julianw Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5287 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: French
| Message 1 of 9 26 May 2010 at 3:28pm | IP Logged |
Hello
My 2 children (aged 5 and 8) moved back to the UK with me from Switzerland late last year. My 5 year old has rudimentary German but my 8 year old son has basic fluency in both high German and Swiss German (and some French). My concern is that they are losing their German as they are now in an English speaking environment. Can anybody recommend books that may be appropriate such as a series of story books used in German schools that increase in difficulty?
I speak French and German so I can help out some but it would be good to have some structured learning materials.
Many thanks
Julian
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Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6430 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French
| Message 2 of 9 26 May 2010 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
I don't know about common readers, but if I was a child, I would love to read the Max and Moritz stories, in fact, I enjoy them despite my age.
Edited by Declan1991 on 26 May 2010 at 5:29pm
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6430 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 3 of 9 26 May 2010 at 6:25pm | IP Logged |
I realize it's not what you're looking for, but here are some children's books in German.
I expect maintaining Swiss German will be tough; perhaps try hard to visit Switzerland each year. For high German, see if you can find them some playmates who speak it.
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Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5311 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English
| Message 4 of 9 26 May 2010 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
There are lots of good German childrens' books. Without knowing what kind of books your son usually reads, it's hard to make a good suggestion.
Maybe you could get him some German-dubbed multi-episode DVD classics that most younger kids like, for example, Wickie und die starken Männer or Capitain Future. Your younger son might like Die Biene Maja or Heidi.
A good resource is also the Multilingual families forum at PROZ:
http://www.proz.com/forum/81 and this site: http://www.multilingualfamily.co.uk/
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lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin
| Message 5 of 9 26 May 2010 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
I recommend getting them some manga translated into German like One Piece or Bleach. A lot of German kids love it.
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FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5727 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes
| Message 6 of 9 27 May 2010 at 12:21am | IP Logged |
@Julian:
I have no idea if this helps, but I remember growing up I always read books called "was ist was" (by the tessloff v erlag). Not trying to advertise for them :D, but I see their company's building every day when I drive home from college so cant help of think about how I would soak those books up.
they have a website (sure youll find it without me posting the link), if youre children have a thirst for knowledge, maybe some of that stuff would be for them? (I really cant say anything about their books (or if they still have books in this day of time!), I just remember how much I was into it when I was <10 years
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CanEsc Newbie United States CanEsc.com/ Joined 5283 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 7 of 9 30 May 2010 at 3:26pm | IP Logged |
julianw wrote:
My 5 year old has rudimentary German but my 8 year old son has basic fluency
... but it would be good to have some structured learning materials. |
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I wasn't able to find much structured material when my (American, non-bilingual) son was 5, and haven't been as diligent
at looking now that he's 8 and a good reader.
A few options for the 5 year old:
- The Word Detective, published by Usborne. Out of print though I got it used (probably via AbeBooks). It has vocabulary-
centric stories with several illustrations per sentence.
- German Through Pictures: many years out of print. It's a mass-market (small) paperback with line drawings, and no real
plot. But it's a reasonable attempt at immersion.
For either age:
- Briefe von Felix: we got one of the books and most of the DVDs. Not structured at all, but it's divided into chapters or
sections, so it's good for modest attention span.
- Kid-friendly movies, old (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, Flipper) or new (Pixar, Disney). No structure, but at least
it provides some input.
Scott
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Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6430 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French
| Message 8 of 9 30 May 2010 at 4:04pm | IP Logged |
I forgot to mention the radio plays of the Fuenf Freunde (Famous Five) and Die Drei Fragezeichen (The Three Investigators). They are all around 40 minutes long, divided into about 7 minute sections, and there are about 50 of the former (21 originals) and well over a hundred of the latter. They are great, especially if he happens to like them anyway.
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