letter to the editor of a journal where he has published. The editor has asked dh to write an answer to this letter so both can be published together (which is fair) but his boss won't let him send his answer in for some reason. Seeing as they are co-authors (even though the boss didn't really contribute to the paper) the editor can't accept dh's answer without the other authors consent. Complicated I know but he's constantly being held back and he's a hyperactive workaholic type so it's like trying to tie a wild animal down!

Eastpoint Oh no, what a nightmare, will you be able to get to the chemist's? Sounds like the last thing you need on a skiing holiday.

admylin Hope the job offer is a good one. It sounds like your DH is in quite a strong negotiating position at any rate. Is it normal for university contracts to be so short?

Tabitha Hello! I studied German but found I've picked up far more useful everyday, conversational language through actually living in the country than I ever did at school and university (it helped to have the basics in place, of course). I have friends who learned German here; a couple speak excellent German (but have been here for longer than I have, so over a decade - I'm not sure how long it took them to get to that level) and a few who can get by, but they do most of their socialising in English, work in an English-speaking environment, etc. so I don't think they see their lack of German as a huge problem. Most people our age speak good English and are more than happy to practise it, at least while your German gets up to conversational level. I'm sure there are plenty of expats in the Cologne area too; I've found that, no matter how well integrated you are in the local community, other expats - and being able to speak your native language to other adults - can be a lifeline at times.

Welcome back, Bertie.

outnumbered If you're selfish, then I am too. I've always considered anything before 6 am too early, but thankfully they all grew out of the 5am-is-a-perfectly-acceptable-time-to-start-the-day phase without me having to do much about it - I've heard good things about gro-clocks, though. They're all still fairly early risers but as I'm more of a morning person myself, I'm happy with it that way round and with them going to bed fairly early (as I do). What time they actually go to bed doesn't seem to make much difference to their wake-up time; we were at the neighbours' until 10 pm on Saturday, which was a big mistake as DD2, in particular, was in a foul mood the following day after getting up at 7 am.

MrTumbles I'm sure it would annoy me immensely too if I was in your position and read about early wake-ups being described as a sleep problem - it's all relative, isn't it?

Was supposed to be meeting a friend for coffee this morning, but she cancelled so I've been food shopping instead; I stocked up on fishfingers as the DC will have two friends here for lunch and I thought it would make a change from pizza or plain pasta!

Linzer I have no idea about university contracts as up to know dh has always been employed by hospitals or a pharmaceutical company.

I meant to ask you, have you found a good way for your dd1 to learn English spellings? Usually they get vocab to learn and have a test once a week but dd is really having trouble with English spellings - she obviously doesn't have to learn the vocab meanings as she can translate automatically, it's just teh spellings. She can manage French for some reason and has improved in her German thanks to the dyslexia coaching but English is a big problem at the moment.

admylin Sorry, I'd forgotten that your DH hadn't been employed by a university before.

DD1 has exactly the same problem as your DD with English - no problem with meanings or grammar atm, but she couldn't spell for toffee when she went up to secondary school. I've been trying to practise spelling with her every day and she's really improved now. I get her to write down vocab from her text or exercise book and any word that she gets wrong goes onto a list (as does any word that I've noticed she's spelt wrong in class). She has to spell a word correctly five times in succession before it's removed from the list. It was an idea I got from her dyslexia tutor, who used to use one of those boxes for index cards with five or six sections and the card would move back a section every time DD1 spelt the word correctly. The cards kept ending up in the wrong sections, however, so I found it easier just to make a list in the end.

Dd's dyslexia teacher siad one of the best ways for her to learn spellings is to learn spelling rules but I'm not sure that would be the same in English as there are so many exceptions to the rules! I'll suggest short lists to start with maybe.

No, I can't see that really working for English as there are probably more exceptions than rules! I can't even think of any English spelling rules off the top of my head, apart from "i before e...".

Linzer I found quite a few spelling rules but as you say, there were so many exceptions that it started to seem silly! These first few are short and good so I have put them on cards for dd:

No English word ends in ?v? except spiv. Use ve instead
No English word ends in ?j?. Use ge or dge instead.
No English word ends in ?i?. Use y instead. Exceptions: macaroni, spaghetti, vermicelli (Italian) and taxi (short for taxicab)
And some exceptions to the i before e except after c rule: either, foreign, height, leisure, protein, weird

I haven't heard of any of those rules admylin but the cards sound like a good idea. I know there are quite a few exceptions to the i before e rule, which is possibly more confusing than anything. I've often seen wierd instead of weird, although I'm sure most people weren't thinking about the rule when they misspelt it (was just wondering whether to write misspelt or misspelled!).

I'll also be making sure that DD1 remembers that it's double c and double m in accommodation, as it's a word that seems to be spelt incorrectly more often than not! And that she gets the spelling of separate right, another word that often makes me itch to get my red pen out.

admylin I hope the job offer is good.
English spelling is so difficult. You could try googling synthetic phonics, as that is the preferred approach to reading and spelling at the moment in the UK. This page has a download at the bottom which gives a whole list of rules that I didn´t know existed.

tabitha I didn´t speak German when i first moved here. I didn´t have children at the time, so I spent the first year going to classes and was pretty fluent within a year. My Sil lives in Köln and we always enjoy going to visit - lots to do and the shopping is much better than where we live.

bertie It sounds like you´re finding your feet. I hope the flat hunting goes well.

Linzer My dc sound like yours in that regardless of how late they go to bed, they wake up at the usual time. In England it was really annoying because of the time difference they were awake at 6 o´clock everyday. Luckily we were staying with a friend, so they just crept downstairs and watched tv until we surfaced.

outnumbered any more news on the puppy? I like the idea of having a dog, but don´t fancy all those winter walks in the freezing cold or pouring rain.

We had a lovely time in England, despite it being really cold. I didn´t buy too much clothes wise, but we did a big supermarket shop before we came back. We´ve still got our old fridge/freezer in the garage and so I´ve stocked it up with hot cross buns, crumpets and malt loaf.

Hello to everyone I´ve missed.

Nutella I forgot to say, yesterday there was a report on the radio that 5.5 tonnes of Nutella had been stolen from a lorry and it made me think of you. The radio presenters were joking and said that if anyone is spotted with chocolate around their mouth and gaining weight rapidly they should be reported to the police.

admylin those rules sound good without being too complex. It is frustrating that often rules for English have so many exceptions it barely seems worthwhile to learn the rule!
I often learnt to spell words by splitting them up and having a rhyme in my head to help me spell (I think sort of singing a spelling is often helpful- you remember the tune and therefore the spelling).

Linzer you made me want fish fingers for lunch - sadly I didn't find any in the freezer

Hupa good to hear you had a nice time in the UK very that you have a freezer full of goodies. I luuurve malt loaf - possibly more than Nutella I haven't been robbing any lorries

DS is a sleepy boy today! He slept until 10am (after last feed around 6:30) then he wanted another nap just after 11am, although it took a while for him to settle he slept about an hour and woke to demand milk... He seems to be getting tired again, he's only been awake an hour...

Hello all!! Sorry have completely lost track of the thread after it fell off my active convos - had a week before the Easter holidays of a house full of flu then 2 weeks of Easter holidays - didnt leave much time for MNetting.

outnumbered - aw sorry the house wasnt right for you all - it obviously wasnt meant to be - in Scotland people say "whats for you, will not go by you". I agree how much trickier it is with 3 dc when it comes to space but I mostly notice it when we try to book a holiday. Get so frustrated looking at hotels that are always for 2 adults and 2 dc. We always end up in an apartment because of it.

admylin - will you have to wait till dh gets home from work to find out what the contract says? His current job and boss sound like such a nightmare that leaving would seem to me to be the sensible thing to do if the conditions are good.

mrtumbles - my heart goes out to you everytime I read about your sleep problems. Have you contemplated seeking help about his sleeping? I'm not sure who I think can help but the kinderarzt seems like a good first port of call. Your trip to playmobil land sounded stressful - definitely like too many cooks! We went last year with another family and I'm sure the husband and wife had had a fight in the car on the way there because the dh was in a right mood the whole day. I'd driven over 90 mins to get there and paid 40? to get in (plus food) and he totally ruined the day. I swore I'd never go there again with anyone else apart from dh.

tabitha - welcome to the thread. I've been here 4 years and came in very similar circumstances to you - I'd never studied German apart from a year when I was 13 (!!) and its my dh who's the native speaker. He also came over 2 months before us and spent that time sorting out a house and the school/kiga places which was a great help. I agree with the others that just putting yourself out there and trying to chat with other parents is a great way to rapidly improve your German. I also took language classes up to B2 level but got stuck there as the next level was too difficult for me. It was aslo tricky to juggle 3 dc and the classes. My German is good but I'm not as fluent as I'd like to be partly since we speak English at home. I think if we had switched to german between dh and I then I'd have improved much quicker. I also wonder if I'll ever truly understand the cases or whether I'll always be unsure.

Waves to everyone else I've missed.

So randomly dh messaged me yesterday to ask if I could go to a video conference at the hospital this morning - they are being beyond vague as to when I will start the job, how many hours it'll be etc but I've got a contract so it could start anytime. Went to the hospital at 8.30 this morning, the video conference then didnt go ahead (for some reason that I didnt quite understand!) and I then just met a friend for a cuppa instead. I am a bit of a control freak and like to have a definite plan but they cant give me one which is driving me mad. Ah well I should just enjoy the rest now all the dc are back at school.

Nutella I used to learn spellings like that too and also remember doing my French vocab at 10pm at night in bed the night before a test. My dc are so much better behaved than I was! Trouble is all the techniques I used don't always work for dd because of her dyslexia.

Sounds like your ds is just exhausted with all that growing he must be doing now!

hupa thanks for that website, I'll have a read through later when I've got more time.
Good to hear you managed to bring back plenty of goodies! Did you kit the dc out with clothes?

Linzer did they all eat their fish fingers? Or will it be back to plain pasta next time?!

I have to go to the post office to collect a parcel. I always take parcels for the neighbours but the one time i'm out, so is everyone else and my parcel gets taken to the post office. Typical!

ploom how I wish I had a dh who would go ahead and sort out a house and the school like yours did!

I am also a bit of a control freak and like to have a definite plan so I get why you're fed up at the researchers not giving you your set times and sticking to them.

I have a feeling this new job is going to be similar. So far today dh has phoned the new boss and chatted to her and got an invite to a meeting on the 25th but still no contract. I think he's just so fed up of here that he'll take anything which is not good for my control freakedness! I don't agree with him that these little friendly chats on the phone count as facts for later and I need that job offer on paper.

Ploom Nice to see you again; I'd been wondering where you'd got to! Hope you get your hours etc. sorted out soon; I'm a control freak too and like to know exactly what I'm doing.

admylin Not only did they eat them all, I had to cook another six! I knew they'd like them, although it is a bit more fiddly/time-consuming to cook fishfingers, rice and veg than plain pasta (and heat up a sauce of which about a quarter gets eaten).

Nutella Shame you're not a bit closer - I finished off two packets of fishfingers today, but still have two to spare!

hupa Glad you had a good trip back. Very envious of the malt loaf - we can get hot cross buns and crumpets here, but I haven't had malt loaf for ages. I should probably make my own...

Just had a message from a friend that puts all my worries into perspective; it looks like she has breast cancer. She's having an op later on this week, so I'm not sure whether it will be confirmed then.

We're probably looking at moving a little out of town as the houses/apartments are cheaper. Looking at moving about 20 minutes out by tram or S-bahn. Although I love being in the centre! The park by the palace is so lovely and has everything you could ever want or need.

The English speaking community here seem really supportive. The group I've found are women only and a lot of them have children - it feels almost like a mini-mumsnet! We've already discussed childbirth and pelvic floor exercises. I keep looking suspiciously at them for signs of mumsnet-ness They are mostly American though so perhaps less likely to have heard of it.

Linzer Sorry to hear about your friend :(