Media today 196

Reading: several new and a few old jokes from Imke Stotz, Sagt Ulf zu Gnulf... : Die 500 besten Kinderwitze. 

Media today 195

Reading: Barbara Kindermann, Wilhelm Tell. Nach Friedrich Schiller, 19-25; several old and new jokes from Imke Stotz, Sagt Ulf zu Gnulf... : Die 500 besten Kinderwitze. 

We got to the iconic apple-shooting scene in Tell today. 

After Gessler has Wilhelm seized, it was too much for J: "Papa, aufhören! Das ist zu grausam!" So we finished up with the jokes. Here is one he has had me read five or six times today: 

Die zwei irren Brüder Knick und Knack wollen aus dem Irrenhaus ausbrechen. Da sagt Knick zu Knack: "Du Knack, heute Nacht kommst du zu mir ins Zimmer."
Knack fragt: "OK! Aber was machen wir dann?"
Knick antwortet: "Na ganz einfach. Dann leuchte ich mit der Taschenlampe aus dem Fenster und du kletterst an ihrem Strahl herunter."

"Ne, ne. So doof bin ich nicht", antwortet Knack. "Wenn ich fast unten bin schaltest du sie aus und ich falle hinunter."

Reading words for the week 12 revisited

In kindergarten, J has weekly "sight words" for reading, so we're just going to track these in German for the time being. This week they are

I > ich
a > ein (not going to worry about gender/case for now)
see > sehe
am > bin   

Media today 194

Listening: A. A. Milne, Pu der Bär, 3.55 - 4:18; 5:02-5:24.

Total audio 2015: 58.32 hours
Total video 2015: 78.57 hours
Age 5.10.10

Last of our special Mondays

For most of the past three years, Jamie and I have spend every Monday together, usually just the two of us, usually (I think five out of my six semesters) without any school. My goal on these Mondays has been to cram as much German as possible into the time between J's getting up in the morning and his going to bed at night. 

In the early days we did most of our L2 game routines on Monday. For the last two plus years, I've aimed for a solid hour each of reading, audiobook listening, and viewing; along with a long and conversationally intensive walk, with the explicit goal of introducing new vocabulary and progressive grammar/syntax; as well as chatty mealtimes, letter-writing to his fictional L2-pen pals, etc.

Other that his piano lesson since last November, I've always deliberately avoided making plans to spend time with people on Monday, so that we could speak only German and make it as L2-immersive as possible. 

I feel that these special Mondays have played a crucial role in making J as fluent as he is in German.(For example, he just said this, verbatim: "Ach, es ist herrlich, an einem so regnerischen Tag ein warmes Bad zu nehmen!"). They have also deepened our relationship. 

But now our special Mondays are over. Tomorrow is J's first day of kindergarten. We will never have a regular free day together during the week. (Ok, there will be the summer.) 

I have always been worried that the start of regular school will bring about a change in J's attitude to German, which, reinforced by the reduction of time he spends speaking it during the week, will start to put serious daylight between his L1 and L2 abilities (virtually none so far; in certain areas his L2 is better) and erode his desire to speak German. I'm no longer as worried as I used to be. It's inevitable that his English will now improve faster than his German. I'm cool with that. I will do what I can to keep his German progressing. My biggest goal now is to get him able to read on his own in German with an ease approaching to that in English, and to want to do so. 

As for desire to speak Geman, well, I don't think there's going to be a big problem with that anytime soon. He seems to truly love the language. 

Literary-critical Sunday school, part 13

Reading: Annamarie Benedikt, Die Kinderbibel, stories of Tower of Babel and the prophet Elija. Listening: Die Bibel, 0-41:00 (Genesis 1-9). 

We've done a good bit of reading and listening in the real bible before, but usually only individual stories that we prepare for ahead of time by reading simpler and linguistically more modern versions in children's bibles. Now J is ready for the real thing, so we're going to start at the beginning and listen through. 

As we were listening to the creation story this morning, I told J that today is Sunday and that many people don't work on Sunday because those who first invented the week decided to make Sunday a day of rest, like the seventh day in the Bible. To which J responded: "Yeah, but that's kind of dumb, because why is there any traffic at all on the street?" This led to some interesting discussion about how a lot of people who think of themselves as Christians don't follow the bible as strictly as they used to in history; or can't afford to not work on Sunday (like maybe the employees of the donut shop we were on our way to); or come from a different culture and/or belong to another religion where Sunday doesn't have this meaning. "Like the [ancient] Greek religion!", J chimed in. I agreed, but told him that that is an ancient religion that most people don't believe and live by anymore.  

We also listened to the story of Cain and Abel for the first time, really. Up till now, J has wanted to skip it. In our discussion, I pointed out that the real bible doesn't say why exactly God is pleased with Abel's offering and not with Cain's, that this is one of the places where we have to try to come up with an explanation ourselves, but we can never really be sure. Was it something about Cain, or was God himself maybe playing favorites?   

Media tody 193

Reading: Barbara Kindermann, Wilhelm Tell. Nach Friedrich Schiller, 13-18; Dimiter Inkiow, Die spannendsten griechischen Sagen, 95-98. Viewing: Der König der Löwen, 85 min.

Total audio 2015: 57.06 hours
Total video 2015: 78.57 hours
Age 5.10.08