Claudia from Germany with Irish connections
Aug 10, 2014 5:48:27 GMT 9
Post by Claudia Titze on Aug 10, 2014 5:48:27 GMT 9
Dear all, both my husband and I are Germans and we live in Germany, so it seems not very bilingual so far, right? However, we used to live in Ireland for some years (2 years with the kids until March 2013 and I was over there as an Erasmus student a while back as well) and as we wanted to keep English "alive" for our children when we moved back, we gradually switched to use more English at home. Which was quite tricky, believe me. In Ireland our family language was German of course and the majority language English. After our move back, I started (shifting gradually) to speak English most of the times (not a strict OPOL, but trying), although my husband still uses only German (which annoys me a bit, as his English is very good as well and he uses it a lot at work, but he does not feel comfortable speaking English to the kids, so I reckon it is better that way). Our majority language is German of course...
Our kids have both a very good understanding of English, our minority language, but the tricky think is to get them speaking.
Standard problems I assume... Luckily we found nice English speaking families in our area and go to an English kids group once a week as well. Our main aim is that our children do not lose their knowledge - admittedly our little one was only born in Ireland and we moved back when she was 3 months old, so her English was not too far advanced when we came back, but she started to talk a couple of weeks ago and uses both German and English words, which is really cute. Some important words like "cookie" are used in both languages, whatever that should tell me about our diet. We try to go back to visit our friends regularly and not surprisingly this always has a big impact. I can't wait to go back in a couple of months (not because of this, but because I really regret that we had to move away...).
I look forward to interesting chats here at the Bilingual Zoo and if anybody lives close to Mainz, please give a holler so we maybe can meet up for a playdate...
Our kids have both a very good understanding of English, our minority language, but the tricky think is to get them speaking.
Standard problems I assume... Luckily we found nice English speaking families in our area and go to an English kids group once a week as well. Our main aim is that our children do not lose their knowledge - admittedly our little one was only born in Ireland and we moved back when she was 3 months old, so her English was not too far advanced when we came back, but she started to talk a couple of weeks ago and uses both German and English words, which is really cute. Some important words like "cookie" are used in both languages, whatever that should tell me about our diet. We try to go back to visit our friends regularly and not surprisingly this always has a big impact. I can't wait to go back in a couple of months (not because of this, but because I really regret that we had to move away...).I look forward to interesting chats here at the Bilingual Zoo and if anybody lives close to Mainz, please give a holler so we maybe can meet up for a playdate...
--as a key part of your efforts.)
We all sleep "Japanese-style" in one room, which means there's only one "bedroom" in the house. (This is pretty typical for many Japanese families.)
