Whose relatives are German speaking

K

KS

Cathlete
Hi Cathe,
I read your post about teaching Eric German. I am guessing with a name like Friedrich it is on your side of the family that the German relatives hail from. I could be wrong, though. Are they from Germany (or perhaps Austria?).
Do you get over there to see them?
Hard to resist all the delicious pastries over there! My husband is particularly fond of the "bier garten" lifestlyle. I think he would like to build one in the back yard.
Thanks!
 
My husband and I both have German relatives, so it was interesting to find out that Cathe does too. Unfortunately about the oonlly german I remmember is some cuss words my mom use to use!
Donna
 
My maiden name is Landwehr and my paternal grandfather was from Switzerland. My mother was a Hartman and her grandparents were German as well. So we had plenty of German speaker floating around (plus all those relatives who stayed in the old country).

Unfortunately, they were all "old school" immigrants and decided that being an American meant speaking English only. I always have felt that this was a tragic loss for our family -- I would love to be able to speak German, or any other foreign language for that matter.

What a wonderful gift to give a child.
 
I agree-- it is so much easier to learn another language when you are young. I would love to speak a foreign language fluently.
 
Hi KS! Yes, you are correct, I am the German one in our family. Actually I am 100 percent German. Much of my family still lives there with my mom and dad (as well as a couple of aunts and uncles and grand parents)coming over about 40 years ago. My sister and I had to learn to speak English when we first started school. These days, I shamefully admit, that my German is a bit rusty. I still understand just about 100 percent of it, but when it comes to speaking it, I do it, but I stuggle with the grammar end of it. All of my relatives speak it fluently though and have fairly strong accents.

My parents were shuffled around as children during the war and lived all over. Romania, Austria, etc.

Yes, I do get over to visit, however not as often as my parents do.

Oh yes, we love German chow. We just went to a German Festival a couple of weeks ago and my little guy was introduced to Wiener Schnitzel and Bratwurst.........Yummy:).
 
It's great that you are teaching Eric another language! I wish they would place more emphasis on learning other languages in schools now. Of course, even when I was in school, they were scaling back the language programs, and that was over 30 years ago! Keep it up! He's a lucky kid.
 
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