Tonight at the dinner table, Aleksander was mixing his languages a little. I suppose I’m supposed to stay consistent, but I switched a little bit with him. Then came something we couldn’t quite understand. He said his name (he just started saying his whole name two days ago – well, sort of – but more than the “Ah-der” he’s been saying previously) so I repeated it. “No,” he replied. Then he said his name again, so I repeated it. “No,” he replied again. “Al-eh-zan-der … Ger-man,” he said. So I repeated his name with my German accent. “Yeeaaah!” he exclaimed!
What?! He understands the difference in his name when we speak German versus English. And he has a preference?! Or maybe he was just trying to be consistent, since we were speaking a little German. I don’t know. But I was blown away. He will never cease to amaze me!
One of the things he was saying in German tonight was satt. It’s kind of a tricky word to translate. If you look it up, you get words like full, saturated, or deep. It’s a word you say at the end of a meal when you’re finished. In English, I would say “I’m full.” But to me, that has a somewhat negative connotation, as if to imply I’ve eaten more than I should have. Whereas the German word indicates that feeling of having eaten just the right amount – not too little, not too much. (I have to say, I find it fascinating that we don’t really have a word like this in English.) I think Aleksander used it, because it’s used in The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As I mentioned in my last post, he knows this book well enough to finish the sentences now 
Anyway, in the German version, it doesn’t say “but he was still hungry.” Instead it says aber satt war er noch immer nicht (but he still wasn’t yet “full”). I really like that Aleksander is choosing to use the German word satt instead of the English word “full.” We’ve tried to teach him to know to stop eating when he’s had enough. I don’t know if he really understands the nuance of the language, but I’m still excited that he’s using the word
So these are just some of the stories I imagine I’ll be reporting on now that Aleksander is really talking!
It´s excellent that Aleksander is starting to differentiate between the two languages…you must be so proud! I´ve never thought about “full” having a negative connotation! Am looking forward to hearing more stories about Aleksander and his progress!
Thanks, Tracey! It’s really fun to share all this with others who can really appreciate it
One of the things I love about knowing another language is becoming aware of the subtleties of language, be it my own or my non-native language. Then again, different words can have different meaning to different people!
You can be sure there will be more stories posted. I think the trouble might be trying not to post too many
Yippee… This is so exciting!! Keep us posted.
Thanks! I think it’s pretty exciting, too
I’ll definitely be posting more stories….
This is neat!I lived in Germany and Austria for 9 months as a kinder care-giver and would love to teach my son german as he learns to speak…i’ve considered doing half-days in one language but i need to stick to it! we’ll see… that, any deutsch ist ganz ungeuebt,,,ich muss mein vokabeln wieder lernen, denn ich hab schon viel vergessen! best wioshes with the project!
ps– i guess ‘satiated’ would be the closest english word for satt, but it’s not too dinner-table friendly, is it? satisfied? still too formal…we need a good, short phrase; you’re right!
Hi there! Thanks for the comment. Sticking to speaking German with Aleksander is definitely a challenge. But absolutely worth it!!! Especially now that he’s talking, it’s so exciting to hear him speak German
I’ve had so much vocabulary to learn. They don’t exactly teach Kinder-wortschatz in school 
So I say just go for it and have fun with it! 
[...] he looks at me and says “Ger – man”. I wrote recently about how he insisted I say his name in German one night, too. I don’t know exactly what to make of this. On the one hand, it amazed me that [...]