German with Big Brother

Just a few months ago, our fourth-oldest, Dallin, came home from serving a 2-year mission in Brazil. During that time, he didn't ever use his German. However, he became quite fluent in Portuguese! When he left for his mission, the three little ones were still speaking only German with each other and with all of us. In fact, 2 years ago, they spoke almost exclusively German at home. Since that time, they have slowly switched to speaking more and more English. They still speak German when reminded, but they have become more comfortable with English.
It was fun to see that Dallin hadn't forgotten all of his German and that he was still more comfortable communicating with his little siblings in German than in English. On several occasions, I caught Dallin and the boys playing Legos together, and of course, I was thrilled to hear them conversing in German. Even though they don't always speak German, I'm so glad that they still "can" and often "do" speak German.
I also found that there was another perk to having Dallin spend two years in another country, learning a third language: He came home even more interested in improving his German. And I actually think that learning Portuguese (along with all the Portuguese grammar), helped him to better understand German grammar. Granted, he has forgotten quite a bit of his vocabulary, but I watched it come back very quickly as he spent time talking and playing with his little siblings. It will be fun to see how all of this pans out! I'm just always happy when I see that German is still a special language that the kids use when they are bonding.

Reaching Higher Levels through Educational Software and Home Schooling!

We are continuing to "part-time home school" our three youngest children. I keep them home from school one day each week (more or less). On that day, usually it's a Wednesday, we do German lessons. I have a German 2nd grade curriculum that we work from . We also work a little on math and, often, I have them work on their regular school (English) homework.

I especially like that our German curriculum comes with some helpful software. The following video is of my Simon working on creating sentences in German. He has to put the phrases in the correct order to either create a statement or a question. It's so fun to see the kids learning so much. They aren't quite up to a native German 2nd grade level, as they often don't understand certain words. But by working through the German school curriculum, the kids continue to improve their German past the level that they would achieve by merely speaking German at home with their non-native German-speaking parents.  For non-native bilingual parenting to be successful, we need to expose our children to as many outside resources as possible in order to help them continue to progress in the target language.

Thank goodness for Technology Post

Mixing Languages: Borrowing Loan Words

OK, since my last post was about the fears of passing our mistakes on to our children, I thought I'd blog a little more about imperfect language...or in this case impure language:
One of the phenomenons I'd like to discuss and one that happens frequently when raising children in a language that is not spoken in the community, is that you often get a little bit of language mixing. By this, I mean that when we are speaking the target (or minority) language, we  often end up using "loan words" that we "borrow" from the community (or majority) language. This is a very common phenomenon and is not necessarily bad. For those interested in this, there is an excellent article found on Multilingual Living.com: Loan Words and Borrowing: A Kind of  Code-Swtiching?

I've been noticing a lot of this borrowing in our family. The sentence below is a prime example of borrowing. My little 6 year old Simon said this to me the other day (all covered in water). I immediately wrote it down--because it was so cute, and because it was such a good example of what happens so often in our home.

Mama, schau! Ich tue Wasser auf mich, weil ich will pretenden dass ich sweaty bin.
Translation: "Mom, look! I'm putting water on me because I want to pretenden that I'm sweaty."

In this instance, Simon couldn't think of the German word for pretend, so he just inserted the English word into the German syntax and "germanized" the word by adding an "en." It's quite an amazing feat for a 7-year old, if you think about it. The German word that actually belongs in that sentence is spielen and has an "en" ending, which is why Simon added the "en" onto the word pretend.

After giving it some more thought, I realized, that very likely Simon does know that the German word for pretend is spielen. However, spielen is a much more general word than pretend. Spielen can also mean simply to play. And it is possible to play with out pretending. So perhaps he used the word pretend in an attempt to communicate more precisely. Maybe, he wanted me to understand that he wasn't just merely playing, but was pretending to be something he wasn't.

There are many reasons why we often use loan words from different languages. Sometimes, we simply don't know a specific word, so we replace it with it's translation in a more familiar language. Other times, it just takes too many words to words to communicate a thought that in a different language might only take a single word. However, like with Simon's example, sometimes one language simply has a better word for a given situation.

We use language to communicate. It is a tool. And because it is a tool, we almost always use the the most efficient and the most readily available words. Sometimes, we just can't think of the word in the target language and we're simply too lazy to figure out what that word is. It's much easier to just insert the word using a more familiar language. Call it laziness or call it brilliance. I tend towards the latter.

Yes, sometimes, I worry that my kids use a little too many English words in their German. And if I know the correct German word, I will often correct them and have them repeat the German word back to me to help them remember. Other times, I just let it go and I say to myself: Imperfect German is better than no German at all!

Thoughts on Raising Children in a Non-Native (and therefore imperfect) Language

There are regular bilingual parenting issues and then there are non-native bilingual parenting issues. Those of us who are attempting to raise our children in a language which we do not speak natively will naturally have additional questions, fears and feelings of inadequacy. One of the most common fears, and one that I remember facing when I first started out on our bilingual parenting journey, comes from our imperfect knowledge of the target language. And, no wonder! How can we even think of teaching our children a language which we ourselves haven’t yet mastered perfectly?  It’s a valid concern and it’s one that many parents, who wish to raise children in a foreign language, share. It may seem like an insurmountable barrier to some. 

So often we think that we have to be an expert at something before we can teach that skill to others. But that is just not the case! Just think about real life. If I want to teach my child manners, do I need to have a certificate from a leading etiquette school? Or can I assume that I know enough about manners to teach my children the basics. Granted, I may even teach my children some incorrect manners. For instance, I may teach them to use the salad fork when they should have used the dessert fork…BUT should I let my imperfect knowledge of manners stop me from teaching any manners at all? Of course not. Won’t my children be far better off by learning a few manners, even if some of them might not be exactly perfect, than if I threw in the towel and decided to just not teach them any manners? This same reasoning can be made for most skills and habits that we teach our children. I may want to teach my children to do housework. Does that mean that I need to be perfect at keeping my house clean? Do I need to know all the ins and outs of custodial cleanliness? Or can I suffice with just teaching them what I know? One amazing fact remains when it comes to raising children. Not only can I teach my children something that I know, but I can even help them to become better at something than I am. With the right training, my children can develop even better manners and be even better housekeepers than myself. Yes, of course, we should teach by example. But once our children surpass us, we can still help them learn things, even things that are outside of our own ability. We do this through our encouragement, our efforts in making sure they have the right materials and our finding and placing experts in their path. The bottom line is that you absolutely do not have to be the expert in everything that you teach your children. 

How wonderful that parenting usually starts out with a small, helpless infant, whose knowledge of the world is extremely limited. Surely, we know a little more about the world than our tiny little baby. And that should give any parent a little boost of confidence. The main factor to remember is that we don’t need to have a perfect knowledge of something, we just need to know a little more than the person we are teaching and as that person learns, it’s up to us to learn right along with them and to be the wind beneath their wings. 

Yes, I make LOTS of mistakes in German. And, yes, my children also make LOTS of mistakes in German. But, not once have my kids chastised me for attempting to teach them a language that I didn't speak perfectly. On the contrary! Rather, every single one of my eight beautiful children continues to express gratitude for their ability to speak German, even if that German is flawed and imperfect. My motto has always been: An imperfect second language is better than no second language!

My sweet missionary daughter and her companion, at a Christmas market near Frankfurt.
 Even though I taught her imperfect German,she has still been able to communicate just fine--from the minute she arrived.
In fact, she is often mistaken for a native German.  She'll be the first to admit that an imperfect second language is better than none at all. 

Starting Early is Key!

We always tend drift towards the language that comes more naturally and feels most comfortable. Because of this, it’s crucial establish your target language as early as possible.

It’s hard to imagine that speaking your foreign language will ever feel comfortable, but it definitely can. Be patient.

The concept of starting early actually benefits the parent more than the child. It’s all about establishing habits. By speaking to your newborn in the target language, you are training yourself and familiarizing yourself with the language. It can feel strange to speak to a 3 month old baby in a foreign language, especially, since that baby does not understand what you are saying and is not able to respond. But, by using the target language, you are establishing a relationship in that particular language. The more you use the language when talking and interacting with your baby, the more comfortable you will start to feel in the target language. And by the time your baby reaches the age where he or she can understand and even respond to your words, your new language will feel quite natural. In fact, it will soon feel so comfortable, that the thought of speaking your native language to your child will feel awkward and uncomfortable.

I remember being astounded by this concept with own children. How could speaking my own native language to my children feel uncomfortable? And how did my non-native language become the more natural and familiar mode of communication? It was at this point, that I realized that we had succeeded in truly implementing our target language. Speaking the target language was no longer something on our long list of things we were trying to accomplish. It was just the way we did things. Once we got the ball rolling, we didn’t really even think about it.  Speaking German was how we rolled. It was and is our normal way of communicating. 

The sooner you establish your target language as the “natural” mode of communication, the better. The longer you wait, the harder it will get. This is because relationships are partly defined by language. The language you use in a particular relationship become a powerful habit. To change that language habit takes extra work. For instance, if you’ve been speaking your native language with your daughter until age 5 and then you try to get her to switch to a different language, she will probably resist. Even if she wants to learn the target language, it will require so much effort and feel so strange that she will likely give up and resort to the easier language. That’s why it’s so important to start early. Establishing your target language as the “normal” mode of communication from the get-go is way easier than trying to switch languages later on. Kids (and adults) don’t want to think about language. It’s a tool used to communicate. We don’t want to think about our tools, we just want to use the one that gets the job done with the least amount of effort. This is the reason we tend to always revert to the language that feels more natural. To do anything else requires extra work and effort. 

My Turn to Study

I recently decided that I'd like to start saving up to take our younger children to Germany. We took our older kids to Germany in 2006. It was an amazing and life-changing experience for them. When you grow up speaking a foreign language, it is really special to finally get to visit the country where that language is spoken. When we took our older children, my oldest was 13 years old and the youngest (at the time) was 7. They had been speaking German since birth, but they didn't really know what Germany was like. It was a big deal for them to travel to Europe and see Germany for themselves. They got to see the farm where I lived for a few years as a child and they had the opportunity to finally use their German.

Ever since our younger batch of children arrived, I've known that we need to try and get over to Germany again. I would like the little ones to have the same opportunity that their older siblings had. But, of course, a family trip to Europe costs money. So, I decided to start earning some money by teaching or subbing part-time.  I'm only hoping to teach 1 or maybe 2 days a week tops. The nice thing about subbing is that I can get to choose when I want to work. Also, because of our part-time homeschooling, I need to be at home several days a week.
I haven't worked outside the home since I was in college. I have a secondary education degree in German, but have not have not kept my license current. So, my first step is to get a teaching license. And the first step to getting my teaching license is to take and pass several competency tests. Since my major was German and my minor was TESL, I need to pass a comprehensive exam in each of these areas.
I was quite nervous about my German test. I did study, but there was just so much information and so little time to study, that I figured: "I'll either know it or I won't." Well, as I took my test, it became clear that all my years of speaking German at home had been a HUGE help. Because we speak German at home to the kids, my German skills had never become dormant. The words, phrases, idioms were at the forefront of my head. Phrases popped into my head as I was writing the essay. Having tutored my older children in grammar, helped me to remember all the grammar rules.
Several weeks later, I received my test scores. I had passed with flying colors! Of course, I was thrilled to have passed the test, but mostly I was so excited that my success came from the fact that we had decided to raise our children bilingually. My children weren't a distraction from my studies at all! Rather, they were literally 20 years of test prep! All my focus these last 20 years has been on the kids. All of our bilingual efforts have been directed towards improving their language proficiency. And even though I really haven't given my own German language learning much thought, it was fun to see just how much I have learned in the process of non-native bilingual parenting.

Thank Goodness for Technology (when you're parenting in your non-native language)

The boys play a German computer game. Love how the stuffed kitty
is hanging by its tail and watching. 

Having had the experience of raising bilingual kids in the 1990's as well as in the 2010's, I must say that I've been very grateful for the help of technology in both eras. In the 1990's I was very grateful for anything German that I could get my hands on. It was a LOT harder to get the things that I wanted than it is today. For example, in order to be able to watch German children's videos. First, I had to find someone who was going to Germany who could buy a video cassette for me. Of course, that video (being in PAL format, used in Europe) wouldn't play on my American (NTSC) video player. So, I would have to find someone who owned a (very expensive) PAL/NTSC conversion video player. Thankfully, the university I was attending owned such a player, so I was able to convert a few videos. And, boy, was I grateful for each and every one of my German videos. The first movie we had was Dumbo. My little Ben watched his German Dumbo every afternoon before he took a nap. Later, I found friends who had NTSC/PAL video players/converters and our small German video library slowly grew. Eventually, the price came down enough that we got our own machine. Our little library become much bigger. We acquired  a whole slew of Disney videos. We also picked up traditional German children's shows along the way, like Loewenzahn, Petzi, and Sendung mit der Maus.

With our younger batch of kids we've had so, so much more technology available to us. With the internet, it's so much easier to order videos.  And the PAL video players are very cheap now. I have found that Abe Books carries lots of German materials and their shipping to the US is very reasonable. But, lately, I have almost stopped buying videos altogether, because we can find so many shows on YouTube. We can also watch a whole bunch of children's shows, including our all time favorite, Sendung mit dem Elefanten, on Kika. (KiKA Link). KiKA is a German children's TV network.

We have found lots of fun computer sites that help the kids to develop their German. Many of these resources are pinned on my Pinterest board (see right column). One of our favorites is Toggolino. You pay a yearly subscription, but that gets you access to tons of different educational software games. My kids absolutely love it. They never get tired of it because there are so many different games and new ones are constantly being added. I love all the educational software available to help the kids learn to read and write in German. 

Another source of German, which technology has made much easier to acquire, is music and audio books. I used to order cassette tapes through catalogs. Now, I can download just about anything I want. We love our German children's music. We have it playing all the time. Our favorite artist is Rolf Zukowski. The kids love to sing along to his songs. We also love to listen to audio books in the car. I was so pleased to find that I could open a German Audible account and order just about any audio book I wanted. I don't know if you younger moms appreciate all this as much as us older moms. But, just imagine trying to get your hands on material in your target language without the internet. Having access to so much information is just so helpful when you're parenting in your non-native language!!

So, how has access to all this technology helped us to raise children in our non-native language? Well, most of all, it has exposed our kids to lots and lots of (natively) spoken German, which is something they desperately need since our German is far from perfect. Through the many forms of media, they are exposed to complex sentence structures, syntax, different dialects, fixed expressions, and many other linguistic nuances that they can’t pick up from us, their parents, because we are not native speakers. On numerous occasions, I’ve heard my kids use phrases that they picked up from a German TV show or a German song…phrases that neither Karl nor I have ever used. And whenever that happens, I am reminded of just how much technology has helped my children understand and speak better German.

Not only does all this exposure help their language, it also makes them feel like they are part of a bigger group. My kids have very few friends who speak German. We just don’t come in contact with many Germans on a day to day basis. For this reason, it really helps them to see other kids speaking German on TV. When they watch a German show and see all the characters speaking German, it helps them to realize that they are not the only ones speaking this funny language. It also helps with the “cool factor” of the language. If your favorite cartoon character speaks German, then maybe German is a cool language!

And on top of helping their language AND helping them to love the language, the other benefit that I’ve seen from exposing our kids to lots of German videos, is that they are learning about German culture. This culture learning comes especially from shows with “real” actors (rather than cartoons). One culturally educational series that our young kids enjoy are the “Sachgeschichten” on Sendung mit der Maus. These are excerpts that can be compared to the How It’s Made series, except it’s geared towards little kids. My older girls adore the Sissi movie about Empress of Austria. It’s packed with history and culture. And what girl doesn’t love the beautiful flouncy dresses and elaborate hairstyles of the Georgian era?

When you're raising your kids in a language that is foreign to you, you are going to make mistakes--lots of them! You will sound awkward at times and you'll be just plain wrong at other times. It just makes sense to make sure that you are not the only source of the target language. You're going to want to surround your children with as many native speakers as possible. When you're facing a huge project (and I think raising your kids in a foreign language counts as a huge project), you want as much help as you can get. Thank goodness for the many foreign language resources that technology has put at our fingertips!

English all Week!

So, for the past week, we have been watching my brother's four children while they were in Hawaii. It has been a lot of work and a lot of fun. The best part was seeing all the wonderful interactions and bonding. I loved seeing all the boys sword-fighting in the attic; the girls playing in the meadow; all the kids playing in the tree house and riding bikes. I loved listening to all the giggles and cute discussions at bedtime. Everyone got along so well. There was no fighting or quarreling, just happy kids.

Of course, the cousins don't speak German, so our household became English speaking for the past week. There was hardly any German spoken for the entire time that the cousins were here. We pretty much became an English speaking household. All of the adults (Karl and I and all the older kids) parented all the younger children in English. They spoke English to each other and to us.  It's a little different than when we have English speaking friends over since all of our routines are in English this week: the morning routine, the family scripture and prayer time, the meals, and the entire bedtime routine...all in English. My kids have spoken almost only English to each other and to us. In fact, they've actually been learning new English words and phrases that they hadn't been exposed to yet. Since we always do bedtime in German, they had to ask me about some of the English words associated with bedtime and meal time. They have spoken very little German the past few days.

Now the big question is: Will they revert right back to German as soon as the cousins leave or will they continue to speak English? I guess only time will tell. My hope is that since we haven't broken our "language boundary rules" (that it's OK to speak English when we have guests that don't speak German), that we will be able to slip right back into German as soon as the guests are gone. As long as we don't speak English to each other when we are alone as a family, then hopefully, the kids will recognize all the English speaking this week as the exception to the norm rather than a shift in how we normally talk to each other. I'll update next week.

Learning from the past!

This blog has given me the opportunity to really compare and analyze the methods and habits that we've used in raising both sets of kids. As I look back on my bilingual successes and failures in raising my first 5 children, I am able to decide what methods will be most effective to use in raising my younger children. It's a very unique situation. Since there are over 8 years between the two sets of children, we are able to start fresh with this new batch. The language habits from the older kids did not carry over to the younger ones, so I have the wonderful opportunity to really learn from the past and implement my best bilingual parenting ideas and avoid my former bilingual pitfalls as I raise my youngest three children.
We worked very hard to raise our older children bilingually and I am very aware that we didn't do everything perfectly. Yet, I don't have regrets. We did the best that we could with the knowledge and experience that we had at the time...and we did a good job: We have 5 older children who can understand and speak German. But I know that we can do better. Because of our past experience, we know how to help our younger children reach a higher proficiency in their minority language (German) than their older siblings reached. It has been fun and rewarding to observe the bilingual successes that we are having as a family. And as I write this, I am smiling, because I am listening to my three younger ones chatter away in German and that makes me happy.

My German Language Background

My introduction to the German language came when I was six years old. We had been living in Stockton, California, when my dad accepted a job in southern Germany. We thought we would only be there for a few months, but we ended up staying 5 1/2 years. Instead of just renting a regular apartment or house, my mother, being a romantic Sound of Music fan, found us a vacation rental in a dairy farm in the foothills of the Alps. It is common for some of the farmers to make a little extra money by turning a part of their large farm houses into vacation apartments. We surprised the sweet German dairy farmers by showing up in the middle of winter in our Californian wardrobes looking to rent their apartment--which is usually only rented out in the summers. Needless to say, we loved it and the wonderful family so much, that we stayed in the apartment the whole time we lived in Germany.  (our farm is the one in the back ground, directly to the left of the church's roofline)

I had just turned 6 and did not speak a word of German. That didn't stop my parents from enrolling me in Kindergarten within a few weeks. I still remember sitting in the corner of the classroom not understanding anything that was going on. I even wet my pants, because I didn't know how to ask where the bathroom was. It was very scary at first. Most of the kids were from the local dairy farms and had never seen an American before. They thought I dressed funny and made fun of me. I don't really remember learning the language. But I do remember that with time, I became more and more aware of what was going on around me, which meant that I was indeed learning. By 2nd grade, I could understand most of what people were saying and I also started making friends.

Our home language was always English. My mother would give us English homework after school. We worked on spelling and writing. She wanted to make sure that we would be able to seamlessly enter back into our grade level upon returning to the States. There was a US Army base nearby, and so we also had access to some American culture. I even joined a Girl Scout troop on base. We met a few American families through our church. Our congregation was mostly German and church was held in German, but there were a few American army families who lived off base who attended our congregation.

In southern Germany, or Bavaria, where we lived, the locals speak a very thick accent. I prided myself in being able to speak Bairisch (Bavarian) almost as well as any of the Bavarian farm girls. By 5th grade, I was fully immersed in the rich Bavarian culture and loved it with all my heart and my German was quite good. I got good grades in school and was almost as comfortable with German as I was with English. Our little rural school was small, less than 25 children to a grade, and I was friends with everyone in my class as well as the classes above and below mine.

When it came time for my family to return to the States, I was heart broken. I was 11 years old and did not want to leave the farm, my friends or the beautiful countryside. I felt much more connected to Bavaria than I did to the U.S. It was a hard move.

Once we moved back to the states, my German quickly declined because we almost never used it. I could still understand everything, but my productive language really suffered. My grammar was terrible. I had never really learned any grammar and didn't understand it.

Fast forward to college: I decided to major in German teaching. I skipped all the lower level German classes and thought I could jump right into the advanced language and grammar class, which I failed and had to retake. But with time, and a more solid understanding of grammar, my German slowly began to improve again. After a few years in the German program, I got a job teaching the lower level college German classes. Teaching German helped my German to improve tremendously. Of course, my German is far from perfect. I often make grammatical mistakes and often don't know the correct phrase to use in a given situations, but I can usually work around those problems.

Today, my German is relatively good, but only because I use it on a daily basis with my children. Speaking German to them has made a huge difference in my ability to retain the language. I haven't improved a ton, because I don't spend a lot of time talking to native adults. I basically spend all my time practicing what I already know. But even merely maintaining my language ability, beats the alternative, which is to slowly lose it altogether. So, I have been very grateful for our decision to speak German to our children.