Two nights ago, I read my 4-year-old daughter a new book from the Conni series (for the second time). Afterwards, she chose the same book for Daddy’s bedtime story. Whenever she chooses a German book for him, he tells the story by the images, which works well for this series. However, some details mentioned in […]

This afternoon, my daughter and I went to the playground with her friend E. and her mother. I had only found out recently that the mother is anglophone, and so of course I chatted her up on the subject. At some point, the girls came to see us. E. wanted something from her mother who […]

What do you do when there is no word to express what you want to say? And when on top of that you are not quite four years old? My daughter takes advantage of her dual vocabulary and borrows from the other language when she doesn’t know a word. She shows off her new long […]

Earlier this week my 3½-year-old daughter threw a morning tantrum that almost caused us to miss school. So this morning, Daddy checked on her before we left: “T’as été sage?” (Were you good?) “Oui, papa.” She turns to me: “Mama, ich war doch lieb, oder?” (Mommy, I was good, wasn’t I?)

This morning, I can’t remember in what context, my daughter (now almost 3½) said: “Je vais couper ein bisschen was ab.” Switch in mid-sentence without any trigger that I can see. (Maybe too early for the “switch-at-trigger” phase.) Did you notice the prefix “ab” placed in the final position (where it would belong if the […]

Yes, my daughter is starting to translate between us now. Here’s what happened tonight: I’d asked her what she’d done in preschool. “Gespielt” (played). “Und was noch?” (And what else?) “Und noch andere Sachen.” (And other things too.) Dad doesn’t understand “andere” and asks what she said. “Rien papa. Je dis à maman, j’ai fait […]

Our girl is in school now. Her first day was quite memorable in that, as we were early and waiting at the door, she knocked on it and called “Lehrer, aufmachen!” (Teacher, open up!) When I asked her after her first (very short) day what her teacher had said, she told me “alle hinsetzen” (sit […]

Last night, the three of us were sitting together when our daughter started asking me a question: “Pourqu- Warum…?” That was not the first time in recent weeks that I noted her switching languages when addressing herself first to one, then to the other parent. Sometimes she will even repeat the same sentence to each […]

We finished our holidays with a few days at my mother’s who is a retired school teacher and takes care to speak a lot with our little girl. They both love looking at books together, and one richly illustrated fairy tale book is a perennial favourite. So there they were, looking at a story, and […]