Raising our three kids bilingually
Where we come from
Why bilingual
I was born and grew up in Nordfriesland, the North German region at the border to Denmark and the North Sea coast. Up to 1864 the area actually was Danish, and therefore today there still is a Danish minority with their own schools, museums, clubs and so on.

Anyway, throughout my childhood I never had any contact with Danes or the Danish language. My grandfather had moved form Poznan to Nordfriesland around 1900, and the languages used in our family are German and the local dialect Flat German.

In 1988 I met Karen, who now is my wife, and in 1990 I moved to Denmark in order to live together with her. In the beginning Karen and I would talk English with each other, but after about a year in Denmark I had learned so much Danish that it felt unnatural not to speak Danish together.
Our eldest son Frithjof was born in 1997, and we knew from the start that we were going to raise him bilingually.

Personally, I feel it one of the most precious gifts I can give my child to grow up with two languages. And it would have felt strange if I were not to speak my mother tongue with my own children.

Furthermore, I wanted to share with them my own cultural heritage.
Choosing the approach
The first important decision was, whether we were going to stick to the Minority Language at Home method (ml@h) or using the One Parent One Language (OPOL) approach.

Before Frithjof was born, we several times tried to only speak German at home. But we always ended up speaking Danish together after a few hours, we decided it would be the best if each of us spoke our mother tongue together with the kids.

Thus, I have spoken German with Frithjof, since he was born. My wife speaks always Danish with him (and the other kids).
The first years
Frithjofs oral development has perhaps been a bit slower than average in his first two or three years. But it is difficult to say whether this because he is bilingual, for he had a couple of ear infections in his early childhood, and this may have caused that in some periods he didn’t hear quite as good as other kids.

On the other hand, his motorics developed rather quickly – he started to walk when he was 10 months old, and learned to ride a bike before he was three years.

It is often said that boys are quicker in their physical development and slower with their language, so this might also be an explanation for his slow oral development.

For me, the first three years were hardest, simply because it was so difficult to see the results of what I was doing. I was the only one who would speak German with the kids. Everywhere else people spoke Danish.

When we are together with some of their Danish pals, I often translate for them what I what I have said to the kids. So, communication takes more time.
Tools
When I read a story to the kids, I do it in German. We have quite a few German language childrens´books, and if the kids want to read a Danish book, I translate into German. I wouldn’t do that with Danish rhymes or songs, though, so the kids have to ask their mother to read such books to them.

Tv and video have been helpful as well; I got my friends and family in Germany to tape some of the popular children’s programs, and now we can also receive some German tv channels.

We also use audiotapes with German children songs and radio plays, and last but not least the kids have learned quite a lot by playing German language computer games.

Of course, we also visit our German family and friends as often as possible. But there are no kids of the same age in my part of the family, so there is not so much incentive to use German when we are over there.

Luckily, we now have found other Danish/German families in Copenhagen (through this web page, by the way), but ironically the kids mainly speak Danish together when we see each other...
Another bilingual kid
In 1999, our second son Thorbjørn was born, and this actually made things easier for me. Now I no longer only spoke German with Frithjof, but with the baby as well.

Thorbjørn grew up into an environment were the German language already had its place. A few months after Thorbjørn was born, I became unemployed, and this was quite a positive thing for the kids´German language acquisition, with me being around all the time.
After 9 years (April 2006)
Status May 2003
So while I am writing this (May 2003), I am in a similar situation. I have been unemployed since our third son Bertram was born (October 2002), and now I am on paternity leave until September 2003.

It is still a kind of one way process with me speaking to the kids in German and them answering in Danish, even if we are in Germany, and even if Karen is not around. But there is hope – a few weeks ago, Frithjof suddenly started reading small picture books up to me or to Thorbjørn, and he would do it in German!

Frithjof says that it seems to him that I speak Danish when I talk to him, so he doesn’t translate consciously, it just happens.

Thorbjørn is also aware of me and Karen speaking two different languages. He often uses German phrases in Danish sentences, and if he wants to, he can also make whole sentences in German. His oral development seems to go quicker than Frithjofs did.

Frithjof will start at the German-Danish Petri-Schule in August 2003, and this will definitely make the German language even more present in our family. So I look forward to seeing how things will go with Bertram.
Now, Frithjof and Thorbjørn go to school, and Bertram goes to Kindergarten.

The two older boys are fluent at Danish as well as at German.

When Frithjof started at school, he understood every word of German, but he wouldnt speak it. This changed drastically when he started at school. After just a week he spoke mainly German with me.

Thorbjørns German has improved similarly. When the kids talk to each other or with their mother, they mainly use Danish.

Bertram understands both languages, but he does not yet speak as much as a monolingual child of his age.

Like it was with his brothers at that age, his nurses are a bit worried about him being behind in his language development. I think he will catch up later on.
To be continued...