Jenny took her final German test of the year today--for all intents and purposes, her German course is finished. I'll be the first to tell you that Jenny doesn't put off studying to the last minute. She's been working towards this test all year really, but she studied intensely for the past 10 days or so.Coincidently, just as Jenny began to master some of the more complex verb constructions (ex. the passive voice: "Consumer goods have been manufactured" instead of "Factory workers have manufactured consumer goods"), Nikolas has been mastering these as well. The only difference is: he's doing it naturally, without books and grammar lessons.
The other night in the bath, he spotted some grime on the lower part of a shower door. "Papa, die Tür muss geputzt werden! (The door has to be cleaned!)" What takes third-year German students some serious consideration before they've mastered that type of sentence, he's been able to do just be listening to it being used.
Jenny's been working hard to learn all her irregular verbs in the past tense. Nikolas uses verbs in the past tense when he's speaking about something in the past. He still makes mistakes saying things like "Ich habe es gebringt" instead of "Ich habe es gebracht" (I bringed instead of I brought), but he understands what he has to do.
Jenny's goal was to learn enough German so that we can all speak German in the home once we get back to Pennington. Since Nikolas was born, it's been me primarily who's been speaking to him in German. I'd say she's achieved that goal--she's learned so much!
And learning German is so much easier today for those who speak English. German speakers are in love with English much like Germans loved David Hasselhoff in the 1980s. For those who can read German und would like more info on the "Englishness" of German, click on the image above to read my letter to the editor published in this past Wednesday's Salzburger Nachrichten.
