Yesterday when I picked her up from day-care (it’s the school holidays), my daughter told me what they’d been doing: “We went by Nanny’s house, and then there was a big TV.” Turns out she’s been to see her first movie at the local cinema. Already. I think I was six or seven when I […]
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We’ve run clear out of pirate muesli. Alright, I admit we ran out of pirate muesli several months ago and have since been refilling the box with a very nice chocolate muesli from Germany. But now we’re still two months away from Christmas, the box is empty, and our daughter refuses to eat any other […]
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This morning my daughter was playing with her parrot feathers (a gift from a friend). I told her: “Next time we’re at Grandma’s, I’ll show you a photo of me with a parrot on my shoulder.” She: “Mommy, were you a pirate?”
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German is well-known for its compound word, which are somewhat of a cliché even to those who don’t speak the language, with famous terms such as “Donaudampfschiffffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän(smütze)” or the recently revoked law “Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz” (no joke). My daughter has her own category of compound words: Fledermausschaf/Fledermaushund/Fledermaus[insert animal of the day here] When she pretends to be […]
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The German Sesame Street opening song hasn’t changed since I watched it, even though the opening sequence has. It was the first thing that jumped to mind in connection with what I noticed a few days ago: When my daughter speaks German, she will systematically use French articles. Mostly “la”, actually, but I haven’t made […]
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Today we went to see French friends with kids. The parents both took German in school but admit they don’t remember much of it. When listening to our girl, they said she seems to have a slight German accent when she speaks French. That’s something I’m in no place to judge, and her dad says […]
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Every parent, it seems, has a story of how their kid used a word or expression (usually a swearword) they weren’t supposed to know, which then begs the question: “Where did s/he hear that?” When the word or expression in question happens to be in the minority language (ml), the field of possible candidates is […]
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The other day, my daughter got this beautiful poster with the numbers from 1 to 20. Ever since we put it up on her door, she’s loved to compare the objects and, of course, count them. On Thursday, we managed to film her:
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Do you remember our initial confusion when our little girl referred to her pool noodle as “pâte” in French, where they are called “fries”? This week we were talking about something called (I had to look up the term) “water warts” of which she unfortunately has a few, which are being treated. Since both Daddy […]
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Funny that this story coincides with German National Unity Day (today, October 3rd). My daughter and I found a Euro coin on the sidewalk. Usually it’s her who finds money, and it goes into her piggy bank (which is really a cow-y bank, but you might have guessed that). Anyway, she looked at the back […]
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