At the age of 12 my son has yet to master the English language. He has never been much of a reader, despite our best efforts to introduce him to the joys of literature. Both his father and I are graduates of literature programs, so perhaps it is just his way of showing how different he is. Plus he is growing up in a bilingual environment and his English teachers, despite their best efforts, are not native speakers.
Over the years I have collected notes he has written because they were too adorable to throw away. Together, they document his progress in English. You’ll best appreciate the humor if you know a bit of German. The best one, written when he was about six or seven, read:
Is dis jours?
Translation: Is this yours?
In August, he spent ten days with his boy scout troupe in Slovakia. It was his first camping and hiking trip ever. He is not especially fit or especially tough. Before he left, I tucked a note into his provisions, saying how proud we were that he was going on this trip, all by himself, away from the family for the first time ever, on his own, hiking for miles a day, enduring rain and discomfort and generally undergoing untold hardship. In a postcard he sent to us during the trip, he refers to this note in a postscript.
Today weare staiing at a nice river. Yesterday was a star clear night but it raind quiet a bit to. I washed twice already. The water was ice cold thow. Im rasining the toblerone to one piece aday (mostly for the cold evenings). We had some kafda some sort of Slowakian cake. I miss you a lot.
PS: I found your Note (quiet touching).
What I especially appreciate is his direct translation of compound nouns: “Sternklare Himmel” becomes “star clear night.” The “eiskaltes” water in the river is “ice-cold”. He speaks like that too, in not-quite-right-English. You can practically hear him translating as he goes along. You will notice too that punctuation is not his forte. Nor can he get used to the fact that we don’t capitalize our nouns in English (but forgets to capitalize Toblerone). Or that the “w” in English doesn’t make the “v” sound as it does in German.
Are your children bilingual? Can they spell? Tell me. I want to hear your stories too.
