by Jennifer M
(originally published in Currents June/July 2006, Children's Corner Column)

Before our first child was born, my husband and I did a lot of research on raising children bilingually. He being a native speaker of German and I being a native speaker of English, we did not want to let our children miss out on this unique opportunity to learn two native languages.

After doing our research, we settled on the exclusivity model. It works like this: the native speaker speaks exclusively his or her own language with the children. In our case that meant that I was to speak exclusively English with the children — no exceptions. Even in situations where speaking English might be uncomfortable or socially inappropriate, it is imperative in this model to stick to your language. Even around the dinner table or in other familial situations, it is very important to keep the languages separate.

In our family, I spoke exclusively English with the children and my husband spoke exclusively German. Even when on vacation in the USA, my daughter (then six years old) reprimanded her father for always speaking German. She said to him: “Daddy, can’t you see that no one else here is speaking German—get with the program!” Our family language was English, meaning my husband and I spoke English together. However, he always spoke German with the children when speaking directly to them. This scenario works most efficiently if both parents understand both languages, and, therefore, everything the other one says to the children in the other target language is correct.

Around the age of two, my children began developing a sense that there are two words for everything. For my oldest daughter, it began with the word Matsch (mud) as she fell down in the mud during a Lantern Parade in Alstertal. For my son, his first “dual word” was pumpkin (Kürbis) from his favorite picture of a pumpkin in a story book. For my youngest daughter, her language development took a different turn as my husband and I separated, and she spent more time with me during this crucial language development phase. While she understands and speaks both languages, she never had this “dual word” revelation phase.

All three of my children are able to understand and speak both languages. My experience is that they respond in whatever language they are addressed in. If I am the first person addressed, then they respond in the same language I use with the speaker. At one point when my oldest daughter was four, we visited a friend in the USA who had lived in Germany and still spoke a little German. I spoke English with the friend, and she spoke English with me. As soon as she tried to speak German with my daughter, however, my daughter became uncomfortable with the idea and instructed the friend to please speak English with her too.

It is also interesting to see which languages my children speak to each other. While both the older children speak German with each other, they both decided to speak English with their younger sister. In addition, since my children attend both German Kindergarten and School, they very quickly adapted their language of “playing” to German. This has also made the transfer to my three-year-old, who always speaks English with me, unless she wants to play house with me. Then she automatically switches to German. While at first it greatly irritated me that she would dare to speak German to me (something the two older children have never done), I realize now that it is just how she thinks “playing” should be done.

And even though I do my best to maintain the exclusivity model of language, I have realized that some times, I must speak German to the children. For example, when German-speaking friends come to visit, some instructions, rules or questions must be said in German so that the friends not only understand, but also feel more at home and not so uncomfortable.

As far as mistakes in grammar, word choice and syntax are concerned, bilingual children do have more difficulties than other native speakers. While my children make typical language mistakes that all other native speakers of a language make: Getting the past participle wrong in German verbs, gegehen instead of gegangen, for example; or the case of a pronoun in English, give it to he instead of him. They also make mistakes in word choice—they cannot find the right English word to equal that of the German one or vice versa. They use German word order to express a sentence in English. They take a literal translation of a German word and use it in English (typical example: Schulranzen is often translated as school bag—but it is really book bag). Or they use the German words in the English sentence, for example: “Mommy, can I come mit?” Sometimes English expressions find themselves in a German sentence: “Ich will das mit ohne Salz—I want that without salt”. Another mistake that repeats itself daily at our house is this: “As I was younger . . .” The correct English phrasing is “When I was younger . . .” But in German, statements about the past begin “Als ich kleiner war . . .” The confusion is easy to see.

When my oldest daughter expressed the desire to learn to read, I became horrified at the thought of teaching her to read German. But I realized that living in Germany put me in a unique situation and teaching her to read English might not be the best for her. So we began with German, exclusively. In German, most letter combinations are always pronounced the same (nothing like eight—ate or bier—bear—beer—tear—wear). Since English is a bit more complex, I decided to stick exclusively to learning to read German. After first grade, my mother was shocked to find out that her granddaughter could not read English and sat down with her last summer to teach her to read English. And amazingly enough, she could read English just as well as she could read German, without a year of practicing.