As a bilingual family (which sounds like something special but is actually the result of mere coincidence and a couple of Cupid's arrows) we are often asked how we communicate with each other, to which I reply with neanderthal grunts and moans and the odd bit of thrown pottery. Ha ha, they say, we mean which language do you speak? What is your system? System? While it is true that we do have a rough framework, the fact of the matter is that when both parents speak both languages, in our case German and English, it is extremely difficult to stick to 'your' language when speaking to the offspring, particularly when all of you are sitting at the dinner table, for instance. Not only in fun do we end up mix and matching, chucking German words into English sentences and vice versa, or using direct (and wrong) translations - one of my favourites is the German expression 'tote Hose', literally 'dead trousers', meaning there was nothing going on. And it is nice to liven up the domestic humdrum by coming home from somewhere - let's say one of our fabulous local supermarkets - and reporting that it was dead trousers. Random visitors will prick up their ears and momentarily wonder at our curious lexical choices, then go back to their guidebook, vowing never to move to the country, if that's what it does to you.
Jesting aside, I am truly a champion of my language, and desire that my children speak it as well as I can, or at least could, before I started getting stuck in the ex-pat quagmire, otherwise entitled forgetting how to talk English proper. The longer we all live together - and hopefully this happy coexistence will continue for some time to come - the harder it gets to keep us all on the straight and narrow. Getting impatient with the necessity in English to refer to upper and lower layers specifically - i.e. up there, down there, upstairs, downstairs, on the top, on the bottom etc etc, it is tempting to just use the German oben and unten. So practical! But then I find myself asking my kids whether they have brushed their teeth upstairs and downstairs, and they stare back quizzically, as their bathroom is upstairs, as in on the first floor. And it's not just me. I distinctly heard CG the other day referring to trousers (uncountable noun in English, singular) as plural in German. (Are you still with me? I'm nearly done.)
Take the German verb 'sagen' - to say. Once again, practicality prevails. Sag es mir, they say. Say it me. (Purists will argue that 'mir' means 'to me' - let them). But in English you have to say it to me. Or, confusingly, you can tell me. Not tell it me. Is it any wonder our children are durcheinander?*
Oh, I could go on forever, but luckily for you, I won't, as Eastenders is on in twenty minutes. In case you are thinking I am unusually verbose this evening, you'd be right. I am working every spare minute to finish an assignment for my MA, and the forty-year-old brain is getting a horrible shock, actually having to think harder than what kind of washing powder to buy or how far to run. Goodness me. But I was so humbled by my first assignment grade (if you really want to know it, contact me privately) that I am spurred on to show that I've got what it takes, even if I do need 10 days to complete a 1000 word essay. I've really enjoyed writing this post, by the way. Simply being allowed to put thoughts to screen and not have to back them up with academic references is heaven.
*Confused, or alternatively, 'through one another' - an interesting thought.
Jesting aside, I am truly a champion of my language, and desire that my children speak it as well as I can, or at least could, before I started getting stuck in the ex-pat quagmire, otherwise entitled forgetting how to talk English proper. The longer we all live together - and hopefully this happy coexistence will continue for some time to come - the harder it gets to keep us all on the straight and narrow. Getting impatient with the necessity in English to refer to upper and lower layers specifically - i.e. up there, down there, upstairs, downstairs, on the top, on the bottom etc etc, it is tempting to just use the German oben and unten. So practical! But then I find myself asking my kids whether they have brushed their teeth upstairs and downstairs, and they stare back quizzically, as their bathroom is upstairs, as in on the first floor. And it's not just me. I distinctly heard CG the other day referring to trousers (uncountable noun in English, singular) as plural in German. (Are you still with me? I'm nearly done.)
Take the German verb 'sagen' - to say. Once again, practicality prevails. Sag es mir, they say. Say it me. (Purists will argue that 'mir' means 'to me' - let them). But in English you have to say it to me. Or, confusingly, you can tell me. Not tell it me. Is it any wonder our children are durcheinander?*
Oh, I could go on forever, but luckily for you, I won't, as Eastenders is on in twenty minutes. In case you are thinking I am unusually verbose this evening, you'd be right. I am working every spare minute to finish an assignment for my MA, and the forty-year-old brain is getting a horrible shock, actually having to think harder than what kind of washing powder to buy or how far to run. Goodness me. But I was so humbled by my first assignment grade (if you really want to know it, contact me privately) that I am spurred on to show that I've got what it takes, even if I do need 10 days to complete a 1000 word essay. I've really enjoyed writing this post, by the way. Simply being allowed to put thoughts to screen and not have to back them up with academic references is heaven.
*Confused, or alternatively, 'through one another' - an interesting thought.
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