Posted in German with the Kinder

I haven't posted an update on the children's language progress lately because there has really been nothing to say. They are doing much better in English though! However, recently two things happened in regards to German that I wanted to document.

Ryan has always really liked colors, and when we got a cool German book from Alphabet Garten called "Die Farben" it made its way to his room instead of being placed on the German shelf.  Gabrielle has recently been reading to him before bed, and apparently he had asked her to read that book several times.  Each time she told him, "That book is in German, and I can't read German."

One night, Gabrielle was busy and Ryan had to settle for a story from plain old mom.  While I sat in his room waiting for him to finish brushing his teeth, I picked up "Die Farben" and started looking through it.  He came back in and saw the book in my hand and his eyes lit up.  I could see the wheels turning in his mind.  "Can you read that book to me, Mommy?  Can you read German?"  So he finally got to understand the illustrations.  I read it to him in German, but explained some things in English.

Then, last week I said something to Brogan in German, and Ryan looked at me and asked me why I could speak Spanish.  I'm not sure if he thought the German was Spanish, or why he said that.  But anyway, I told him, "I can speak German and Spanish because I have studied them for a long time."  The children have been watching episodes of Liberty's Kids, and the character Henri is French, so Ryan said that French was a language too.  Then he asked me if I could speak French.  "Just a little tiny bit," I replied.

Today the speech therapist was here and brough some of her Spanish materials by mistake.  Ryan was trying to tell her that I could speak Spanish, but kept saying "English" instead so she didn't understand him.  She said, "I know your mom can speak German!"

So I guess you could say that we have made progress in that Ryan realizes that there are different languages.  Now, to actually teach him some German!  I'm hoping to actually do that one of these days...