For her 6th birthday party (advanced due to the early start of the school holidays), my daughter invited six classmates – representing a stunning seven nationalities. I was prepared for that, witness the cake:
What I was not prepared for was the guests singing Happy Birthday in not two, not three, but four languages, thanks to the presence of two kids with a Spanish parent in the class (if not at the party). Daddy was taken by surprise too and only caught the second and third languages on video:
One of the many things in France that are different from Germany are the Ferrero chocolate bars called Duplo™. I’ve always wondered why they made two so very different bars and gave them the same name.
I don’t think I’ve ever bought the French ones; I’m not too fond of whole hazelnuts. The German ones, however, are forever linked to birthday parties in my memory. So when the other day we were shopping for our daughter’s upcoming birthday party, you can imagine my delight as we found, side by side, the picture of l’amitié franco-allemande.
I was delighted to find the German Duplo (right), while Daddy was happy to see the French ones (left). When we asked our daughter which she wanted for her party, she looked up at us and said, “Both?”
Die große Besonderheit der Felix-Bücher ist, dass die Briefe von Felix in Umschlägen sind und richtig herausgenommen und auseinandergefaltet werden müssen, um zu erfahren, was Felix erlebt. Teil 2 einer Serie:
Neue Briefe von Felix
Autor: Annette Lange
Illustrator: Constanza Droop
Verlag: Coppenrath
ISBN: 978-3815712009
Three years ago, almost to the day, I shared a video of my daughter making a speech on the steps of the high school near our house. For some reason, every time we came home from the park, she’d stop there, go up the steps, and hold a speech. That day, I had the camera with me, and filmed her.
Today, we came past the high school again, and when I saw she was ready for another speech, I told her to wait till I had my phone camera ready.
Compare:
Today, we were on the Métro 7 on our way to school, when my daughter asked at which station we were. I told her, and we looked at the métro map, and I read the names of all the stations we had passed or would pass. One of them is called Place Monge.
Her: “Das ist ein Platz, da wird alles aufgefressen.” (That’s a place where everything is eaten.) The pronunciation of Monge is very close to mange (eat!).
I never lose an occasion to try and work on basic German vocabulary – which at age 5½ includes a lot of numbers, days of the week, months of the year, you get the idea. So the other day, when my daughter rightly declared: “Morgen ist Freitag!” (Tomorrow is Friday), I prompted: “Und heute?” (And today?). Her answer: “Heute nicht.” (Today isn’t.)
A month ago, our 5-year-old daughter started her final preschool year at a new school, one with a program for native speakers of German. She has one hour of German class each day, and the other week she came home with this cute rhyme:
Another holiday day: one day, I came to pick up my daughter from the holiday resort’s kids club, and when I checked in, I was told she was in the puppet corner. There she was indeed, playing out a puppet story to a captive audience* – in German!
* an audience of two, but that wasn’t her fault, the kids club wasn’t busy that morning
Summer holidays are full of fun and an occasion to try out new things. When on the third day in our German holiday resort, the kids in the surrounding holiday homes were outside playing after supper, our 5-year-old decided she wanted to join them on skates. (She’d only skated once so far.) So that’s what she did. When two older boys skated by on the small path between the lawns, she considered they weren’t careful enough and gave them a piece of her mind – in German!
Daddy was filming the whole scene from our balcony:
