How to speak “Deunglishski”

Hallo! Hello! Privet! Sto? Was? What?

Katya is our most regular student here at Language Café Online. In fact, she is learning German, English and Russian simultaneously. She is an enthusiastic student, and likes to repeat the words and phrases we teach her. The main problem is that she mixes words from each language to form her own unique tongue, and can often not be understood. Maybe the fact that she is eighteen months old has something to do with it.

Sometimes my Russian-speaking wife and I think we are overburdening our little one by exposing her to three languages from a very early age, and sometimes envy the parents of young children who are only taught one language. These children can consequently express themselves much more fluently than Katya can, in a language that their parents can understand!

However, we need not worry that learning three languages from a very young age is too arduous a task for a child. After all, the ability to speak three languages is a picnic compared to what many people in the world can do. Wendy Vo, a Korean-American girl is only seven years older than Katya, and can already speak nine languages fluently. That’s nothing in comparison to Sir John Bowring, the former English governor of Hong Kong, who could speak 100 languages and had knowledge of 200.

Katya may be speaking a language only understandable to her right now, but as long as she remains eager to learn and listen, it is surely a matter of time before her “Deunglishki” is broken up into Deutsch, English and Russki. After all, as long as the will is there, and one has plenty of opportunity to practice, language-learning can be a piece of cake. And a very tasty piece of cake at that.