5 ''VERY GERMAN'' THINGS MY BICULTURAL KIDS DO | New Zealander in Germany
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- čas přidán 6. 08. 2024
- Hi guys welcome to my channel!
I’m Antoinette a New Zealander living with my German/Polish husband Rob, raising our two children Emilia (7) and Matteo (3) in Lower Franconia, Germany.
In this video, I share 5 ways in which my kids have become Germaninized from being raised in Germany.
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She is saying Germanized because she is not raising them in a German way. So the world they live in have Germanized her kids which she is raising in her own Kiwi way.
and what is your race
@@gaisonfirout6907 how does this correlate to the statement??
@@moonshade3730 😂😂😂
She prefers dark German bread...
One of us... One of us... One of us...
i prefer dark German bread as well and I'm not even German :)
White toast bread is only good for a peanut butter & jelly sandwich or something like that. I don't consider it a real bread.
@@nicktankard1244
You don't need to be german to be one of us... One of us... One of us... 😁
hahahaha :) nice one
I don't live in Germany and I do as well!
My Scottish ex used to call my beloved German bread dwarf bread. Terry Pratchett probably would have liked that.
Rob: "Honey, I germanized the kids."
Wer glaubt Toastbrot ist Brot glaubt auch das ein Zitronefalter, Zitronen faltet.
Lol🤣
Das ist der beste Kommentar denn ich jeh gelesen habe imao
@@averosarcos4161 Ich muss zugeben der ist nicht von mir den habe ich auch irgendwo gelesen.
Da stimme ich nicht zu.
Müsste es nach der Analogie nicht so gehen: Wer glaubt, Toastbrot ist getoastetes Brot, glaubt auch, dass ein Zitronenfalter Zitronen faltet?
Your kids have the ability to speak two languages as their native languages, both German and English. What a great gift! I wished I had this chance to speak two languages as natives do. It is the language that opens the doors to the world! English is the No. 1 language in the world. But being able to speak even another language is the best thing that can happen to them. Thanks Antoinette for giving this chance to your kids!
100% agree
Thats not enough. They should learn at least a third language. I would recommend russian. Italian as a fourth would be also great.
My friend's son is 100% Swedish, 100% Chilean and his parents speak English to each other. He's been trilingual ever since he started speaking 😍
@@qh5163 IIRC, her husband is from Poland, so Polish would be a natural choice for a third language.
@@qh5163 yeah sure, russian, because it's completely different...maybe better spanish or french. Easier to learn and more helpful in the world.
In Germany you normally don't cut up all your food, switch the fork to the other hand and eat. You cut off the bit you want to eat, eat it, then cut off the next bit. Naturally, you keep the fork in the left hand because otherwise you would be switching all the time. However, if no knife is needed (like when eating pasta), the fork is in the right hand. And yes, the prongs are pointing upwards as the fork is also used as a kind of spoon, when eating rice, for example.
Having seen the other video: your daughter speaks German with a Franconian accent. Which is even more adorable.
It is not only the german way of holding knife and fork, it is the continental european way.
If you look into it a bit more closely you will find that in Western Europe it's a subtle social class indicator. Holding your fork with the convex side up is far more posh than the "German" way. But the habit is dying, if only because the hollow side up is a lot more practical in use. Less aristocracy around too, I suppose.
@@TheSynecdoche da liegst du aber ganz arg falsch, in jedem etikette kurs wird dir gezeigt das man eine gabel niemals mit der gewölbten fläche nach oben hält, eine gabel hat eine form wie ein löffel aus gutem grund.
@@obstsalat24 Junge du bist hier auf youtube. Hier essen wahrscheinlich 80% mit den Händen vom Boden
In England we do the same thing with a knife and fork
Hans Zimmer omg hahaha
"All of our children, including our husbands" :)
I noticed that too! 🤣
3:06 that is not dark bread, that's light bread xD
No it is grey bread!! 🤣
My daughter has been in Germany for 7 of her 14 years (although she was in a German school in the States since the age of 2), and even though I and my wife are both Americans, our daughter is almost entirely German in both her habits and her language. She did have enough of a foundation in the States before moving here though, so when she speaks English she sounds 100% American and when she speaks German she sounds 100% German. A good friend of hers has an American mother but has lived in Germany his entire life. Although his English is technically flawless, he speaks it with a very broad German accent.
How do you know she doesn't have a broad English accent
@@strandkorbst9643 Because when her friends learn she is not from Germany they are shocked and demand proof. Because I overheard her teachers speaking to each other about her, and one asked "Did you know she is not German?" "Yes, I know her parents." "But her German is perfect. Not just that, but without any accent."
@@petergeyer7584 oh ok thats interesting
@@strandkorbst9643 Weiß der Geyer.
I remember well having lunch at the company canteen with colleagues many years ago, and watching with disbelief and amusement how a British colleague balanced green peas on the BACK of her fork, cautiously transferring them from her plate to her mouth...
There is a song:
I eat my peas with honey
I‘ve done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on the knive
Moin Antoinette, ich finde es als Norddeutscher immer amüsant, wenn ich deine Tochter Deutsch sprechen höre. Dann höre ich immer das leicht rrollende, bayrrische 'R'. Sehr schön! 😂
Deine Stimme klingt schon viel besser! Deine Lungenentzündung scheint schon sehr gut ausgeheilt zu sein.
Alles Gute Weiterhin..
Fränkisch, nicht bairisch
Andreas Stolcke
Moin, egal.. Für uuns ist alles südlich des Main bayrisch... 😉
Komm auch ausm Norden aber irgendwie rolle ich mein r trotzdem und mein englisch hört sich amerikanisch an 😂
@Yellow little Chicken Ù.Ú
Dann kommst du bestimmt von der Westküste, oder? Von dort kenn ich auch das rrrollende 'R'.
Mein Englisch hört sich deutsch und mehrfach gebrochen an..
Grüße und bleib gesund, kleiner, gelber Vogel..
@@tasminoben686 ja du hast recht ! Ich finde es so cool, dass man den Dialekt bei Deutschen so zuordnen kann 🤔. Und das mit dem kleinen gelben Vogel hat mir wirklich den Tag versüßt- danke! Hoff du bleibst auch gesund :D
I was born also in Germany, I am a person with turkish parents came as adults to Germany.
It's so normal we talked with our parents in turkish and we children with brother sisters in mix language, changing from sentence to sentence from turkish to German and otherwise 🙄😁
Viel wichtiger: Bleibt alle gesund !
Ich bin in Deutschland 🇩🇪 geboren, aber ich wohne in Ägypten seid 12 Jahren, aber bis jetzt mach ich alles wie deutsche!
I know an American, who lives in Baden-Württemberg and speaks Schwäbisch-German with a strong American accent.... it sounds CRAZY!!!!!!!
Think of Henry Kissinger. His English has a heavy German-Franconian accent. Even after 82 years in the U.S.
I grew up with my large family in an English speaking surrounding - but strangely, some of us never really lost their German accent - while others managed to aquire a full 'English sound' to their speaking.
I guess, it has very much to do with a kind of musical ability. A skill to hear the suttle differences and to pronounce them properly.
This is especially true with tonal languages, like Thai. Some people, I found, just never get it right!🤓
Question to the Kiwis: If you hold the fork upside down, how do you eat rice or peas? Funny, tiny differences. Normally nobody would waste one single thought about different fork handling techniques. Gotta love the internet 😋.
Question to Westerners: why do you eat rice or peas with a fork instead of a spoon?
@@cooledcannon Spoons are only for soup :) hahaha
Joe McKay 😂 Good question!
@@cooledcannon
Because most of the time we eat more than just rice...
@@Sleeping_Insomiac ouch ;)
About the fork: It's all about efficency. Holding it the german way allows you to pick something with the front (acts like a stopper) and then put additional food in the curved section. ;)
America too.
I so enjoy watching your videos. I'm an American whose daughter lives in Germany with her fiance'--he's a good man; he treats her well, so my husband and I are happy with her choice of life partner. Your videos reassure me that the culture she is living in is healthy and safe. I particularly like the positive nature of your compare and contrast videos; you are respectful of both your own and your adopted culture. Thank you.
Well, since your kids were born and raised in Germany, I guess it's fair to say that they've been German pretty much their entire lives. You might raise them bilingual, but one language will 'dominate' over the other instinctively sooner or later. Their friend groups in kindergarten and school will most likely only speak German with them, so it's only natural that they'd stick to German even among themselves.
Also: Deutsche Brotkultur :)
Almost everyone would choose anything else above white bread here in Germany -- there're so many awesome types of bread, and the darker, denser ones are actually healthier as well (speaking a higher amount of dietary fiber and such).
You wait and see when your kids start learning English at school. The good part: they will get excellent marks. The bad part: the teacher probably teaches English with a German accent and won't get used to their Kiwi English.
@@TheWuschelMUC More with a british/american accent, at least in my area. I never had a teacher with a german accent. :)
@@TheWuschelMUC They probably know more than their teacher in some ways. It depends on the teacher, but that can be tough on the kids
Can you even call it "getting Germanized" if they are born&raised in Germany? I think that's something that can but doesn't have to happen to adults, children are kind of expected to adapt.
They are NOT Germanized... they are German! My God, does it have to be proven , really? Really?...
Military children also tend to quickly pick up local habits when living in a foreign country. They even did this when we moved about the US. I think children so much want to “fit in” that even not born in a particular place they nonetheless adopt those local habits/customs.
Absolutely and I think that this is a high level of social competence.
My cousin lives in Germany, both of his parents moved there from Croatia. He and his sister also speak in german, but they speak croatian with their parents.
After living here for over 35 years, my English and Spanish now have a German accent. This may happen to you too Antointte, I hope that your family back home is more forgiving than mine was when this happens. :)
My English native speaking friends who live here keep telling me this, too. Particularly one of them, a very proud Brit, says it always gives him the creeps when his brother and sisters calls him "our German brother" (not: our brother who lives in Germany) when they introduce him to their friends back home. But what really destroyed him was that someone told him he even sees Germanisms in his written English!
I'm 56 and came to Germany at age 2 with a German mother and an American dad and I have a really funky accent. Most people can't place it as it is not a typical German accent. In basic training in the U.S. Air Force my drill sergeant welcomed me with the words "What the f*ck country are you from?
@@MichaelMacAllister the last part made laugh out loud. My problem/gift is that I have a very lively imagination and will instantly picture scenes like this
@@MsDanny1973 you mean like in: "Texas?! Only...."
@@peterkoller3761 Verstehe ich nicht. Liegt wohl vielleicht an Ihrem Bruder, Lager Koller.
My parents had to speed up their German skills when they realized that when we started to speak, we were doing it in German. They always were speaking to us in Spanish and we always were answering in German. By the way, using the cutlery us is the European way not only German. It is European etiquette for table maners. Probably a reminiscence of France, as they spread the maners over whole Europe due to their family conectiones with other royal houses, as the French etiquette was considered the top of the top.
That is such an interesting topic!👍 I am a German National, who recently emigrated to the United States. I don't have kids yet, but I always thought that once I do, I am gonna raise them kind of in a German way (like speaking the German language, doing German traditions etc.). After hearing from other immigrants with kids and after watching your video, I feel like it is probably not possible, in the way I imagined it to be.😂
One thing is possible: speaking your own language with your children, beeing yourself including all your rituals, festivities etc. and letting your children become their own individual (wonderful) cultural- & language-mixed selfs. Be authentic, be yourself, so that they can become themselves as well. (Once they are been born.)
Marius Grieger Definitely agree. A child‘s life is only enriched through speaking multiple languages and having links to other cultures. This is a gift that they will have their entire lives.
As children, we emigrated from Mexico to the USA. We speak Spanish to our parents (they are both Mexican and only speak Spanish) but always English between my brother and sister. When I saw this in your videos I thought, oh right- just like us when we were kids. Visiting from Germany ment that I would have to juggle 3 languages between the children, my German wife, and my siblings/ Parents. Aaaagh!
I love when a German speak English. So beautiful and professional. Ahh so nice.
Apfelschorle! Yes! 😂😍 It's been my go to drink since I was a child 😂 (I'm 20 now and nothing changed) Typical German 😂👌🏻
Antoinette trying in vain to hold a fork the... erm... RIGHT way. An image for the Gods!
No offense meant... it was just so cute.
The counting scene on the inglorious bastards... 😂
Yes!!!😂😂😂😂
One of my school friends was raised Greek/german Bilingual. He learned Greek first, then German but both very early. He speaks German with a slight Greek accent, but Greek with a German accent.
You’re such a cute mom. And lol love how you’re seeing your kids get germanized
My kids spoke English first, they did hear Italian but never really had to speak it until they went to nursery school at age 3 and a half or 4. They usually speak English to each other, unless there are non-English speakers present. But that is probably because there is a big age difference (12 years). They both have authentic Scottish accents and read and write both languages fluently. Now my daughter has a son aged 18 months and is speaking Engish with him while his Dad speaks Italian. They live in Switzerland and the language at nursery school is French, so we are going to have some fun ....
@Junah Moreau Not at all, we are looking forward to the fun. I remember what it was like when my daughter was little and we went to visit my sister in Austria. Her two kids were being brought up in English and German, so we had some laughs that are still remembered today.
It is so interesting and funny how close you watch and discribe adults and children in terms of cultural differences. This is not only very entertaining, but it is also very nice to see how caring you are with people.
I think it's amazing how you let your kids choose whatever way they want to do or have something. I'm 15, I'm from Austria and I have turned around my fork in my left hand all my life. 😄
Fun facts, starting from #1!
Friends of mine raise their kids Chinese & German - I'll have to ask about their experiences!
5:13 Your difficulties in using the fork the German way result from the fact that your hand is above it. Just do it with the left hand like you do "American" @4:51 - that will work!
My travel anecdote concerning this difference is that a young American engineer, first time at lunch with us, a bunch of European people, would ask his collegue: "Are they all left-handed?" - we hadn't swapped the fork as he had!
All the best from Mittelfranken,
Paul
So, talking between them, these adorable kids of 7 + 4, sons of a German father and a Chinese mother living in Mittelfranken, used to stay in whatever language was spoken before until the smaller one joined Kindergarten. Now, they usually speak German with each other, just like Emilia and Matteo do, while switching between Chinese and German with their parents and Chinese grandparents.
What a fun video! Always ❤️ hearing your observations on cultural differences. You’re very thoughtful and insightful. Stay safe 😘💐
Thank you so much Jovie ❤️
It looked really funny how you tried to hold the fork differently. :D I think we turn it around, because then it is easyer to put more food on it. The way you do it, you could only eat the bit (meat for example) which you stapt with the fork. (I guess that is not how you say it in English though :D) But still, there are also a few German people do it your way ;)
It was so cute how you demonstrated eating with knife and fork. Really enjoyed this video 😊
The older your kids get, the harder it will be to make them speak English. You'll see.
My daughter was born in Canada. We speak Portuguese in the house. Her Portuguese vocabulary is fantastic but the older she gets, the stronger her English accent becomes (when she speaks Portuguese). That doesn't bother me, it's cute. As long as she keeps speaking and learning, I'm happy! :)
When she was a small child, I had to be very creative and come up with games, bribes and pretend that I didn't understand her in order to keep my daughter speaking Portuguese at home.
You will also notice that Matteo's English will be significantly weaker than Amelia's.
All my friends' bilingual children speak their parents' language at different levels. The older child always speaks MUCH better than the younger ones, sometimes the younger ones don't speak the parents' language at all, they only understand it but they answer their parents in English (don't let that happen to you!).
That's due to the siblings only communicating to each other in English. It becomes more comfortable for them very quickly.
If you are determined to keep your children being bilingual, it will be a constant battle, but all your hard work is going to pay off in the future! :)
Danke für deine Videos und dein für mich klares und verständliches Englisch. Akzent hin oder her.
Du bist eine der wenigen "Native speaker" wo ich nicht den Untertitel anschalte. Dadurch hilfst du mir, mein Englisch zu üben, denn dafür habe ich im realen Leben nicht viel Gelegenheit.
Ich freue mich auf deine nächsten Videos und wünsche Dir und Deiner Familie alles Gute
I grew up in the US with a German mom. After I visited Germany and tried German bread, I refused to eat American "fluffy white bread". I do get spelt "toast bread" for grilled cheese or French Toast, though.
I absolutely enjoyed that video, it was so funny and amusing. You are so adorable and full of energy talking about your kids, it's wonderful tooks me with you.
I guess you daughter has a lot of contact with Germans in the kindergarden and at school so imitate things she saw automatically and didn't really noticed, she is trying to find her way and for your son, the sister is a role model and there is a special connection between them with history of your family as a background.
So thanks for sharing with us, hopefully you are doing more videos like that??
Stay safe, stay at home and take care 💙❤️
You children are German, not Germanised . You could call yourself Germanised perhaps. 😃
No, the children are German&kiwi, born in Germany :)
@@claudia398 my mother is from serbia and my father is german. i live here, so iam german. half german/half foreigner does not exist xd
@@egegeggegeeg4789 My dad is Irish, My mum is english. I am half Irish, half British, I have BOTH an Irish and a British passport. I live in English and I do not consider myself only british because my blood and nationality is duel. The children aren't only German because they were born there, they are half kiwi because their mother is kiwi. It does exist to be half german/half kiwi... both of my passports are proof of this :)
@@claudia398 you are not british because you have british "blood". the same is true for ireland or germany. if you are born in germany, you automatically adopt the german culture and lifestyle. half and half does not exist, because the blood does not say anything. you live in one of the two countries and start a family there. from then on the other side plays "no more role".
@@egegeggegeeg4789 I live in britian so I am a british citizen and I am biritsh and irish! I can live in either one of these freely, and I have both Passports, and my nationality and race are on my birth certificate and my records :) Vyettes kids are a german citizen's, yes. But are half german and half kiwi, german from thei dad and kiwi from their mum. Have a look on the internet on being a citizen and being a race, they are two totally different things.
Growing up with two languages is a gift! I was born and raised in Australia to Serbian parents so my 4 siblings and I grew up speaking Serbian to our parents/ grandparents but English amongst ourselves. I'm now living in Switzerland and am learning German but the Serbian has come in handy here too, much more so than in Australia. I am excited to give my baby girl the gift of two languages here (German and English).
My French kid could read in both English & French very young but had always had a strong accent. He almost completely refused to speak English most of the time but I wasn't really worried because I saw his comprehension was strong. At end of high school, he got an excellent score on the Cambridge English exam despite his accent. So, expat moms, don't worry too much.
I really like your videos. It is so interesting for me because I am from Germany but I have been 8 weeks in New Zealand and I have recognized some of that too. That's so cool.
I am always amazed how children can easily pick up different languages. When I came from Germany with my parents at the age of 5, (way in the last century) they knew English, and that's all the spoke with me. For three months, we lived with my aunt and uncle and two cousins, my age, I quickly forgot the German language. On another note, German bread, and European breads is far superior to most American bread, (my opinion). There is a German products store near where I live that sells German bread. My favorite is kamissbrot. What you don't finish you could use to build the wall of a home. Sorry, too long a comment.
I think it’s wonderful how your children switch languages when they speak. I just imagine all the neurons & synapses firing and growing their brains. They’re going to have high IQ’s & be very creative.
Not necessarily. They could just be "normal". Don't expect your kids to be super heroes just because they are doing good at s/th.
Ach Peter, seien Sie doch nicht sooo ernst und deutsch. :-) Couldn't you just see the vivid image of sparkly neurons and synapses diring away before your inner eye? Also ich schon.
/firing
This video is somewhat mindblowing for me as a german. I never thought about how often i switch the fork between "pick up" and "showel/spoon" mode with a simple rotation between thumb and indexfinger and that other cultures(who use also forks) don't do it this way :D
my little brother holds his fork like that (he grew up in germany) and my whole family finds it so weird and tells him to stop😂
You have delivered another outstanding video again thank you so much for sharing this wonderful video with us that enjoy your prestigous channel.
Thank you so much Edward.
@@AntoinetteEmily your quite welcome ma'am
Antoinette,
I was born in Germany. All of your observations of German habits are so true. To be honest I never thought to much about it. On the other hand I can relate. It is interesting and your children are lucky to experience both cultures. When you mentioned counting with the thumb first. OMG! I have always counted this way and didn’t even make the connection before you mentioned it. I would always told to begin counting with your fingers. It just didn’t make sense(LOL).
Best to you and your family,
Martina
The little things that are done differently... It’s something I enjoy working at a kindergarten with many different cultures. As for the accent: I teach children English (as an American native speaker) in Germany (I am bilingual). Accents are something they have picked up from someone else speaking English with that accent at that age. So your children have Germans speaking English around them ;) I wrote my thesis on this. And it is absolutely fascinating how naturally children pick up on these intonations. An example: the children, who only heard English from me, picked up the American accent quickly. Whereas children who also went to English “class” once a week after kindergarten with a British speaking teacher kind of “settled” in between. As for your children speaking German with each other currently: I am certain they will eventually switch languages as they grow older and get a sense of how special it is to be able to speak another language. That’s how it was throughout my family (I have many cousins who also grew up American/German - and we grew up to be a wild mix of Denglisch).
I have a German mum and an Irish dad and grew up trilingual. 😊My brothers and I also communicate in German and it was also our stronger language growing up. I think it's just because the surroundings are German so we were more exposed to that language and it became more natural to us. When I was very young I would even answer in German when my dad spoke English with me. About the accent, I also have a slight German accent, however, it is not very strong. I now do everything in English, my bachelor's, my job... 😊
I remember you saying you would want to live in NZ with your family for some time. To me that sounds like an amazing idea. Because for me personally I always wanted to spend some time in Ireland or in another English speaking country. It always felt like some part of my identity was kind of missing. To this day my plan is still to move abroad asap. 😃
First: A big thank you for this lovely video. It was very interesting, inspired and funny.
Yeah, I am one of these guys, who post about the quick switching. And I was wondering also, that your children speaks together in German. Funny. And I think, you are right about the influences of the environment. In your case school and kindergarten..
Also normal is, that siblings learn from each other and that quicker than from the parents.
I never realised, that other cultures have other techniques to handle their cutlery, since you said it. If I eat meat only, my fork shows down. But if I eat vegetables, potatoes or a combination of meat and vegetables, potatoes/noodles and rice, my fork looks upside.
I love you talking about having an accent. I love people that have accents, it often mean they speak more than one language!
I'm half german half french (french mother but i grew up in germany)
I've always spoken in german with my sister and find it weird to speak to her in french, although we sometimes (rarely) do it. I don't think this is because german is my stronger language, but because this is what we are used to. I think if we switched to french it would become quite normal after a while.
As you mentioned, your kids lose their accent when your family comes over and regain it when they leave. Basically, this is all there is to say about the accent. If they want to lose it, they just have to speak more english.
One day I was tired of people saying I had a german accent or even worse my french was bad, so I decided not to speak any german to my mum anymore to lose my accent and since then my french has become better, but my vocabulary is more limited compared to german.
I think it will be interesting to see if this is /will be the case with your kids as well :)
Super Video! :)
You, and your kids, are doing very well, keep on going, nothing is wrong 👍👍👍
I'm German and since many years I hold the fork and the knife like this:
I use the knife in my left hand to cut the food then pick it up with the fork in my right hand. This is neither English nor German; you might call it "German inverse".
My mother would have strongly disagreed. :-)
That’s so cool!!
Dear Antoinette
in hard times it is important to remember small things. It does still today( and i am old) amazes me the small things, like how u count or hold ure fork can make me think how important it is to tolerate and love these small things. If we all would be the same it would be a boring world. Still u are right it is super interesting to know. Please say a big HELLO to New Zealand
I was married to a Cajun woman 15 years ago, when I go visit with her family I start speaking with a Cajun accent. Dat,Dis over Dare so I understand why the kids pick up the kiwi accent. Love the videos by the way.
The bread thing is funny. I did work experience in New Zealand and the local primary school asked me to do a presentation on Germany. As a kind of show and tell I brought some German bread and all the kids loved it. The son of the family I lived with was a very fuzzy eater and would not eat the crust on the white fluffy bread but could not get enough of the German dense bread crust and all. Maybe most children would prefer it, given a choice? I don't know
This is really interesting, thank you. Out of interest, when you put a film on for the children which language do you/they choose?
Thank you. They like watching both English and German films.
the counting thing also happened to me because of a song by a German band where they say the numbers from 1 to 10 and the band makes the audience count them, I see myself counting "the German way" which is kinda funny hahaha greetings from Spain btw :)
These are really interesting! A couple of things I noticed while watching:
3. In regards to holding a knife and fork, in the UK most people do it how you described you do it. I believe that it is the same in the US; the way that your friend does it and the way your family does it are also done in the UK and US but they are only what the minority of people do.
4. In the UK I have noticed that when simply showing numbers using your fingers, it is common to start on the index finger and only use the thumb when showing five but then above five it is interchangeable, but when counting we always start with the thumb.
5. With the accent thing, my parents come from Kenya but brought me up only speaking English, however my brother and I who were born in the UK do not speak English with Kenyan accents which I thought was quite interesting
Accent / dialect changes very quickly for children if you would regularly go on vacation in another region in Germany. For example, children from the north speak Swabian very quickly and vice versa if they regularly spend their holidays in the same region. It then takes less than two days and they have adapted the other dialect. :)
I was born and raised in Hamburg (northern Germany) .My Mum was also from Hamburg and both of us have a definite northern German accent.
My Dad was a proud Franconian from southern Germany.
As a child, I managed both accents and in Kindergarten I would use my "best" Franconian swearwords.
Im half German and half British and I speak German with a bit of a British accent 😅 (English is definitely my stronger language though). This was such a sweet video, next time I’m in Germany I’ll be more observant :)
ich musste 71 Jahre alt werden um fest zu stellen das ich mit dem Daumen anfange zu zaehlen Emilia and Matteo
love to hear moore about your daily German experience.
I'm Swiss. I prefer normal (dark bread). Toast is not "normal" bread for me. It's toast which you can only eat after you toast it. 😂
The index finger one style was for me the "american counting" style, because I first noticed it in movies. For a long time I even thougth actors do it on purpose to make it more clear. I was like why would you start counting with the second finger 😂
What I really like about your channel is that you get informations about differences in ordinary habits between Germany and New Zealand which you wouldn't find anywhere else.
That your children switch immediately between languages is due to their bilingual upbringing. The ultimate thing in learning a language is thinking in this language which make switching instantaneously and really speeds up understanding. Apart from school I learned English by reading books and the first two or three had been really slow reading and at some point my brain stopped translating and totally switched to English which tripeled my reading speed.
Just a question: how do you handle your fork when you have food you can't eat with your fork upside down like peas? The German habit of turning the fork most likely comes from the habit to collect different foods on one fork: some meat at the tips and some mashed potatoes and peas on the curved part.
My kids have been raised between Mexico and Switzerland and I’m a South African Indian mum, and my husband is Swiss, my son corrects all my German words, he’s 7, when he speaks english, he sounds American??? It’s very confusing, and my younger 5 year old sounds really odd when he speaks English, he sounds like he learnt English in Cape Town. The boys speak, English, German, Swiss German and Spanish...I feel they are losing their Spanish a bit but they do understand most of it! I have only seen two of you videos but I suddenly don’t feel so alone in all the strange things that I notice about our little family. 😂
I'm a german who grew up in an english-speaking environment (Oman) from 4 years onwards. My parents made sure we only spoke German at home, no english, because we spoke english with everyone as soon as we left the house. But the language of choice when talking to my siblings is definitely english, I think because that's the language we learned to speak to our pears at school. So when mum and dad aren't listening we always switch to english. But people do say that we speak English with a German accent which always hurts my pride a little but oh well :). I think it was definitely very strange for my very german parents to see our transition to english/international. They hated it when we brought the fill-word "like" home from school and did not know how to deal with it other than try to get us to stop as fast as possible :D
It’s so funny how you pointed out things that we do. My dads from the uk and my mama from Austria. My sister and I were raised in Austria. We speak German to each other, but in a conversation with my dad we switch, which confuses so many people when we are in a restaurant for instance. However I spent 6 months in the uk in 2017 and English suddenly was my first language - I had difficulties speaking German - now that I’m back I noticed that German is my first language again. It’s crazy how the brain works - mine at least. Your kids are so lucky! Xxx love from Austria 🇦🇹
I have a lingo tic, too. I was born and raised in Germany by German parents. I loved english pop music as a little kid and became rather obsessed with wanting to learn English, just so I could finally understand what I was listening to. Anyway, 35 years later and from time to time I'll occasionally struggle to remember specific German words. Whenever this happens I'll always have an English equivalent instantly availabe. It mildly freaks me out. It's like early onset German language dementia.
Hi, I came from Thuringia to Saxony. As little child I spoke the Franconian accent. In Dresden I lost it but some of my friends recognize that I came from another region.
In West Germany the recognize that I come from Saxony.
This ist very much in analogy what you told. I kept some accent from my mother but the local accent here is much stronger.
It is not exactly the same but a kind of a model.
The dialect I learned as a child was very much different from Standard German.
Viele Grüße von Bernd aus Dresden.
6 Kiwis in our house, we all live in Australia and all of the kids grew up in Australia but we all count starting with our thumbs 🤔 and we have a mixture of North and South Islander parents.
At 7:45 when you are listing what countries your english speaking friends come from you start listing/counting them using your thumb. Is this you subconsciously using the German way or do you count and list things using different fingers?
Ich kenne das Gefühl wechseln zwischen Zwei sprachen (manchmal drei) ich spreche zeit mein 5. Lebensjahr schon deutsch (bin 50. Jahre alt jetzt) und hat mich auch viel gebracht
So cute your children speaking ! Maybe the
" German R " is what we can hear .
Talking about dealing with forks and knives, here in Brazil we mostly use as Americans or Kiwis do it but as a huge country, there are people that use them like the third way or even in a fourth way : all the time with the fork on the right hand,( even though it is considered unpolite) .
😂😂😂😂 Emilia, you are super, great girl 👍
I think the reason why your children talk to each other in german is because other german people around them in public spoke german, and speech is often meant to be heard by the group for social reason. it also may be just habit because of speaking german in public. Still, its a great idea for bilingual children to have their parents only ever talk to them in their mother tongue, because not only are they going to be on a native level in both, they also do get the full range of emotional and non literal communication which would be impossible to fully communicate in a learned foreign language.
I am German and keep switching between the German and American way, depending on what I eat.
Moin, alles gesund bei euch?
Drück euch die Daumen!
Hi Antoinette! My English native speaking friends, who all teach English here in Austria, so they get to hear a lot of German accent in English, keep telling me that their friends and families back home (Britain, USA, Straya) say they have picked up a German accent! Have you made the same experience? Do you get feedback that your English has changed after all those years in Germany?
The German way of using the fork is, well pretty german. Meaning pragmatic.
We cut meat, pick it up and are using the fork upside-down.
Then we turn it around and using the knife to push food onto the fork upside-up and are using the fork as a shovel like you showed it.
How we are using it depends on the food. Smashed potatoes are hard to pick up.
The Thing with the Forkes was very interesting. Ich denke, es kommt darauf an, was man üblicherweise damit isst. Ich meine Wurzeln und Erbsen zb halten sich auf einer umgedrehten Gabel schlecht :) Und in Neuseeland gibt es vieleicht mehr Gerichte, die sich dazu eignen, die Gabel umzudrehen. Schön, dass deine Kinder die beiden Sprachen so natürlich lernen können. Und dieses switchen finde ich gleichzeitig beeindruckend als auch etwas niedlich.
Kiwi accents:), didn’t know they actually call it this but it’s amusing
"Efficiency" .. if you ever ask yourself why.. its efficiency ;)
that was so surprising! way of counting and that they speak German between each other)
Love it. Danke
which language do they think in?
what i mean is that some people can only think in one language and have to translate every thought separately when speaking another, while others (such as myself) always think in the language they are currently speaking/reading, which makes translating for others extremely difficult.
They probably think in both. They are fluent in both, so I don't see why they wouldn't.
Personally, I also tend to think in the language I am currently speaking, with maybe some bias towards English. (Even though I'm German, hah)
My family moved from Portugal to the US when I was 6 and my brother was 8. We started speaking English to each other at some point, and now it's how we speak to each other almost exclusively. I think it was just because we learned more complex words in regular school, so we're able to communicate adult thoughts in English. While in Portuguese school it was more about learning grammar and how to read and write, not much about adult words. So it's harder to communicate our present thoughts, harder to argue, harder to have a real conversation.
Food wise, yeah, I guess we have been influenced by American food. But my go to is still Portuguese food.
For fork and knife, I cut as I go through my meal (so not all at the beginning and then eat when I'm done). Depending on the food, I'll hold the knife down or up. So food that I stab, it'll be down. For things like peas, the fork will be up like a shovel. Then again, I eat yogurt with the spoon down because it sticks to the spoon and the tongue fits better with the curve of the spoon.
But I will say, I almost always use fork and knife, which isn't really common in the US. At my boyfriend's house, I always have to grab a knife from the kitchen because they never set one. They just cut their meat by grinding their forks down sideways. It disturbs me, tbh, why not just grab a knife?
I have noticed Americans cut their food and then grab the fork with the right hand, though. Even if they cut one piece at a time. They'll just keep switching. I've also seen people use the knife in the left hand and then just eat with the fork in the right because, according to them, they can't maneuver the left hand to get a fork to the mouth. Really goes to show how people can become reliant on just their dominant hand.
I always count using my pinky first, to my thumb last. I'd never be able to hold my pinky down long enough to count thumb to pinky, and starting with the pointer feels too strange.
Not really sure about accents. I think I have a North Jersey accent in English and a Portuguese accent in Portuguese, but I'm really bad at hearing Anyone's accent as long as I can understand, so beats me.
I think it cool you are letting your children find their own cultural, linguistic path.
The kiwi way of holding knife and fork is also to hold it much further to the front. In Germany it's held much further back. Kiwi way is British way and I think it has to do with the too of the fork in it pointing at someone. Have to Google the reason again.
It is so funny to watch you try to hold the fork. Yes, it makes sense to hold it in the way the food does not fall off it - why do you do it the other way round ? Why is tha kiwi normal?
Hi Antoinette, my name is stefan and I have to say, your channel is very well made and for me as a German it is interesting to see how a person from a completely different part of the world perceives life and people in Germany. I also learn a little more English by listening (my skills are grotty xD)
thank you for sharing your experiences and life.
My question would be, is it very bad that German culture has so much influence on your children? It's an advantage to have more knowledge from other cultures, isn't it?
You and your family stay healthy and safe at home. warmest greetings from thuringia.
I truly enjoyed this video and in all honesty believe that if your children were born and raised in New Zealand they would speak to each other as well as their friends in English as opposed to German. Just as we here in the United States generally pick up on the norms of the State or territory that we reside in.