Advice - Mum English, Dad German.

[Bekkie32]

ok folks.. I live in Germany so majority language is of course German. My baby was born Aug 13th 2007, she is now 6 months. i am at home until Jan 2009, which is when I go back to work. The baby is due to go to Kindergarten in December this year, by then she will be 16 months. We decided that I should always speak English and the Dad should always speak German. This is what we are doing.

However, when we read goodnight stories she seems not to like German. She is happy when I read her a story in English, but not in German. She seems to prefer English, as when the Dad reads a German story she hates it too.

She does have a few German contacts - neighbours, the motherinlaw, but it is not daily contact by any means. Obviously later in the summer when it is nice, she will see more people. I am also fairly tied to the house at the moment as she is a difficult eater and I am occupied with meals. My question is will she pick up German in the Kindergarten, will it be too late for her to grasp german? Is our tactic okay, me speaking English and husband german? It seems she is just picking up mainly English at the moment, of course as she is with me. What do you think?

Well to me it would kind of depend on the nature of the looks because dd would pick up on those too. Frankly I would sacrifice the OPOL approach if I were surrounded by a group of loutish skinheads or even nasty old ladies with big dogs. I'd go for the easy life.

What I think you'll find, Bekkie, is that German will take over anyway once she's settled in KG. It could be difficult to keep up her English later on, so I would concentrate on the English for now as much as you can. Haven't a clue where you live (to my shame) but I could imagine there aren't many English speaking families there. Are you near Kleinmachnow at all? Because of the Europa school and the Berlin Brandenburg Int school there, you'll find quite a few English speaking families with children round there and you might be able to find her English speaking friends via those schools/their extra-curricular activities later on.

ah ok, now I've googled I see you are half way between here and Poland so forget that bit about Kleinmachnow! Sorry.

Looks nice there, might go there for a weekend. Is there much for dc to do there do you think Bekkie? My dd is 7. Quite fancy checking out the Moorheilbad´and getting primped and pampered.

Ime children do sort people into "English-speaking" or "German-speaking" fairly early. My 3 always seemed to get confused only when e.g. adult German friend would suddenly speak English. Now they're older they can rationalize it but when younger it was noticeable they found it odd.

I only ever speak English, everywhere and even with friends around would say to their friends, "Apfelsaft" but to mine "applejuice" or whatever. If there is a general announcement e.g. no jumping on the beds I say it in German first & make sure the friends aren't sitting there not knowing what I'm on about.

Books etc are also E or G, if dd wants 'Laura's Stern' she asks dh - or, and this is a brilliant development, asks her older brothers. As they're bilingual they read both to her

If you keep speaking only English to her it won't feel strange any more even in public.
We still get looks but then I "look" when I hear someone speaking French or Polish, it's like your language radar goes beep.

She'll get plenty of German from her dad and kg etc.
She'll pick up more English at first with you as main carer at home but it'll give her a good start and the German'll come later.

We should write a Mumsnet guide to bilingualism

I remember when ds was born, I'd been living in Germany and learning German (really trying hard too!) and didn't really have any English speaking friends. It was strange at first trying to speak English to this new born. I'd read all the books in German (Hebamme Sprechstunde - very good book) and used to buy eltern magazine. I couldn't remember any baby songs or rhymes except for twinkle twinkle little star so that's what I used to sing to him! It took me a few weeks to get used to speaking English and not bothering what people outside thought.
I would not have survived if I hadn't managed to find a big group of English speaking friends after that though. I had always avoided doing that because I wanted to learn German. Must admit my German went down hill after having my 2 dc because I wanted them to be really fluent in English and I left the whole German learning up to Kindergarten.

We are in the same position as you but live in England, with me (mother) speaking German to our children (ages 4 and 5) and daddy English.
As the environment (in our case English) is SO dominant in terms of language influence (school, local friends, tv) you will NOT have to worry about them not learning the language of the country. You DO however have to worry about giving them enough exposure to the minority language, in our case German (in yours english). We do this by me ONLY speaking to them in German, sending them to German Saturday School, watching German DVDs, spending holidays in German speaking countries, reading German books etc. I have seen many children refusing to speak the minority language once they get older (and don't want to appear different etc), that I feel its so important to give them the strongest base possible in the minority language right from the start.

sssandy2 where are you then?

I actually work near Kleinmachnow - Europarc Dreilinden infact Where I work there are plenty of English folks. Over in former Eastern Germany there are not so many English families - lots of turks and Viatnamese though - so speaking English I would kind of stick out as a sore thumb I do not know what the Germans really think of the brits, so am always a bit wary of when I am in public and what I should speak. Also, like Berolina says, people will then try speaking to me in Emglish thinking I have no German.

I just worry about her first weeks or so at the KG, she will not understand a thing and will get very upset..

Bekkie I'm in Berlin (Wilmersdorf), so are admylin and Berolina

How did you end up living in Bad Saarow then (very nosey emoticon!)? Looks like a nice place.

Dd started German KG when she was just 2, basically just to learn the language. She didn't understand ANY German at all and she was fine. She took to it like a duck to water because she was really ready for the social interaction with the other kids and we were lucky that the older ones were really nice to her (first kg we had, second was HORRENDOUS, 3rd ok again). The older kids would run up to her when I dropped her off, cuddle her and say, come on dd and go off and play with her. So her face would light up like a Christmas tree.

Really depends on the people (dc and carers) how your dc will like it.

I made sure she could say "nein" and "Toilette" and I think it took her about a year to get the language and another year to be really speaking it. First word she spoke was "manu!" which I didn't recognise as a word but seems the dc spend a lot of time complaining about each other and saying "manu" all day so that obviously impressed her a lot!

They generally have an Eingewöhnungsphase which with us worked out as me and dd going in together and hanging about for an hour or so. The next day, same thing and I was to go away briefly after telling her "I'm going shopping, back in 5 minutes". Ok she panicked but I came back and that was ok. It was gradual. I think it was 4 days of me being there with her. Then she did just mornings and then we stretched it to 9-3 which was the norm.

We were lucky in that she had a lovely big bear of a man as main carer who she adored but she wouldn't have anything to do with any of the women except for the Croatian cleaner. I think your dd will settle ok. Have to go by your gut instincts though and observe the situation for a while.

Yes - her Eingewöhnungspahse is in December. She will be 16 months.

There are also English classes for the kids there, early on. It has won an award for education and seems quite popular. The son of the neighbours daughter goes there and they are impressed. lets just hope. That would be in fürstenwalde, where we are now.

I ended up living out here, as hubbie is from Fürstenwalde. His mum lives here, although she is 70, and his friends. We have a house.

I wanted my child to go to school or KG in Berlin (Bilingual school ), but hubbie says it is best she goes here, as her friends will then be nearby. If she goes to school in Berlin, then she would have no friends out here.

annasmami - yes, I have many books, DVDs in English. I will try to get an English friend from work to visit every so often and we will pay visits to England to see her cousin and Granny and Grandad.

well, I dunno, people have cars these days after all Bekkie, and the dc at the internationals and bilingual schools travel from all over Berlin and Brandenburg so I shouldn't think the friendships will be a major problem. These bilingual and international schools have a lot of activities in situ so the dc really interact playfully a great deal at school. Weekends people tend to stay en famille IME

I just think the whole situation has probably changed so much since when your dh (and we ofcourse) were at school. She would also have local friends if you sent her to the local guides or some Sportverein or something. Anyway you have plenty of time to mull it over.

Thanks all for the tips and that. You have been really great

Bekkie sorry, slight hijack, but how fluent was your German when you moved 7 years ago (you say you are nearly fluent now) was it already pretty good or have you had to do a lot of work? And if you have had to work at it what did you do?

I had no German 7 years ago. I also had no baby then either. It has taken 7 years to reach almost fluency. But it is not 100% grammatically correct, so if I was to speak German she would pick up grammatically errors.

I did a course in England once a week, before I moved here - to learn the basics. Once in germany I worked hard at it. I refused to read english books and to watch english TV. I just immersed myself in it from the start. It took me hours to get through books. One book even lasted a year!!! I would be looking up every word. But not now, I can read everything. I can understand TV. I can speak to my husbands family who have no english. I also have a very good teach yourself german series. Will let you know what it is called - will post about it later on tonight, but it is fantastic.

IME there are two criteria that need to be satisfied for a child to master a language:

1 they need to have LOTS of exposure

2 they need occasionally to be in a situation where they have to actively use the language

Strict OPOL is one way of satisfying those criteria. It is not the only way.

My children are very fluent in both English (local language) and Swedish (my language). I confess to not being strictly OPOL, instead both dc's and I change languages on a regular and fairly random basis and even dh speaks Swedish when Swedes are around and sometimes if the rest of us are speaking it. I am usually the person who helps them with their homework and negotiates their social affairs/medical appointments etc.

But I compensate for this lack of strictness by

1 reading lots with them, singing lots when they were little, providing Swedish comics, books, dvds and cds, and talking LOTS with them- in fact, I probably still manage to get more of each language spoken in a day than many monolingual parents

2 spending the summer holidays in Sweden where they are surrounded by monolingual children; dd also has Swedish pen-friends

Hi
Yes of course the people will look but I NEVER EVER heared a bad comment about it .Quite the contrary.They come and say `It´s great that you speak two languages´Of course it feels a bit strange at the beginn but soon you will be used to it.

so sorry feel rude - but was occupied the last few days with a teething baby who was refusing some bottles!

Basically I have always found all "teach it yourself" german courses useless. OK for the basics but anything else forget it. Until I stumbled across the following. I could only get hold of it in the US - so had to get my brother who lives in america to order it for me. It is called:

Living language, ultimate german - published by "A random House company". Absolutely brilliant and covers absolutely every aspect of grammar in a very clear and concise fashion

Hi Bekkie32 have you seen our German corner yet?

Bluebutterfly my last post ref german teach it yourself was aimed at you! Took me a while to get to reply! was preoccupied..

Admylin - AAh okay, good to know - will possibly join the discussion in a few days. Just got to go and do another bottle feed - hoping for a good 200mls.

Tomorrow I have someone coming to visit from work - who is also from the UK! so you may see me about on tuesday or weds.