[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Speaking 'properly' or not

[Ladi lyndi]

Karen  wrote:

I lived in Den Helder (so my 'g' must be horrendous!) for 2 years as a young child and my Dad, who is really good at languages and I were totally fluent, whereas my Mum could just about get by.  One of the 
neighbours apparently pointed me out to a lady who happened to be 
friendly with my Mum and said "See that little girl, she's got an 
English mother" to which the lady replied "Yes and an English father.  
She's English too".  The neighbour would not believe her apparently!  
We were only back in the UK for about 3 months and my best friend Karin 
rang me and I could no longer understand what she was saying to me.  
It's amazing how quickly you can both learn and then forget a language 
at a young age.  

Karen

Lynn:
 
Den Helder is where I lived and your 'g' is probably not a problem.  There were dozens of accents floating around there.  It was an intersting time as some of the people there were encouraging when I spoke Dutch (usually vendors who knew I lived there) but other people would just laugh and comment on how stupid Americans were in not being able to speak a second language.  Really made me want to keep speaking Dutch, let me tell you --- NOT!  LOL  Still, I remember one of the vendors at the Saturday market get on someone's case for laughing at me and he kept encouraging me.
 
Of course, for others it marked you as not native and they'd try to rip you off at the stalls or in the stores.  One store tried to tell me that I had given them 5 euro when I'd given them a 20.  I said I'd wait while they counted out the register to see how much they were over what they should have.  They kept trying to give me a hard time until my husband came in, I told him what happened and he started arguing with them in Dutch.  Apparently when they realized I belonged there they remembered that I had given them the 20 and it was only an honest mistake.  Needless to say, I never shopped there again.  
 
Anyway, when we came here to England our daughter didn't speak English, only Dutch so we went on a pretty intensive English course and she stopped speaking Dutch.  We are now having a hard time getting her to speak Dutch again since "We live in England Mommy and they speak English, not Dutch."  She'll only speak dutch to her Oma.  She still understands it as her daddy keeps speaking to her in Dutch (so do I when I don't want others to know what I'm saying to her) so I'm hoping she start speaking it again when she feels more comfortable.
 
Lynn


 

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