My daughter (almost 11 now) and her friends from her school with a dual bilingual program (French-English and French-German) have managed to surprise me once more: at a recent birthday party, they sang Happy birthday not in their three school languages, not in four langauges as they already did five years ago, but in five […]

A bilingual French-English friend who is raising her daughter bilingual French-English too suggested the other day (we’re all in confinement at home during the pandemic right now) that my 9½-year-old daughter could read an English book to her 3½-year-old. My daughter was thrilled. She chose a book and read it about six or seven times […]

My daughter is very keen on learning English. Since she dropped the after-school English workshop after three years due to conflicting activity schedules, for the past 5½ months I’ve been doing a weekly “English night” with her, mainly playing games, watching singalong videos, and singing nursery rhymes. In order not to confuse her any further, […]

In Anlehnung an eine erste Grammatikübung mit Harry Potter habe ich mir diesmal Verben mit unregelmäßigem Präteritum ausgesucht. Das Layout könnte noch verbessert werden, aber es ist ein Anfang. Hier die von meiner Tochter (8½, 3. Klasse) ausgefüllte Version:

Meine Tochter (jetzt acht Jahre alt und in der 3. Klasse) macht immer noch systematisch gewisse Grammatikfehler. Einer davon ist das “um zu” (angelehnt ans französische “pour que”) anstelle von “damit”. Im Zuge unseres “captive reading” habe ich ihr ein paar Sätze zum Ausfüllen gegeben:   Damit es mehr Spaß macht, habe ich mich vom […]

I haven’t posted in some time. My daughter is now 6¾, and she’s been learning to read in both French and German. The other day, when I suggested she read in front of the camera, she chose one of her Conni books. It was much longer than she’d thought, and we took several breaks. At […]

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 […]

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 […]

Yesterday, my 5-year-old daughter and her German grandma (Oma) settled down to watch a Garfield cartoon. My daughter told Oma: “If Garfield is in French, you can learn French!” Then the opening sequence finished and a voice announced the title of the episode. My daughter’s eyes opened wide and she exclaimed: “It’s in German!” Well, […]

Two weeks ago, on Easter weekend, my family accompanied me to Amsterdam, where I attended a conference. They spent the weekend with the family of another attendee, whose daughter is two years older than mine. They live in Germany, but her mother is English. The two girls had a great time, chatting away in German […]