Media today 127

Reading: Kathryn Lasky, Die Legende der Wächter 1. Die Entführung, loc. 88-227 (kindle edition). Listening: Roald Dahl, Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik, 1.30 - 1:39. Viewing: Es war einmal das Leben, "Das Herz" (26 min.).

In the original Dahl book, the gluttonous boy Augustus Gloop finds himself in a situation where he may get turned into fudge. 

In the German translation (published 1969), fudge is rendered as Negerküsse, "negro kisses." This term is generally avoided in German-speaking countries today (here and here), and German publishers are starting to edit this and other such terms out of children's books. This has caused an outcry in sectors of the culture. A couple of years ago, the German literary critic Dennis Scheck put on blackface (with white gloves, to boot) and went on TV to protest what he calls censorship. It was a thoroughly painful and embarrassing spectacle from an otherwise great critic.

Personally, I'm just fine with what the publishers are doing. I don't really want my child to be hearing words like this at his age, before he is really able to grasp their social resonance. I don't think this or any of the other stories in question stands or falls aesthetically with the presence or absence of such terms, which are just that—terms, not episodes or content that cannot be changed without tampering with the story as such. 

However, I do think edited versions should be characterized as such, and it would also be a good idea to have a short foreward describing the edits.

As for how I dealt with the word Negerküsse in this particular case: Last time we listened to the story, about a year ago, I didn't say anything, but made a note to myself to do so the next time. Which I did. We listened to the section, then I pulled over to the side of the road and explained what the word means and why; that most people no longer use this word and should not, because it is very hurtful; that the translator used it because she was writing a long time ago, before Germans really knew or thought much about how hurtful it could be; and that the world is now a different place than it was back then. 

I took the same strategy with Otfried Preußler's Die kleine Hexe (which was one of the controversial books in the German debate in 2013).  

Total audio 2015: 30.43
Total video 2015: 50.23
Age 5.6.30

Media today 126

Reading: Kathryn Lasky, Die Legende der Wächter 1. Die Entführung, loc. 1-88 (kindle edition).

Viewing: Es war einmal das Leben, "Das Blut" (26 min.)

I've been waiting a long time to read the Lasky books to J. 

We also received the first two volumes in English as a gift and my wife has started reading them to J in English.

J has watched the movie Legend of the Guardians numerous times and knows the story well. 

I basically think of it as Watership Down with owls. We're just a few pages in, and like the movie, it's ok but nothing stellar. However, for L2 purposes, knowing the story means that J listens with more attention, and also because the language is maybe not quite so advanced as what we've been reading lately. And he loves the map!

Total audio 2015: 30.34
Total video 2015: 49.57
Age 5.6.29

Subjunctives 1: müssten

J has long since mastered möchten, sollten, and könnten, roughly in that order. Yesterday while discussing how to go about a project he is planning, he formulated several sentences using the subjunctive I of müssen:

"Man müsste es [auf diese Weise machen]"; "Dann müsste man [dies und das machen]." 

I've been consciously using these sorts of formulations myself for a few months now.

Idiom in focus 4: etwas nicht leiden können

Lately J has been very vocal about his likes and dislikes, so we're going to work on some expressions around that.

etwas nicht leiden können
jemanden nicht leiden können
etwas gut leiden können
jemanden gut leiden können

Media today 125

Listening: Roald Dahl, Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik, 1.05 - 1.30.

Total audio 2015: 30.34
Total video 2015: 49.31
Age 5.6.27

Reading words of the week 11.

11.1 üben 
11.2 über
11.3 drüben
11.4 drüber
11.5 lügen
11.6 düsen
11.7 wütend

Vocabulary walk & talk 3

Today J and I took a 1.5 hour walk at the Botanical gardens, splashing in the brook and looking for arrowheads. 

Practice with previous material:
schädlich / unschädlich
verschnaufen
Woran liegt es, dass ...? 
einem zu denken geben
sich trauen
Nichts wie weg!
einem gehen die Kräfte zu Ende

New material:
eh' schon
nix drin
(Das) spielt keine Rolle.
dann und wann
eine heiße Spur
nicht lange fackeln
eine vertrackte Sache
einen guthaben bei jemandem
jemandem etwas verklickern (= klarmachen)
durchdrehen
ausflippen
abregen 
keinen Schimmer haben
tote Hose 
losdüsen
nachlassen (Schmerz)
sich verausgaben

Media today 124

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 16.5 - 18 (end); David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, 109-110 (airplanes & flying machines). 

Viewing: Traditionelles Bogenschießen - Trick shots (7 min.); Raben - Unterschätzte Genies (53 min). 

The raven documentary was inspired by the characters of Dr. Black from the Weger story 

and Abraxas from Otfried Preußler's Die kleine Hexe.

Total audio 2015: 30.09
Total video 2015: 49.31
Age 5.6.26

Media today 123

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 15 - 16.5.

Media today 122

Ich weiß was, Albert E. erklärt Insekten: Kleine Krabbler, große Staaten, 0 - 35:00.

Total audio 2015: 30.09
Total video 2015: 48.31
Age 5.6.23

Media today 121

David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, 108 (airplane); Anita Ganeri, Myths in 30 Seconds, 42-43 (sight translated). 

Idiom in focus 3: sich trauen

This idiom is usually translated "to dare to do something," but a better translation is something like "to muster the confidence to do something." Daring tends to be an outward pressure; sich trauen is more about one's inner state. 

Like with idiom 1, I've been deploying it by telling J various things I didn't and did have the confidence to do as a boy. 

Media today 120

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 11-14; David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, 106-107 (flight). Listening: Dimiter Inkiow, Griechische Sagen I, 44:00 - 86:00 (end); Ich weiß was, Albert E. erklärt die Werbung, 38:00 - 47:00 (end); Roald Dahl, Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik, 0 - 1.05; Ingo Siegner, Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss: Schulausflug ins Abenteuer (57 min.). Viewing: Hallo Benjamin, "Krank sein" (26:00); Sendung mir der Maus. Sachgeschichten: bicycle chain (6:30), generator axle (12:00); "Intuitives Bogenschießen" (12:00); "Die Kunst des Bogenschießens" (0 - 19:00).

The Medusa story is especially well done; the episode where Perseus meets and tricks the "Grey sisters" is very lively and funny and J wanted to hear it four times in a row. 

This is J's second time through the Dahl, both in English and in German. The last time was about eight months ago. My wife has just started reading it again with him in English, and we are tracking it closely in German. 

I have found this kind of simultaneous English-German reading highly productive, especially when the translations are very good, as is this one by Inge Artl. 

As I've mentioned before, the Hallo Benjamin videos are great because they capture the language dynamics of a lot of children interacting in a classroom-type setting.

In today's chapters of the Weger story there is a gripping argument between the two friends, Matheo and Polly. Polly is suspected of doing something quite terrible. Matheo has been defending her the whole time and trying to discover the real perpetrator. But finally he thinks there is no other possibility than that she did it, and he broaches the subject with her. Polly is totally destroyed by his failure to believe in her and says she will never be friends with him again. J listened to this section with great attention and concern. Matheo's soul-searching over his friendship with Polly is very eloquent and powerful. This is one of the best interactions I have read in children's fiction. 

I really love Polly as a character. I wish the author had decided to make her the main protagonist. It's really exasperating how many female authors who can write great female roles nonetheless feel they have to have a male characters as the main protagonist. Harry Potter, for example. 

Total audio 2015: 29.34
Total video 2015: 48.31
Age 5.6.20

Media today 119

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 10; Anita Ganeri, Myths in 30 Seconds, 40 (sight translated).

Listening: Dimiter Inkiow, Griechische Sagen, 36:00 - 44:00; Ich weiß was, Albert E. erklärt die Werbung, 18:30 - 38:00.

The Ganeri book is great: very quick and snappy texts (easy to sight translate), even shorter summaries, accompanying picture version of the same story, and comparisons to other myths to boot.

Total audio 2015: 26.23
Total video 2015: 47.34
Age 5.6.19

Literary-critical Sunday school, part 12

Reading: The Beginner's Bible, 194-221 (King Solomon, Building of the Temple, Elija and Ahab, Elisha).

Listening: Margot Käßmann, Die Bibel für Kinder, part 1, 50:00 - 58:00; Arnulf Zitelmann, Die Weltreligionen, 15:00 - 24:00.

We hadn't covered Solomon before. The wisdom theme dovetails nicely with our discussion of Athena earlier in the week. J was also fascinated with the "bad" king Ahab and his worship of Baal. But he objected to Elijah making fun of Baal: 

"Gods don't go on vacation!", was his response. In our discussions of the old testament, I try to negotiate the monotheistic perspective on false gods with a modern basic liberal attitude about religious freedom and acceptance of religious difference. As I was blathering on to this effect this morning, J interrupted and said: "I don't like to talk about that. I just like to talk about what the gods do." Seems about right to me. 

As I was explaining to J that ancient Chinese religions also had a lot of gods, he told me he already knew that already from Kung Fu Panda, specifically from the episode where Master Shifu is trying to "find inner peace."

Media today 118

Reading: Bruno Blume, Der gestiefelte Kater. Nach Ludwig Tieck, 35-40 (end); Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 10; Wieso, Weshalb, Warum, Wir entdecken die Farben, 5-6. 

Listening: Dimiter Inkiow, Griechische Sagen, 16:00 - 36:00; Ich weiß was, Albert E. erklärt die Werbung, 9:30 - 18:30. 

Viewing: Let's play Minecraft, Episode #016, #017, #018, #019, #020 (70 min.); Sendung mit der Maus: Sachgeschichten, "Polizei, Fingerabdrücke" (9 min.).

J really enjoyed and seemed especially interested in the theatrical aspect of the Tieck story. In a fortuitous way, both today's reading from Weger story and the Greek myths (Zeus's escapades) dealt with monogamy, loyalty and jealousy, such that the relevant vocabulary was very nicely reinforced. Fingerprints and detective work also plays a role in the Weger story, so we found a really excellent video Sachgeschichte on that. 

Today's section from the audiobook centered around a schoolyard drama where the fashionable and thus cool kids are calling other kids losers because of their clothing. It's pretty heavy handed, but the way the situation is resolved, then unpacked and analysed is great. 

Total audio 2015: 25.38
Total video 2015: 47.34
Age 5.6.18

Media today 117

Roger Hargreaves, Mister Fies. 

This is probably my favorite one of the bunch to read. Also, these stories are great when you only have a little time.

Media today 116

Bruno Blume, Der gestiefelte Kater. Nach Ludwig Tieck, 23-35.

Listening: Dimiter Inkiow, Griechische Sagen I, 0-16:00; Ich weiß was, Albert E. erklärt die Werbung, 0-9:30. 

The Greek myths are wonderfully written and spoken. One detail bothers me. Here the clay Prometheus forms into human beings is white, black and yellow, for each of the "races": the white people go to Europe, the black to Africa, the yellow to Asia. I am familiar with this motif from some native American myths, but it doesn't seem to feature in any authentic Greek account. 

I have no idea why Inkiow imported it. It's just a passing reference and plays no role in any later episode, but that gratuitousness is just the issue. My son didn't ask about it this time, but it's just the kind of detail he normally picks up on and asks about. I certainly have no problem with explaining problematic things people used to believe, I would just prefer those things to have some sort of historical basis.

Total audio 2015: 25.09
Total video 2015: 46.15
Age 5.6.16

Writing letters 2

J and I have been continuing to write dual-language letters to my godson, Gabriel, who is interested in learning German. Yesterday we began a series about owls. Here is the second letter in this series.

Media today 115

Reading: Wikipedia, "Athene"; David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, 102-104 (sailboards, sailboats, airships). 

Owls to Athena

J loves owls. At some point I told him about Athena and her owl, but it has been awhile, and I don't think I ever connected Athena to Athens (Georgia, our home town) for him. I did this morning. We read about Athena on Wikipedia.de, then googled a bunch of images of her with her owl. Then we biked downtown to see whether our Athena-in-residence had her owl with her. She didn't. That needed to be remedied right away! 

On the way from there to school J told me how all his owls were going to gather together after we had all gone to sleep and fly into town to hang out with Athena. When I asked him about that again this evening, he added that they were going to open a little restaurant on the statue.

Media today 114

Reading: Roger Hargreaves, Miss Unentschieden. 

Viewing: Let's play Minecraft (3 hrs)

J was under the weather today, so he stayed home from various activities and my wife let him watch what he wanted. He wanted Minecraft. Lots of Minecraft. 

This would be a good time to compute average L2 media time per day. So ... out of 104 days so far this year, J has racked up 1483 minutes of L2 listening, which averages to just over 14 minutes per day. He's done 2775 minutes of L2 viewing, which is about 27 minutes per day. 

We haven't recorded how much L1 television he watches per day, but my sense is that it's probably about as much or perhaps a little bit less than L2. So on the whole he averages a little bit less than an hour a day total of viewing time in both languages.

Occasionally my wife will listen to an L1 audiobook with him, but not very often. Mostly she reads to him herself. 

Total audio 2015: 24.43
Total video 2015: 46.15
Age 5.6.16

... und zwar

Today was the first time I've heard this expression spontaneously from J. I've been working on it consciously for a few weeks, though at the moment I can't find my little notebook to see how many times I've marked it down. I'll update when I find it. 

Puppets and piano practice 6

Today J and I are practicing music together for the first time, getting ready to play a duet at a recital in a couple of weeks. It has not been easy. Having the puppets as an audience and for silly commentary has made things easier.

Wortschöpfungen 4

Today J was trying to describe a dream that has narrative sections and came up with the word Erzähltraum, without having heard the word before, I believe.

Media today 113

Listening: Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 2.02 - 3:30; Ingo Siegner, Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss: Schlulausflug ins Abenteuer, 0-32:30.

Viewing: Gronkh, Lets play Minecraft, Episodes #020 (15 min), #021 (15 min.), #001 (15 min.), #002 (15 min.), #003 (15 min.); #004 (15 min.)

I've been trying to get J to branch out and watch other German video game videos than Kung Fu Panda. He's been very resistant, but today I finally succeeded in getting him to watch Minecraft, and now he's all about it.

Language-wise these videos are just as good as the Kung Fu Panda ones. The first two here have just one player-speaker, who explains everything he is doing very clearly. The later two episodes above feature several players, who chat up a storm. 

Another motivation for having J watch these is that two boys in the German playgroup also watch them and play the video game. Hopefully this will provide J with more things to talk about with them.


Total audio 2015: 24.43
Total video 2015: 43.15
Age 5.6.13

Media today 112

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 8-9; Roger Hargreaves, Mister Umgekehrt.

We read the Hargreaves book yesterday, but J wanted Franziska to read it again today so he could say Mister Umgekehrt's lines for her. Here they are reading the book upside down (of course).

Reading words of the week 10

10.1. alt, älter
10.2. kalt, kälter
10.3. der Wald, die Wälder
10.4. warm, wärmer
10.5. lang, länger
10.6. stark, stärker
10.7. schwach, schwächer

Oops, revision! It makes better sense to have arm, ärmer as 10.4 and extend the list an extra day. 

Media today 111

Reading today: Bruno Blume, Der gestiefelte Kater. Nach Ludwig Tieck, 12-23; Roger Hargreaves, Mister Umgekehrt.

Media today 110

Listening: Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 50:00 - 2.02.

We last listened to this story 6 months ago and already J understands it much better. Last time he only incipiently understood a lot of the language play and humor. This time he is listening very intently and laughing a lot of his own accord. 

Total audio 2015: 22:42
Total video 2015: 41.45
Age 5.6.9

L2 parenting myth: Fear of unnaturalness

Something that has developed out of a recent L2 excercise offers great counter-evidence to one of the main myths of L2 parenting: that it "feels unnatural."*  

With the particular idioms I've been focusing on with my son, which have to do with confiding and maintaining confidence, my conversational raw material has been to recount "secrets": mostly awkward, embarrassing, and emotionally painful episodes from my childhood and youth. I ask my son if I can confide a secret to him, he says yes, I recount the secret, we talk about it, then ask him if I can depend on him to not tell anybody, and he says yes. 

We've done this a dozen times or so over the last couple of weeks. In order to get the reps in, I've been searching my memory and have remembered things that I haven't thought about in many years and probably would not have, absent the L2 excercise. 

I actually didn't intend it this way. That is, I didn't choose the idiom in order to have these particular conversations, but for linguistic reasons having to do with their grammatical and syntactical complexity. Only in retrospect did I come up with conversational material to fit the idioms. 

The result has been some great conversations about things we might not have ever even talked about otherwise. Since the secrets all concern my childhood, I tell them in such a way as to maximize their relatability to J. He pays very close attention, asks me questions, and thinks out loud about his own situations. 

In my puppetry essay, I describe why my own initial fear of unnaturalness turned out to be unfounded: "If anything, the L2, in prompting me to interact with my son with more verbal intensity than otherwise and to use quantitatively more language with him in different ways, has brought me emotionally closer to him." 

This idiom excercise is a great example. If we had never embarked on the L2 adventure, maybe I would have told him some of my "secrets" anyway, in the course of time. But almost certainly not as many, and not in such depth, and maybe not in a way that would have fostered as much confidence between us.

*On this and numerous other myths, see Christine Jernigan, Family Language Learning. Learn Another Language, Raise Bilingual Children (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2015), p. 16-17.

Media today 109

Reading today: Bruno Blume, Der gestiefelte Kater. Nach Ludwig Tieck, 1-11.

This beautiful book is a gift from a colleague visiting from Aachen. She also told me about the other world literature offerings for children from the Kindermann Verlag. We will definitely ordering more of these.

Idiom in focus 2: sich auf jemanden verlassen

After a surfeit of usage in the last few days J has already started using idiom 1 independently, so it's time to move on. A scene in Sophiechen und der Riese provided me with the next one. The BFG is confiding his secrets to Sophie and asks her "if he can depend on her not to tell anybody else."

sich auf jemanden verlassen.

Media today 108: Friendship; German folk songs (Volkslieder)

Listening: Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 0-50:00; Ich weiß was, "Albert E. erklärt Freundschaft," 0-15:00; Kinderlieder deutsch. Frühlingslieder Video mix (24 min.); songs by Fredrik Vahle (60 min.) 

Viewing: Benjamin Blümchen, Benjamin Blümchen bei den Eskimos (26 min.), Die kleinen Schildkröten (26 min.); Benjamin Blümchen findet einen Schatz (26 min.); Let's Play Kung Fu Panda, Episode 2 (20:00).

J has been asking to listen to the Dahl story again. The last time was just over four months ago. Whereas before he was just getting attuned to the funny grammar and syntax mistakes the BFG makes, this time he is very aware of a lot of them and laughs at them independently of me. We had a long conversation about Sophie's and BFG's conversation about whether flowers and trees and other plants have feelings like animals. J said he didn't think they did, but was open to the possibility that they do.

When my wife and I ask J questions about his friends at school, he rarely responds with much information. "Yes" and "no "and maybe short sentence or two. Today, when I started playing the friendship audiobook, wow, the floodgates opened, and with practically every scene J was interrupting and describing at length and in great detail and nuance the—similar or contrasting—dynamics between himself and his closest friends at school. I learned more about these friends during this half an hour than during this whole past year. 

One very funny thing he said in this conversation: "Weißt du Papa, warum ich und T und D und M so gute Freunde sind? Zwei Bedeutungen: Erstens, weil wir alle Quasselstrippen sind, zweitens, weil wir alle ganz albern sind." 

The children's songs (Kinderlieder) are traditional German songs about spring. We've been listening to this particular collection for exactly a year. The arrangements are pretty saccharine, but the sound quality is excellent, the lyrics are very clearly sung, and they also scroll accross the screen with the music. As he plays, J has been stopping to watch and read them a good bit.

This year I let the music play in the background as we do things around the house. Last year I was much more focused. I printed out the words to many of the songs, pasted them in J's art book, and together we made matching drawings and talked about the songs. Here are several of those:

Occasionally we have made our own lyrics to the melodies. Here's one of several stanzas we have written after "Alle meine Entchen":

Since J is a skunk nut, using the scenario and the melody to "Der Kuckuck und der Esel," we composed a poem about a stink battle between a skunk and an Iltis, a related species that also uses scent glands as a means of defense. 

The lyrics are:

Das Stinktier und der Iltis,
die hatten einmal Streit:
Wer wohl am schlimmsten stänke,
Wer wohl am schlimmsten stänke,
zur schönen Maienzeit [oder Stinkezeit],
zur schönen Maienzeit.

Das Stinktier sagt: "Das kann ich!"
Und fing zu stinken an.
"Das aber kann ich besser,
das aber kann ich besser!",
fiel gleich der Iltis ein,
fiel gleich der Iltis ein.

Das stank so schlimm und furchtbar,
so schlimm von fern und nah.
Die stanken alle beide,
die stanken alle beide,
Zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, zzzt [Spritzgeräusche], plttt, plttt [Pupsgeräusche]!
Zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, plttt, plttt!

Total audio 2015: 21:30
Total video 2015: 41.45
Age 5.6.6

Media today 107

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, half of ch. 8.

Media today 106

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande: Polly in Not, ch. 7.

sowohl ... als auch ...

Today J used these conjunctions for the first time independently, pretty much right on schedule in terms of the number of reps I have recorded (I'm pretty sure I neglected to record two or three reps).

Media today 105

Viewing: Let's play Kung Fu Panda, episode 10 (16 min.) and 11 (21 min.); Der König der Löwen, 0-30:00.

Total audio 2015: 20.47
Total video 2015: 40.07
Age 5.6.3 

Reading words of the week 9

9.1 neu
9.2 neun
9.3 das Heu
9.4 heute
9.5 die Leute, die Leuten
9.6 die Beule, Beulen
9.7 die Eule, Eulen

Idiom in focus 1: anvertrauen (jemandem etwas; sich jemandem)

I'm renaming this excercise because it has very quickly become clear that one day will not suffice to work the expression in a really meaningful way. So now I will keep a particular idiom "in focus" until I feel we have explored it a sufficient syntactic and semantic depth. 

With anvertrauen, for example, it takes awhile to generate enough conversation such as to cover the two basic usages, one involving a direct object (jemandem etwas anvertrauen, "to entrust/confide something to somebody") and one reflexive (sich jemandem anvertrauen, "to confide in somebody"). So far I have used the former with J but not yet the latter.

Plus it is necessary to exploit the different syntactical possibilities involving the seperable prefix. 

1. Ich habe auch ein paar weitere Geheimnisse aus meiner Kindheit, die ich dir später anvertrauen werde.

2. Ich habe auch ein paar weitere Geheimnisse aus meiner Kindheit, die vertraue ich dir später an. 

I did manage to use both of these this morning, but they bear a lot of repetition.

Update 4.4.15: J used this expression with me this morning, after two days of repeated usage by me in various contexts.