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.
7 Comments
Well, you know my kids. They do speak properly, for the most part, but Emma couldn’t spell until we moved to Ireland. I have lots of notes like yours — and phonetic e-mails with no spaces and no English spelling. Claire was always better, but that may be because she was 5 when we left the US and because she reads more than Emma!
Hi Sarah, too funny! I am reading Hardy Boy mysteries now with him because I think reading is the only way to learn which words to capitalize, how to punctuate, and how to spell. Your kids now have the advantage of living in the land of poets and storytellers. I know you’re enjoying it. Good luck!
My son is just 2 years old and he cannot write yet. He speaks german and spanish but he does get confused between them already. He says things like “Bitte, pan” (Bitte, Brot) or “gato groß” (große Katze)
After reading your blog, I know what to expect. Thanks!
Vanessa, we are all too familiar with the mixing of languages. It seems to be a particularly common way of being belingual!
reminds me a bit of the book “english for runaways”!
though we’re not raising our daughter bilingually, at present she is six, and i recognize the phonetic spelling to which you ascribe your six-year-old boy above. i find it adorable as well — but i am guessing it’s also just a stage in development.
as to the later writing and germglisch postcard, what’s not to love about that? he sound like a hearty iconoclast in the works. plus, to me, language is a virus of some sort anyway. people manifest it in different ways…
beautiful blog!
Moya, nice to see you here! Thanks for your note. I remember my niece, now an articulate young lady, couldn’t spell her way out of a wet paper bag when she was little. I like the idea of language as a virus…something you can catch!
My daughter is four years old, so is only just getting interested in writing. She’s fairly convinced of her language skills though. The other day, my Mum was staying and said to her, “You’re very clever, being able to speak German and English.” To which she replied, “Yes, and a bit of French.” She doesn’t speak French at all, although she’s been confident of this trilingual ability of hers for some time now.