Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

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JessicaR
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Registriert: 27.11.2014, 10:50

Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von JessicaR »

I've just had baby number 6 11 weeks ago. I am German and my husband is English and has vitually no German. My 3 older boys (now 20, 18 and 16) were raaibed bilingually and it was only when my eldest was around 10 that I let things slide and English took over. My two girls (now 11 and 6) were never exposed to German which I regret now. Oddly enough even my boys appear to have totally forgotten that they used to speak German fluently about 10 years ago. I really want to re-introduce german back into the family for a variety of reasons and I speak only German to the baby. I kind of hope that the younger ones, especially the girls, will be drawn into the language gradually. At the moment though I find they can learn rather little from listening to my babbling to the baby as I find myself even using dialects I don't even speak myself but have retained from my parents. I can imagine once my litle one starts repeating words I will be a bit clearer in the language I use and the older ones would benefit more.
I am just wondering if anyone else has had experiences in re-introducing a dormant language back into the family?
yenhen
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Registriert: 10.11.2015, 17:17

Re: Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von yenhen »

Interesting topic though no experience here. We bring up our baby-girl bilingually German - English though we are both German but used to live in
England for a while.
In my point of view your boys should be able to understand German very well though speaking will depend on your behavior. If you react when they speak English they will not feel very much encouraged to speak German. How do you try it?
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NataschaZ
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Re: Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von NataschaZ »

Sorry, no experience here either but some ideas.

Can you take your kids to Germany to visit family or friends? My dormant french that I learned over 20 years ago in school reapears in Belgium and France. I am often surprised how much I understand.

With your girls you could start singing German lullabies or other songs.
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JessicaR
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Re: Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von JessicaR »

My little boy is 15 months now and he understands a lot of German. Of course his favourite word is "Neiiiin!) accompanied by vigorous shaking of the head. But he is as likely to climb onto the kitchen table dancing and singing: "Get down, get down, get doooowwwwn".
I think my older kids have picked up quite a bit, in particular my 12 year old daughter who has just started German in Secondary school. I'll see now how things progress once Niklas starts responding more.
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Perlchen
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Re: Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von Perlchen »

regarding your boys - when I was in the US, I stayed with a family where the dad used to live in switzerland up until he was 6 years old. wo he had once been fluent. when I arrived, he basically didn't know any german anymore but the longer I stayed and he was exposed to german, he admitted that the language came back to him and he understood almost everything after only a couple of weeks. He even started to speak again - which sounded strange, because even though I am from northern germany and he therefore heard the northern dialect, he spoke with the swiss accent he must have had when he was a kid.

my eldest attends an english immersive class at school where 80% of the classes are held in english (only german is taught in german) and while she was raised bilingually, her friends didn't know a single word at the beginnig of 1st grade. I think that after the first 2 years, they were able to understand almost everything and also started speaking - now in 4th grade they are all fluent. (to make sure every child understands what had just been explained in english, she'd let kids repeat it in german and for tough cases the teacher had a german flag which she pinned onto her shirt - only then she was allowed to talk german. this flag had retired at the end of grade 3)
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JessicaR
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Re: Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von JessicaR »

That school sounds fantastic! Unfortunately there is no such equivalent here in Ireland, at least not where I live. The actual german teaching in school is pretty horrific too. Being a German teacher myself I just hate the system but have to compromise for the sake of earning a livelihood. It's all based on learning off big chunks from certain topics and then regurgitate them in the exam. Students can recite sentences discussing problems like environment and unemployment etc... but if you ask them what they did at the weekend you rarely get a coherent reply. Not surprizing that my eldest son learned nothing new in school although he had German as a subject and had been speaking German fluently until he wwas about 8 or so. In fact his German was shocking at the age of 18!
nadinex
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Registriert: 31.07.2016, 20:34

Re: Re-Introducing German into English Speaking Family

Beitrag von nadinex »

What I personally found helpful in learning English was simply listening to a lot of radio and watching movies in that language. E.g. we always received BFBS 1&2 in Germany, because of the English soldiers over here. It was a really nice change of speed on the weekend from the regular German stations. I can imagine it would help you to do it the other way around, go from English to German.
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