The preparation
So here’s the deal. My husband is a professor at UCLA and was invited to do some smarty-pants research for the next three months at a university in Dresden, Germany. He then had the not-so-smarty-pants idea of inviting the rest of his family to go along with him for the ENTIRE three months.
Did I mention that said family included a four and two year old?
So, in the interest of living in a foreign country for a few months and possibly learning another language…we packed up three months worth of clothes best suited for the (they shouldn’t even be called this) winters of sunny Los Angeles and headed to Germany to freeze our butts off.
We had the delusion that we were going to learn as much German as we could in the two months before the trip, continue learning while we were there (a la immersion), and then by the time we left in January, be virtually fluent in German.
I pictured us happily mingling with the natives drinking German bier and eating (vegan) bratwurst (I’m on a mission to find veggie bratwurst and sauerkraut – more on this later) and laughing at off-color German jokes in a German tavern as if we had been living there forever.
The kids of course would be off singing in the hills with their German nanny who had made them cute little German outfits out of the draperies from our Airbnb. Oh wait, that was Austria…whatever, they’ll figure it out.
Anyway, our prep for Germany thus far has been:
Learning German Method 1 – Watching Little Pim DVD’s with the kids
Little Pim is the kid’s variation of the Pimsleur Technique for learning languages. I’m really not familiar with the adult version, but if it doesn’t have a German-speaking cartoon panda like the children’s version, I’m probably not interested.
(who wouldn’t want to learn from that guy?)
Anyway, here is how that typically goes-
Me: Hey kids! Let’s watch Little Pim!!!
(groans)
4 year old: (whining) Noooooooo….not Little Pim! I don’t want to speak German…EVER! I only want to speak English…and French because it is beautiful!
She kind of has a point.
Me (to my 2 year old): Hey, how about you, buddy?
The 2 year old: Watch trash trucks! WATCH TRASH TRUCKS!!!
He is more than a little obsessed with garbage trucks these days.
Me: awesome. Sooooo…Little Pim it is! Yay!!!
30 minutes later
4 year old: (grumpily but in a pretty damn good accent) You know what I’m going to say to people in Germany? Ich spreche kein Deutsch! I only spreche Englisch!!!
Almost 2 year old: Wasser, mama! Trinke Wasser!
Me: Seriously??? (kids’ brains are f’in sponges…pretty sure mine is a rock)
Almost 2 year old: Trash trucks! Watch TRASH TRUCKS!!!! DUMP ITTTTTT!
Learning German Method 2 – Online language-learning platforms (specifically Duolingo and Babbel)
These are pretty fun, especially Duolingo because it makes a game of learning languages, it is very visual, and it has a tracker on the top right that tells you how fluent you are based on your progress. According to Duolingo, I am now 35% fluent in German. Now, the reasonable side of my rock brain knows this is bulls***, but I rarely listen to that side anyway, so yeah, I am 1/3 fluent in German y’all.
Where Duolingo is heavier on the vocabulary and using the vocabulary in sentences, Babbel is more conversational. It has more useful phrases that you might need on a daily basis, like this one:
Guten Tag! Ich bin Kristi. Ich spreche kein Deutsch, weil ich ein Amerikaner bin, und wir schätzen es nicht, andere Sprachen wie den Rest der zivilisierten Welt zu lernen. ’Murika!
Which loosely translates to:
Good Day! I am Kristi. I don’t speak German because I am an American and we don’t value learning other languages like the rest of the civilized world. ’Murica!
Anyway, for the last two months, my husband and I would put the kids to bed, grab our laptops, jump on the sofa, and settle in for some heavy German language learning. Sexy.
Learning German Method 3 – German Films and Television
A couple weeks before we left, we thought it might be a good idea to watch some German movies or TV shows.
We found a series titled, “Rita” on Netflix. Quick synopsis -it’s about a chain smoking, cursing high school teacher, who also happens to be banging the principal. She is great with her students but not so adept at her personal life.
We sat down to watch, completely expecting to understand at least a word or a phrase here or there (keep in mind at this point we were at least 28% fluent in German)…but nothing. We didn’t understand a Single. Dang. Word.
At one point, Richie and I just looked at each other like, “we are so screwed.”
A couple of days later I was browsing the show’s IMDB page and discovered we had actually been watching a Danish television show all along and didn’t even realize it.
Danish.
Soooooo…we can’t even tell the difference between German and Danish?
I see this is going to go well.
I kept pressing ‘Chapter 2’ hoping it would open! Can’t wait to read your next installment. Xo
Thanks Laura! I’ve had a rough first week here with sleep and I haven’t been able to write as much as I wanted to, but I kept saying to myself, “Laura’s going to be mad. I have to get the blog up!”
Hahahaha! Glad you are having such a great time! My parents were very daring souls and took me and my brother to Germany for 3 years when I was turning 4 and my brother was almost 2. Now, mind you, this was during the Civil War! Actually it was shortly after the end of WWII and we arrived there in 1953. We lived in so many interesting places, an old farmhouse, in a room above a German bakery and apparently right in the middle of some Commies. I remember that well because the military police came in the middle of the night and made us move. Finally, military housing became available. Apparently my mother had followed my father halfway around the world against the commanding officer’s orders because there was not family housing available yet and that’s why we were stuck in all those wild places. But, my brother and I learned the language very quickly and adapted quickly to our bohemian lifestyle.
Also, I think you will find now that almost all Germans speak pretty fair English and you will not even need to speak much German! And, for the most part, they are excited to get to speak it with you. Ken and I were over there a few years ago at Christmas and I hardly ever had to use my pathetic German.
Have a great time! What a wonderful experience for you. You are there for the three most wonderful months of all. I envy you!
Love, Sue
Sue, you seriously need to write about that! What an amazing and crazy experience!
So far it’s been really fun, however, there are not that many people here (outside of the University) that speak English (more on that in an upcoming post). I feel like Frankfurt and Giessen were a little different when we were there five years ago, it seemed like more people were English speakers there. But half the time, I am lost here! Haha!
Also, I think living above a German bakery would be my heaven.