English Thread

[Wilder Löwe]

What I truly don't understand is the fact that some germans here in this corner have been around for 30 years but still speak a very very broken english.I just find it hard to believe that after such a long time in the US, they didn't master this language.They usually have american spouses,their children don't even speak german anymore and their grandchildren only have heard of Germany...but never been there.
It will always be a mystery to me.
Missy

This phenomena is not limited to Germans living in the US, but can be found everywhere. I know a well-educated Norwegian lady who is married to a German, has been living in Germany for more than 40 years now, brought up her two children in "German" and still does not speak proper German. Actually, her German is awful and seems to be getting worse. Sometimes I find it difficult to understand her at all. Also, I know a Mexican woman, same situation but "only" 20 years in Germany. A decent conversation with her is almost impossible, it is more like a guessing game. Rather embarrassing, because I keep asking "sorry, could you repeat this please, I didn't quite get it".

I always wonder how people can be so ignorant, but probably I am over-sensitive because language acquisition has always played an important role in my life.

There must be about hundreds of different accents in Germany, too. You just can´t relate one accents to one state. I´m from Hessen and there´s not only one "Hessian". It changes more and more the further away you go from your hometown. And it is also impossible for Germans to have an ear for every existing accent. Probably one knows a few from their area and those commonly known.

Well, even though in Germany you cannot relate one accent to one state you can relate an accent to an area. The spread of accents took place naturally over hundreds of years, but the boundaries of the German states were somehow forced on people. Thus, when you meet a person who speaks with that broad Manheim accent, this person could live just north of the border, i.e. in Hessia. However, you will be able to place that person almost correctly. What always troubles me, is when a person does not have an accent at all, which is the case in the area of Hanover, where we live. Because in the past, when we lived in Hessia and Bavaria, when I first met a person I had always been able to place this person in a certain "social bracket" (no discrimination intended) as soon as the other person had spoken a few sentences. Just by the way of speaking and whether somebody speaks with the local accent I got an idea of the social status of that other person. When we moved to the Hanover area this suddenly was not true anymore. Everybody speaks accent-free and you cannot tell anymore whether the person opposite you is a craftsman or a lawyer and I had some nice surprises. Please, don't get me wrong, this is not meant to be discriminatory in any way, it is just my personal observation about accents.

I knew there must be a solution to this kids-are-fast-language-learners thing (really, Americans absolutely love those wordplays, don´t they?  ). Back in my childhood, we started learning English from the fith class on. Now, they start in third class. It seems like this generation is going to have to big plus in terms of English, but if you want them to be fluent, you will have to raise them bilingually from birth on. But therefore, you need to live in a suitable environment, so they are able to speak English outside the house and German inside, for instance. Otherwise it´s hard not to confuse your kid.

There are quite a few German families who raise their kids bilingually, even though both parents are German. In most cases, if the parents are persistent over the year and don't let themselves get deterred by their children's refusal to actively speak the language with them, that works quite well.

Katrin

[DocHoliday]

What always troubles me, is when a person does not have an accent at all, which is the case in the area of Hanover, where we live. Because in the past, when we lived in Hessia and Bavaria, when I first met a person I had always been able to place this person in a certain "social bracket" (no discrimination intended) as soon as the other person had spoken a few sentences. Just by the way of speaking and whether somebody speaks with the local accent I got an idea of the social status of that other person.

If I were you, I wouldn't rely on that "ability" too much, because as I see it it's just a prejudice and your results will be wrong in a lot of cases. I know quite a lot of people that certainly belong to the upper "social brackets" (doctors, lawyers, university professors, politicians, etc.), who have quite a noticeable accent. Of course they are not speaking in a real dialect but allthough they speak grammatically correct "Hochdeutsch" you can tell at once which part of germany they are coming from. Take Helmut Kohl, Franz Josef Strauss or Konrad Adenauer, just to name a few prominent examples.

I think, it would be a shame, if it would become necessary to loose your local accent completely to be socially accepted. I prefer dialects with all their unique metaphores, images, wit, their own grammar, etc. over the sometimes sterile written german.

An by the way, the so called hochdeutsch is nothing more than the local accent of the Hannover region, which was by "chance" chosen to become the high language.

[ratlady]

This phenomena is not limited to Germans living in the US, but can be found everywhere.

So true... I've seen it both inside and outside the US, too... sometimes I've been wondering if it might really be "too hard" for them to get beyond a certain level, or if they're really just too "lazy" to try improving their skills after reaching a basic level that at least allows them to get around more or less... Or does it even have something to do with not wanting to "give up" their "heritage"...? I've heard of some families (both here in the US as well as in Germany) where certain members of the family (mostly older generations) literally refused to speak anything but their native tongue, having their kids translate for them if needed...

Of course, taken to the "extreme" (will say, people not learning the language at all), this is a real "hot topic" in the US these days... in our area, for example, they're offering classes and special dictionaries in Spanish for police officers in order for them to be able to "properly" do law enforcement... on the other hand, there's that "steakhouse" (wherever it is) that's all over the news these days for putting up a sign (and may be getting sued over it): "This is America: Please order in English"...

Well, even though in Germany you cannot relate one accent to one state you can relate an accent to an area. The spread of accents took place naturally over hundreds of years, but the boundaries of the German states were somehow forced on people. Thus, when you meet a person who speaks with that broad Manheim accent, this person could live just north of the border, i.e. in Hessia. However, you will be able to place that person almost correctly. What always troubles me, is when a person does not have an accent at all, which is the case in the area of Hanover, where we live.

Funny... I'm originally from the "Greater Hanover Area"; and at one point someone actually told me I had an accent typical for my home town...  Never heard of any such thing ever before or after...

There are quite a few German families who raise their kids bilingually, even though both parents are German. In most cases, if the parents are persistent over the year and don't let themselves get deterred by their children's refusal to actively speak the language with them, that works quite well.

When I was little, my mom actually started to take English classes in order to "freshen up old skills & improve her resume"... I wanted to learn, too, so for a little while we tried to "talk English" at home... well, not surprisingly, that didn't really last long... 

However, even if both parents are pretty much fluent in English and really adamant about "enforcing the rules" around the house,  if they're not native speakers and do have a noticeable "foreign" accent, I cannot imagine the child(ren) being accent-free... (fluent, yes, of course). On the other hand, children that are "transferred" into an environment with all native speakers (of a foreign language) at a fairly young age (few years old) will more often than not grow up to be accent-free (or have the same accent as "native speakers" in the area)... so it's not really "mandatory" to do while they're still babies. At least, as far as I know... but I'm not really an expert here - it's been a while since I was really "into" this...

[Wilder Löwe]

However, even if both parents are pretty much fluent in English and really adamant about "enforcing the rules" around the house,  if they're not native speakers and do have a noticeable "foreign" accent, I cannot imagine the child(ren) being accent-free... (fluent, yes, of course).

I am always amazed by the fact that people are so worried about their accents. I have met many Germans who speak a terrible English but like to discuss their accent at length. To me accent is not that very important. I am German and I am entitled to a German accent. I don't pretend to be American / English etc. But I try hard to work on my grammar and my vocabulary, as these things are really important to me. What purpose serves a good American accent, when the speaker forms a sentence like this: My daughter goes to the ground school in the third class? Even with the best American accent your counterpart will notice that you are not a native speaker of the English language.

By the way, when I speak with native speakers I always get asked whether I am from South Africa. For some reason I seem to have a South African accent, even though I have no idea why. However, as I said, I don't think it really matters, though I understand it is quite flattering to be told that you sound like a native speaker.

Katrin

[KansasGirl]

I still speak with a german accent and I never will lose it but I dont care. My husband (who is american) corrects my pronunciation when it is really bad. But usually he doesnt say anything and thinks that it is cute.  But the same goes the other way round. I have a lot of american friends who speak german and are fluent but their is still something not quite right. There are of course others that even speak german with dialect and you really think they are from bavaria.

The thing with the south african I heard before too, but I have a south african friend and it is true that a german accent sounds a bit like south africans (if they are africaans and not british).

I think it is possible to raise kids billingual even when both parents are native speaker of one language. I had a student last semester and her german was really good and she spoke german with her 2 year old son (mostly at nigth, reading stories and things like that) and he started talking in german from time to time.

[Elmo]

@Wilder Löwe: As ratlady said, you have to provide a proper environment in order to let your child apply their language skills to the outside world. Otherwise it might be possible to become fluent, but it´s only meaningful to do it in a foreign country. But on the other hand, wouldn´t it be great for the kid? Always have an A in English. 

I know of a case where a someone tried to raise his or her kid bilingually. Just that this person wasn´t a good English speaker at all. As far as I know, the kid ended up with a language development disorder (does this word even exist?) and it couldn´t speak accurate German nor English.

I´ve always wanted to hear all the little differences in pronunciation. After quite a bit of research, I have finally found a WEBSITE offering exactly this. They recorded people from different areas, even foreign countries, reading a text and give the additional information of their place of birth. So you are able to figure out the dialect commonly spoken in that area.
I find this very interesting, but still, I´m not really capable of hearing those differences. The only accent I could differ was..you guessed it..the southern tongue. 

[ratlady]

@Wilder Loewe:

I hope my remark didn't lead you to believe I was "concerned" about my accent... 

I still speak with a german accent and I never will lose it but I dont care. My husband (who is american) corrects my pronunciation when it is really bad.

Same here - almost everyone I talk to for a little while asks me about my accent... sometimes I just let them guess; it's pretty interesting how some folks can immediately "nail it", while others can guess several times and still be way off...  Oh, and my husband usually gets a kick out of "teasing" me with it ("if you mean XXX, why don't you say XXX...") - in return, I usually claim he's just going deaf and trying to cover it up... 

[Anoka]

This is an interesting topic and a great discussion.

I was brought up bilingual, but this is not really unusual in Switzerland. Typically at least one parent of bilingual families is a native speaker of the second language.

Nowadays more and more Swiss parents speak English to their children. Some sure do a great job but most just do not have an adequate knowledge of the English language beyond school English. They lack vocabulary, do not use phrases or know how to use them and the speech patterns sound often odd. I am not sure how this could help their children to achieve good English.

On the other side as long as they do not neglect German probably no harm will be done.

In the USA people often thought that I must be Canadian. But that’s because it is not easy to figure out the Swiss accent. 

[dschlei]

Will Dschlei ever stop mentioning that he has been living in the states for more then 30 years and his wife...blablabla.....sorry...I just couldn't help myself...in just about every thread you post dschlei ,you put an emphasis on this...congrats...you won the immigration medal of honor.

Excuse me please, and your problem is?

 Or are you just yellows that neither you German or your English is as good as mine?  Because I don’t know your German, but your English is somewhat sloppy!  If your German is as bad, you are one of the poor souls that can neither speak properly German nor English!  I feel really sorry for you!

[ratlady]

Nowadays more and more Swiss parents speak English to their children. Some sure do a great job but most just do not have an adequate knowledge of the English language beyond school English. They lack vocabulary, do not use phrases or know how to use them and the speech patterns sound often odd. I am not sure how this could help their children to achieve good English.

On the other side as long as they do not neglect German probably no harm will be done.

Well, I'm actually not so sure about that... I rather imagine as with most everything else, if you've already learned it "incorrectly" before, it's going to be harder to learn it "properly" afterwards than it would've been if you hadn't had any experience at all... For me, that sounds more like a classic case of good intentions having the opposite effect (or in other words, sometimes less is more)...

In the USA people often thought that I must be Canadian. But that’s because it is not easy to figure out the Swiss accent. 

Well, what exactly IS a "Swiss accent"?  I mean, usually it's your "native language" that influences your accent quite a bit... now, if you have two "native languages"... no wonder that's going to be confusing for those who are trying to figure it out...  (By the way... if I may make an uneducated guess here - assuming German to be one of your "native tongues", could it be French is the other...? Pardon my curiosity... )

[Anoka]

Well, what exactly IS a "Swiss accent"?   I mean, usually it's your "native language" that influences your accent quite a bit... now, if you have two "native languages"... no wonder that's going to be confusing for those who are trying to figure it out...   (By the way... if I may make an uneducated guess here - assuming German to be one of your "native tongues", could it be French is the other...? Pardon my curiosity... )

Our every day language is not German but one of the several Swiss German dialects. In order to write and read we have to learn Standard German because our dialects are only oral.

We actually do not speak German at all until we start school. German is almost considered a foreign language.

Swiss German is softer than German and has some deep throat sounds unknown to Germans. Some dialects even sing song. That is why we don’t sound German to American ears and they just don’t know where to put us.

But considering we have to learn French and English at the same time it is possible that our English has also a slight French accent.

Well, you guessed wrong. 

My second mother tongue is actually Italian. To my surprise my knowledge of Italian came in handy in the US. All the medical vocabulary is in Latin just like in Italian and it was easy for me to understand a doctor and read medical pamphlets or fill out forms. This is just not something we learn in school. I was very lucky particularly seeing other fellow expat struggling to overcome this obstacle.

[dschlei]

I am at a point of language recognition that I can hear from the English annunciation of a person from the different German language areas from which general are the person originates.  I can recognize, for example, whether the person comes from Austria, from the general Bavaria area, or from the southern Swabian - northern Swiss areas.  Rhineish language colorations are easy to recognize as are the general Hamburg/Bremen accents.  I have not met enough people from the eastern States of the German language area to be able to identify their variation of German accent influence in their English.

Anoka, did you have similar experiences?

My wife has difficulties to identify theses slight differences, for her ears we all have a German accent.  She says she has never met any German who cannot be identified by the accent, no matter whether the person believes that he/she does not have an accent, or whether I feel that there is no accent.  She can easily point the slight differences in annunciation, sentence structure or word selection out to me.  These differences are most obvious to her when a non mother tongue speaker tries to speak slang or some kind of street language.  I fell that one has to grow up in a specific environment to be able to use these versions of verbal communication properly (no matter what the individual speaker believes).  It may be  that somebody with an untrained ear could be fooled into believing that such a speaker could be a native, however, a person that is trained in linguistics, and is a native of the target language area, has not problem with such identifications.

[ratlady]

Our every day language is not German but one of the several Swiss German dialects. In order to write and read we have to learn Standard German because our dialects are only oral.

  ooh-ooh... my bad; of course I should've written "Swiss German" - I guess I'd already sent my brains to bed when I wrote that...  You're right about "foreign language" - for me, Swiss German sounds like one, too...  Funny though - to me, Swiss sounds somewhat "harder" than "Standard German"... but then again, I'm just not good with all that... 

Well, you guessed wrong. 

...I knew it... as I said, I'm hopeless in that regard...   

Actually, your mentioning of being able to understand medical terms a lot better just made me think of some other "phenomenon" - latin names... funny how completely different they sound "in English"; I've had times when I was completely at a loss as for what someone was talking about until I asked them to spell it - and then knew exactly what it was... 

@dschlei - if it was possible, and you didn't already know the "solution", I'd almost be tempted to put you to the test... 

[Palo]

I always wonder how people can be so ignorant, but probably I am over-sensitive because language acquisition has always played an important role in my life.

[/quote]

They are not ignorant just lazy. It takes some work to learn a language

[KansasGirl]

I am at a point of language recognition that I can hear from the English annunciation of a person from the different German language areas from which general are the person originates.  I can recognize, for example, whether the person comes from Austria, from the general Bavaria area, or from the southern Swabian - northern Swiss areas.  Rhineish language colorations are easy to recognize as are the general Hamburg/Bremen accents.  I have not met enough people from the eastern States of the German language area to be able to identify their variation of German accent influence in their English.

Oh ja I can make these differences too. Also the other way round I usually can tell what country a person is from when they speak german. I got some practice with this when I worked at the goethe institute - back than I even could tell if british, american or australian just by the german they spoke.