darüber

For the first time I heard J spontaneously produce a correct darüber sentence:

"Ich möchte darüber reden, was wir Gustav bei Minecraft zeigen können."

But then a couple minutes later, this:

"Die Oma und ich haben geredet über wie ..." 

Still, progress! That is an advanced construction. 

wogegen

I've been working on words like dagegen and wogegen for several years now. This morning Jamie produced something very close to the following sentence: "Die Raumschiffe der Rebellion sind oft dünn und können durch enge Stellen fliegen, wogegen die Raumschiffe der dunklen Seite das nicht können, weil sie nicht so dünn sind." 

Bookish perhaps, but awesome!

Update: J produced another very similar wogegen sentence today [8.7.2016], comparing the World of Warcraft Bloodelf music with the Orgrimmar music.  

Kochkünste 1

Since J loves to help with cooking, and since Gustav is a cook, I bought a German children's cookbook while I was in Austria: 

Today we made spagetti with tomato sauce. 

Gustav studied the recipe with J very carefully. 

And the tools as well. 

And then we got cooking!

And then the best part.

Gustav

Nearly two years ago, J started exchanging emails with a certain Gustav, a rat friend of Ulli and Sabine. He wanted Gustav to come live with us. Gustav said he would, but at the time he was busy running a restaurant in Paris, so he wasn't sure when he would be able to come. He was also not the best correspondent (also here, here, here).


A few months ago, Gustav told us he would meet us in Paris when we were there this summer. It was a big deal, and J was talking about it weeks before the trip. 

Gustav met us at the Eiffel tower. Here is the moment of the meeting:

And here the reunion with Ulli and Sabine:

Since then J has had Gustav with him pretty much at all times. Here are some other pictures from Paris: 

It had actually been several months since I had done a lot of puppetry, but now it's as if J is three years old again! He wants me to "do Gustav" all the time, and he wants to explain everything to Gustav. Great for language. In the next weeks there will probably be a lot of Gustav-related posts.

Vorteile / Nachteile

In our conversation yesterday J correctly used these concepts ("advantages" / "disadvantages") in his own conversation for the first time. I've been actively seeding them for about a year and a half (here and here). 

We were discussing the various strengths and weaknesses of various World of Warcraft classes.

Sunday school 23: Moses 1

Listening: Die Bibel, 4.23 - 4:42 (Exodus ch. 1-4).

In our discussion of this section, I tried to connect the predicament of the Israelites in Egypt with the modern refugee crisis, contrasting the "good" pharao of the Joseph story, who welcomed immigrants, with the "bad" pharao of the Moses story, who oppressed them.  

2016
Total audio: 29.14
Total video: 25:25
Total gamplay: 5.40
Age 6.09.31

Summer separation; media update 292

I've been away from home all summer, from mid-June to July 29. This has been the longest period I have ever been separated from J and, consequently, the longest he has gone without his main L2 source and speaking partner. All told, we were apart for 43 days (we all met in Paris for a week in mid-July, on which more in a later post).

I was worried before I left about the impact of this separation on J's German. So I got various German-YouTube-video series (Jim Knopf, Let's Play World of Warcraft, Let's Play Minecraft) lined up on my computer screen, and my wife saw to it that he did regular watching. I've just looked back at the history and done the numbers, and it amounts to about 22 minutes per day of passive practice. 

He hasn't lost much L2 ability. He speaks a bit more hesitantly at times, and yesterday, which we spent mostly alone together and in which he did a lot of talking, he asked me three or four times how to say some very basic words. On the other hand, he also produced some new expressions and formulations he's picked up in the meantime or which are the product of his developing brain. I heard some verbal combinations I don't believe I've heard before (though I didn't write them down and don't remember what they are now). 

So all in all, J's German is still going very strong and a summer of diminished L2 use has proven to be just a slight bump in the road. 

I now look forward to returning to our regular routines and to regular posting. 

2016
Total audio: 28.55
Total video: 25:25
Total gamplay: 5.00
Age 6.09.31