German in London
Jan 30, 2015 21:51:05 GMT 9
Post by Yvann on Jan 30, 2015 21:51:05 GMT 9
Hi all,
Joining up here in anticipation of our first child joining us at some point in the next 2 weeks or so... (I write this with my laptop definitely further away from me than is comfortable!)
I was raised bilingual English-German through ML@H [minority language at home] (my Australian parents spoke English at home, we lived in Germany until I was 7) and my sister was also raised bilingual through reverse ML@H (we lived in England when she was born, but had a German au pair and spoke English to each other but German in front of the au pair, which was then most of the time when my sister was present).
While German is very much my second language, I'm very conscious of the facility with languages bilingualism has given me, and it's a gift I'm keen to pass onto my child. My monolingual husband is happy for me to give it a shot if it's important to me; I'm still strategising on how to make it work. I'm concerned it will feel very unnatural to me to speak German to my child and I will end up code-switching with the baby all the time, or only managing to incorporate German some of the time (e.g. through reading and TV and music). I guess some language exposure is better than none, though I'm realistic about the baby not ending up properly bilingual.
What is also very important to me is our mixed cultures - I'm a German-speaking Australian of Croatian and Irish heritage, living in London. My husband is very Scottish, though my mother-in-law is a very talented linguist and I am hoping for some support from her!
A little background: I'm an audit manager with a big financial firm in the City of London but starting to enjoy the downtime of maternity leave!
Looking forward to hanging around here in the zoo!
Joining up here in anticipation of our first child joining us at some point in the next 2 weeks or so... (I write this with my laptop definitely further away from me than is comfortable!)
I was raised bilingual English-German through ML@H [minority language at home] (my Australian parents spoke English at home, we lived in Germany until I was 7) and my sister was also raised bilingual through reverse ML@H (we lived in England when she was born, but had a German au pair and spoke English to each other but German in front of the au pair, which was then most of the time when my sister was present).
While German is very much my second language, I'm very conscious of the facility with languages bilingualism has given me, and it's a gift I'm keen to pass onto my child. My monolingual husband is happy for me to give it a shot if it's important to me; I'm still strategising on how to make it work. I'm concerned it will feel very unnatural to me to speak German to my child and I will end up code-switching with the baby all the time, or only managing to incorporate German some of the time (e.g. through reading and TV and music). I guess some language exposure is better than none, though I'm realistic about the baby not ending up properly bilingual.
What is also very important to me is our mixed cultures - I'm a German-speaking Australian of Croatian and Irish heritage, living in London. My husband is very Scottish, though my mother-in-law is a very talented linguist and I am hoping for some support from her!
A little background: I'm an audit manager with a big financial firm in the City of London but starting to enjoy the downtime of maternity leave!
Looking forward to hanging around here in the zoo!
(See 
