Impressions of Native Germans

While visiting Europe during their Thanksgiving breaks, my family stayed with my father’s German friend who lives in Berlin, as they were friends during college. It was really interesting to get to see a normal family’s day to day life in Germany, as living in an apartment did not really allow for this. Another aspect that was cool about interacting with a native German family was speaking with their young children. They have two kids who are seven and nine years old, which happens to be a great age to speak with my current German language skills. The seven-year-old spoke no English, but her German was actually quite easy to understand compared to most adults, as she used less “Umgangsprache”, or slang, and used generally simpler grammar and vocabulary. The nine-year-old had just begun to learn English in school, and thus was very excited to have American guests at his house. Speaking with him reminded me about when his father visited us in the United States about seven-years ago, which just so happened to be the first year that I was learning German. I remember how excited I was to speak to a real German, even if I only knew how to ask his name and where he was from.

These experiences made me reconsider how languages are taught back in the United States. Every student in Europe and much of the world begins to learn English at a young age, on top of their native language and perhaps even another foreign language. This shows how possible it is for people to be multi-lingual, and I think it is a shame that American children are not given the same opportunity. There should be more options to begin learning foreign languages at a younger age, even if the universal language is English.