Speaking German With My Boys
If you are interested in how I speak German with my boys and why I should have started earlier you will find some insights in here ...
Hallo Ihr Lieben! Hey guys!
The last time I wrote, I explained why I started to learn German and why I kept learning. Unlike me, my little boys haven’t had the chance to live abroad (yet), but they are still fascinated by the fact that I can speak a language other than English. They cluster round me during phone calls to Germany, their little eyes all round, until I have to wave them away because I’m losing concentration!
I remember having lunch with a German friend when Eddie (who is now 11) was about 12 months old. I couldn’t work out why he kept crying. He was normally such a placid baby, happy to sit for an hour in a restaurant (I know, I was very lucky). My German friend – infinitely more experienced in life and with children – laughed. She told me that he wasn’t used to hearing me speak German; he knew it was me because of the sound of my voice, but the fact he wasn’t used to the words confused and upset him.
If only I had talked German to my children sooner! If only we had tried to be bilingual from the beginning! I know that Eddie was completely unharmed after this lunch and it wasn’t a big deal, but I couldn’t help feel that I had missed a trick.
My parents – always in awe of my German skills - continually asked me if I planned to speak German to my children and I repeatedly told them I couldn’t. The German I had learned wasn’t the German of the nursery. How could “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” possibly translate into “The wheels on the bus” or “That’s not my duck, its feathers are too fluffy”?
Now I realise my mistake. A few words would have been better than nothing. A few words every day add up to an awful lot. And as a new mother, I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself. Who cares if the word for ‘digger’ was pronounced slightly incorrectly? What does it matter if I didn’t know the German word for ‘snuggle’? Who cared if one day I was too tired, too overwhelmed, too irritable. There’s always the next day. Or the one after that.
Half the learning is in the making of mistakes. And that’s a good lesson to teach my kids, one almost better than learning German itself. And to learn German, you will make A LOT of mistakes. To be completely honest, I’m still making mistakes in English.
So my advice is to just go for it. Like I should have gone for it. You can be lingual in your daily life. Even just ten minutes a day adds up to about 60 hours a year. Think what you can learn – and enjoy – in 60 hours. Let’s take off ten hours for those times when life is too much (and you just need to sit down with a cup of coffee and a big chocolate biscuit), so that’s 50 hours. That’s still a really good amount. That’s still totally worth it.
Go for it. You won’t regret it!
Also, if anyone knows the German for “its feathers are too fluffy”, please do let me know.
Eine schone Woche wunsche ich Euch, Jo xxx
PS Next time in my blog post, exactly how I started teaching my kids German and what I used!
