Advice on helping a partner learn German

Ok so my boyfriend is desperately trying to improve his German and thinks that his best hope would be for us to speak German at home.

I am not completely sure how this is going to work and was wondering if anyone had ever done this.

As for me well I have a degree in German, have lived here for 8 years and various German ex boyfriends and colleagues/friends over the years have helped me improve and I suppose I could say I speak fluently. However I probably do still make the odd grammar mistake as any non native speaker might.

My concern is that it would not feel 'natural' and I am not sure what is the best way to approach this. I had the same feeling a few years back when my then German boyfriend wanted me to help him improve his English - kind of as if I didn't feel comfortable with him making so many mistakes and sounding silly and then it should have been easier for me as English is my mother tongue!

I was wondering if anyone else had any experiences to share? His German vocabulary and understanding of basic grammar is actually not bad and when we are with groups of German friends he can generally follow the gist of the conversation but is never able to think of the right thing to say in time. So basically what he needs is practice. Since he works in an office full of expats there is not much hope for him at work and obviously due to the 'international' environment he is exposed to (he works for ESOC in Darmstadt) all of his friends are English speakers. He seems to think I am his best chance to practice and I just wanted to know if anyone else had done a similar thing?

I always attack German people for only speaking to their English partners in English and hence not helping them learn German but I guess in some ways I am being a bit of a hypocrite.

Oh and as for our background we are both from Wales and both been living in Germany for 8 years but met about 2 years ago. So we both have established lives here it is not as if he is only here because of me or vice versa. Not that I think this makes a difference really.

Any feedback greatly appreciated...

My husband speaks *fast perfekt deutsch* as well, and we tried out the idea of him talking to me (while I was also in german classes) at home in german... didn't work out so well, but I think it was a personality thing.

1. He's not native, so he would only know one way to say something and it would frustrate him that he couldnt explain it differently to me.
2. He didn't know grammar perfectly, so I think he was also self-conscious about teaching me poor german habits. Frankly, there are very few expats that speak like a native, and his german would be infinitely better than mine, so who cares about the mistakes he makes and is passing on to me. Just go with it!
3. I dont think we had easy-going attitudes about it. So it caused frustration. We would end our 'session' of german within a few minutes.

We tried speaking german on the phone sometimes, or said we'd do 10 minutes every morning, etc. It just didn't work out for us. But I wish it had, as I really dont think there's a better way to learn than practice speaking with someone better than you.

If you start finding yourself in the same situation as above, I think it would have helped if one of us did a bit more prep for our 'sessions' and had some ready made topics to discuss, or vocab. At least for the first month or two, to get us used to each others level and speaking in german. It was just too much of a dramatic switch for us, when normally we are used to an easy, free flowing conversation between each other.

Good luck!! I definitely think you should give it a shot.

Surely there's no harm in just giving it a try. Even if you just have, say, 30 minutes a day where you only speak German to one another. Maybe when you both come home from work you can talk about your day only using German.

Having said that, I don't think it is a partner's responsibility to help the other learn German. Especially if you're not a native speaker of the language. My partner is German and we never speak German together, and that's okay with me; we've tried it, and it feels uncomfortable and awkward for both of us. Due to our conflicting schedules we sometimes only have an hour or less together during the day/evening, and I don't really want to spend that time in language practice. I do of course make an effort to speak German with his family and friends which is good practice for me (I'm in a similar situation to your boyfriend in that I work with mostly native English-speaking expats and have very little opportunity to speak German).

Even if you do successfully carry on speaking German at home, your boyfriend should really make an effort to find other outlets to practice his skills.

I'm in a similar situation. My boyfriend is German and I am trying to learn German. My understanding is great but speaking is not so great. When I first arrived we tried the whole speaking in German to eachother and had the same problems you did with your boyfriends who wanted to improve their English. It was a little awkward and frustrating, which is why we stopped and stuck with our English.

This helped us at the time...we had other problems to worry about...such as visa's, homesickness, the job searching...all the things that make it hard to be away from home and in a foreign country. But as of recently we have realized that the only way I will be able to stay here in Germany, get a job and have a family together one day...is if I learn to speak better German. We talk about 50%+ of the time in German now and I can hear the difference already. So any normal conversation is in German but anything extremely important or can't be miscommunicated is spoken in English. And on days where we do a 100% German...the deal is after 10pm we switch into English. I always wonder what would happen though if we only spoke German and did this for a month or so...maybe that's what I need.

Anyways, my opinion is do what you think is best for your relationship but also take into account that speaking is the only way to improve. And what better way than to practice with eachother.

I reckon it would just put un-nesacary strain on your relationship..

@PM

I think you'd get over the feeling that it's not natural - I also feel like that for a while when speaking German with Mrs Guy (who is German), then we get used to it and switching to English seems unnatural, until we get used to that. We switch every 1-2 months, otherwise I'd never get to speak any German (the background of which is similar to yours - 11 years here, university degree, previous job involving German daily).

Of course in your case, and what I would be concerned about if it were me, is that he may pick up your grammatical and idiomatic errors. Also, as mentioned above, he (and you) may well get frustrated if he cannot express something as he wishes, or takes offence at corrections.

At the end of the day, I think it will depend on both of your personalities, but I would feel nervous about it too.

Maybe he could try some VHS conversation classes, or join a sports club where he would be forced to mix with Germans (who would hopefully not try out their English too much).

Interesting topic. I think I might have a crack at some cold turkey on myself. We speak 90% English at home and I guess 80% English at work but in both environments there is always German kicking around in the background.

We speak English at home 'cos we always did, its the stress free route and means the kids keep/learn English but...

I am just now wondering if I was to declare home and work as 100% German zones how things would go! I blow hot and cold about my German skills - I have days when I think I'm doing great and others when it seems crap.

Hmmmmmm. But I really like the "experiment" idea and being fluent would be really useful so it's gotta be worth a try. I will update here if I try this one!

I’ve been here over 10 years and would consider myself pretty fluent but I didn’t learn from my German wife, we did try once but it lasted for about 30 minutes as we soon realised its just to much stress( she would say a word I would try and repeat it , she would correct me ..AGAIN… I would say it wrong again thinking?? Sounds correct to me) we’ve always talked English together for a start and it just felt stupid at the time. The best way is to do it in a group, I was lucky as my wife has lots of relatives most of which speak very little English so it was a matter of learn it or sit in the corner on your own. Find some Germans form an English German group it gives him a bit of space to make lots of mistakes without feeling like a Pratt. Once he gets better you’ll find you’ll start slipping in the odd German sentence together until it becomes so natural you don’t really care which language you use
You’ll thank me for saving your relationship one day

It's not easy and it can be very frustrating, however, if you can stick it out it will probably be worthwhile. I certainly wouldn't worry about the problem of passing on any of your own "faults", they're likely to be insignificant in comparison with a normal beginner's faults, in any case.

My wife and I have tried it on and off over the years, without much success. She grew up in the DDR and so had no school English to fall back on and I found it pretty well impossible to try and talk English with her without automatically slipping back into German after a few minutes.

Send him on a language course, and help him with the homeworks:)
That way he will also try out all the stuff he learns on you.

It's the same as teaching your wife to drive, more stress than its worth. Although the intention is good it's a bad recipe.

Start doing something together that requires you to speak German to others around you. Then you won't feel so silly speaking German to him. When my husband was learning German, he would try and speak to me in German. But as I was teaching English, the last thing I wanted at the end of a long day of listening to lousy English was to come home and listen to (his at the time) lousy German. So we spoke German when we went to band practice together or when we went to visit German friends. I could deal with his German as there was native Germans talking around us. You could do anything, take a dance class, have German friends over for dinner, go to the movies in German, join a German running group. Whatever. Just something that makes it a more natural situation to speak German to him.

His "best hope" to improve his German is probably formal teaching and learning himself.

Don't get "teaching" and "practising" muddled though. He can do the latter by speaking with you but without you having to "teach" him as susch (ie. correct him and so on).

Most of us that went through the "second langauge" route (ie. taught by German native speakers using only Geman) are largely expected to get on with it and speak - we don't get routinely corrected. Lots of errors are normal. You learn from what you hear spoken to you mainly - repeating / mimic-ing that, picking up phrases etc.

My partner speaks English and improves just from having me round. Again, he mainly improves from what he hears. I rarely correct him. It'd be impossible.

Thanks for the advice everybody. Well we actually gave it a go last night only for a short burst of about 15 minutes whilst cooking dinner and it wasn't that bad. He actually only got confused by the word 'unbedingt' when I used it and tried to explain it to him and the only word he didn't know was the word in German for lizard.

He has actually done many blocks of German lessons and will probably start another course again soon but just feels like he needs to practice. His problem with lessons has always been that he is not really a beginner and always seems to be in a class with other 'foreigners' mainly Turkish and Italians who already seem to be able to 'speak' German more than he can but have no grasp of grammar which my boyfriend does have. He gets frustrated as they seem to go over the same points - prepositions, past tense or whatever and class runs slowly as the others natter on but still make the mistakes.

We have actually just joined our local Schwimmverein so maybe this might give us more of an opportunity to practice together mind you I suppose swimming is not really a sport where you need to chat all the time.

Oh and Showem you are right when we are amongst other German people I feel a lot more comfortable speaking to him in German I think we need to do this some more.

I've been in the position of learning with people that could speak better than me but could barely write / read German. In part, generalising, it's the "coping mechanism" for people that are less used to book learning. And it's also at reality of language learning that we all have different needs and ways to learn, and things we avoid doing.

If he starts German lessons again, perhaps he should go to a school where he is tested first (to see exactly where he is) and then put in a suitable group.

Another possibility would be to register for a test. Not only would this give him an aim, he could use the eventual result to show the level he is at. Then he can't get put in a group who don't know the basics or can barely write the language if he has (say) an A2 or B1 pass to his name.

This might seem a bit weird, as he's in Germany already, but maybe he could try an intensive residential course, that'll give him some of the immersion he's looking for and not getting at work.

It works for me with Italian, where my grammar is pretty good, but I'm not very confident speaking it, especially in a VHS course full of people gabbering on in pidgen Italo-Spanish.

You were cooking and that word came up??? what on earth were you cooking Muffin, I shudder to think ?

He needs to get around german speakers, do something where only german is spoken, i was like that once too, then there was a period of about two years where i was with no english speakers at all, no english speakers at work or at home (my ex wife was german) i did my socialising at the schutzen verein (all germans there too) the only time i ever spoke english was on the phone to family in the uk, it was total immersion, and it forced me to learn the lingo, i went from not being able to understand hardly a single word to being very comfortable in a social context and being able to talk and understand at high level technical engineering meetings. it was damn hard and damn frustrating but i got through it the hard way, all in all i'd recommend he do something or get around somewhere where there are only germans speaking german.

I would say get down the pub, meet some more german friends. That is what I did it!

As someone has already said, "immersion" is the only way. I did it by jumping in at the deep end using the sink or swim method, I made mistakes along the way but that is where one learns; I remember doing furniture removals and discovering that "ab" didn't mean "up" even though sounding similier lol

Mac it was a Muffin special let's just say that Actually it was so yummy and British that I'd better not share as you'll all be jealous.


Yes I know immersion is the way for him to go. I just really hope he can do it this time. Mind you he is pretty motivated as he is fed up of feeling stupid when I gab away to my German friends...

My partner is German and this strategy nearly led to the end of our relationship... too stressy! Strange, but this simply dosen't work for us - unfortunately

This is a really interesting thread and I've realised that I'm not alone in my frustrated efforts trying to learn this language, even with a German partner. I've been here for 4 years and was sure I'd be fluent within a year... wrong!

It may sound counter-intuitive, but it is hard work. For the one half it's frustrating not to be able to express yourself properly, for the other half it's pure stress because everything takes three - four times as long! By all means give a try, but don't overdo the determination to succeed at all costs, as cruiser says, the cost could be higher than you think.

That said, having given up and preserved our marriage, I do have to put up with a litany of "It's all your fault that I can't speak English, you should have taught me 20 years ago!" every time we get near to visiting the UK!

Hey Purple Muffin! (definitely something kinky about writing that!)

I can relate to your situation and agree that it's not easy. Before committing to speaking just German I think a much better idea might be to set aside some time each weekend in which you constructively try and help your partner.

An ex-girlfriend of mine started learning Spanish and since I could speak fairly well already, she asked that we speak Spanish together at home. Although in principle I had nothing against helping her out, I just didn't feel comfortable doing this - especially not after a long day at work. What we finally arranged is that we set aside a couple of hours on the weekend in which I gave her my full attention and really concentrated on helping her improve. This worked out much better. She knew that in these few hours, she had my undivided attention and was able to make noticeable improvements. It also motivated me to keep improving my Spanish in order to be able to explain Grammar more clearly and to keep on top of my vocabulary. It can also do a lot for your relationship when your partner sees that you're willing to help out and I'm sure you'll be able to call in a few favors in return

My current girlfriend is German and in fact I moved to Germany to be with her. During my first year here, she talked to me exclusively in German and although it was very frustrating at times it did help me tremendously. Now that I can speak German pretty well it's just more comfortable for me to speak in English and so I tend to speak in English and she talks back in German. At some stage I figured that this might be a useful mechanism to help English native speakers learn German because they can often understand much of what is being said in German by hearing the context in English. We recently started a learn German podcast called Pukka German that is usually (but not always) a dialogue between her and I half in English and half German. You mentioned that your partner understands quite a bit and is not exactly a beginner. Have him check out our website, I really think he might find it helpful.

All the best with it,

Ty