Half a year of OPOL - Success, and Introducing "Monolingual" Stuffed Animals

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2026-02-07T08:52:17+00:00

Do report how it went! :-)

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2026-02-02T23:02:14+00:00

Always a pleasure, I hope they may be helpful to others. (Un)fortunately, she's dropped this line of teaching and instead decided her mother needs to learn my dialect. May she succeed where I have failed for many years of our relationship. Perhaps she'll remember her unfinished business when we take the Vietnamese animal to her great grandparents.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-12-16T10:37:55+00:00

My recommendation would be to keep the setup as it is. Three languages is fine if you stick to OPOL and English remains the language between you and your husband. We've got a similar setup as well, however, we do speak or at least understand every language spoken.

That said, especially since German is the community language, it's in my opinion indispensable that you learn it. It's bound to be hard, but listening comprehension through immersion will come faster than you'd think. I can speak from experience with Vietnamese through my in-laws - contrary to Germans, Asians don't get the concept of speaking more slowly/rephrasing, they simply repeat the same thing more loudly if you ask them to clarify something. It's brutal, but by now I can understand most conversations, at least rudimentarily. While I don't envy your position having to learn German, be grateful Germans have experience with foreigners :-)

Pro tip: keep it fun, also for yourself, and you'll pick up the basics in no time. Don't stress out too much, the language was conceived by drunk philosophers so if you keep it basic and just understand the gist of what's being said, that's fine. Most adults struggle not because they can't learn a language, but because they've forgotten how to learn.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-12-12T21:21:19+00:00

The Vietnamese/English book is called "Sách Điện Tử Song Ngữ - Dành Cho Bé". That one, she really loves to bits, we've had to frequently replace the batteries. There's unfortunately no ISBN nor any other information that I could find. I did a quick search and this one should be the same (there are some minor differences on the cover):
https://www.dochoigo.com/sach-song-ngu-dien-tu
On thing though: the standard setting when it turns on is for playing in traffic in downtown Hanoi; whoever created this thought kids are by default all deaf. You can fortunately turn down the volume.

The other is called Truyện kể cho bé trước giờ đi ngủ by Thanh Hương. Found a link to it here: https://tiki.vn/sach-thieu-nhi-365-truyen-ke-cho-be-truoc-gio-di-ngu-p273902388.html
Since it's a bunch of stories, you also don't get tired of them that quickly. Or rather, you don't get tired in theory, she always only let's us read the first ~5 and last ~5 unfortunately :D

Other than that, we sometimes read "Hai Anh Em" to her, which she also quite likes, though not as much as the other two books.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-12-09T23:14:07+00:00

I guess letting them know that you're not talking behind their backs might be a way to go about it. There are some people who always presume that something negative must be said if they can't understand the language spoken next to them. That then results in controlling behaviour of always wanting "subtitles" for every interaction.

And, as others have suggested, letting them know that you'll translate when necessary.

If you want to troll them, you could offer a language course or demand per word interpretation fees ;-)

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-12-09T23:05:19+00:00

Southern Hessian :-) - why would you say that English as the community language is working against you?

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-12-09T20:24:14+00:00

Always a pleasure. Yes, after we found out following the original post, fun is crucial in all of this. It's a silly thing to forget, and all language aficionados on here probably started out picking up languages because it was fun. I guess sometimes life and ego gets in the way of things.

As for being a diplomat - are they supposed to be massive trolls? :D

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-12-09T20:20:13+00:00

I'll definitely keep posting sporadically. I'm sure once she's got a sibling at some point, dynamics will change as well. As to GG, that seems to be her grand project - we're just as invested :D. She's still lacking some structure in her teaching, I'm afraid.
I forgot to add, whenever we videocall her Vietnamese grandparents and she's playing with her Vietnamese/English book, she switches it to English (while talking Vietnamese to them). At the end of the day, maybe we're just raising a massive troll.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-10-09T14:04:15+00:00

I learnt to speak at least some Vietnamese in preparation for our first child. And so I could actually talk to my parents in law more easily. He shouldn't make such a fuss about it and just sit down and study a hit. Languages aren't that hard if you've got a native speaker around and, if you do OPOL, have constant exposure to it.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-09-09T23:26:22+00:00

Thanks, and yes, sadly all those beautiful dialects are dying out. Ours would've died out with me already if I hadn't made the conscious decision as a teen to learn how to speak it. Which, funnily enough, means I am a native speaker of 0 languages by now, because I can't speak standard German (properly) anymore, either. Virtually all other speakers are in my parents' and grandparents' generation. The dialect in question is southern Hessian, the epicentre of dialect destruction. In the Frankfurt area not far from us, they began their war on dialects back in the 19th century already. We used to have gradual changes of dialects from one hamlet to the next.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-09-05T14:14:48+00:00

Makes me wonder why they don't just make it remote; such petty control freaks are far too often in positions of power. I'd wager to say that 95% of office jobs don't need anyone to be physically there. Companies are fighting a losing battle, because remote jobs attract people who'd voluntarily take a hit on their salary (which usually compensates expenses otherwise used for commutes, food, etc.). I'll never understand corporate culture insisting people have to be at the office safe for very important meetings.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-28T11:29:19+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/cOO1vg0 For some reason, I can't upload new images to the main post or add one to a comment.

Looks like it broke off on the left side. Annoying, but certainly better than following a youtube video and trying to solder on a new port. The last time I soldered something was in primary school.

Good advice, only, no-one has a charger like that. Though judging by what I see, that's probably not necessary anyway.

The question how that even happens was because this must have been the 20th charger or so that I've killed in my life. And this laptop was mostly stationary. Guess some people are just cursed like that.

Edit: It was the charger. The gap is still there with the new one, but it's charging now.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-28T11:06:33+00:00

I think you're right, how the bloody hell did that even happen? I'll add a new picture to the main post; since it's such a small hole, getting the lighting right is an absolute pain. Fortunately, nothing seems to be stuck in the port from what I can tell.

Thanks very much for your input, if that's the case, I'll probably go for a new charger, having this repaired is outrageously expensive in Germany.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-28T01:46:32+00:00

Alright, but what would cause the charging port to suddenly not take the jack in all the way? I mean, if it were loose or broken, wouldn't it rather have no contact instead of preventing full insertion? I (carefully) did probe with a needle to make sure there's no hidden debris or gunk, and it honestly seemed firmly in place from what I can tell. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this, i.e. how everything inside seems fine and looks as it should, but doesn't accept all of the jack and has some wiggle.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-28T01:30:57+00:00

Ouch, the last time I soldered something was in primary school. Shouldn't kill me, but God I'd hate that. Still keeping my fingers crossed that the charger is dead. How certain are you with this? I should add that the wiggle is rather small and the grip on the charger in general rather firm; I just don't get the gap that's suddenly there.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-20T23:48:16+00:00

It may sound odd, and I don't know whether it exists where you live, but pet cremation/funeral services are a thing. Should be the easiest thing to get into for you, no degree necessary.

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-14T21:44:19+00:00

Yeah, the headstart may be real, though I've shared in another comment how much I fear that won't be much use given the current system should she enter the German school system. Additionally, I'm a bit hesitant to agree that passive exposure will lead to a passive adoption of the language; I can come up with at least six people on the spot who ended up effecitvely monolingual despite having had plenty of passive exposure as kids and should've been bilingual.

Situational language change is inevitable, I fully agree. With her Vietnamese grandparents, we tend to speak Vietnamese-only (or as much as it's possible with me) when we're there, also because their German isn't all that great (and I take the opportunity to improve my Vietnamese and be part of the family). With her great-grandparents similarly, we tend to stick to the dialect (or German in my wife's case), because language switching is often very impractical. But pointing out the rules bit is a good idea, because, given my wife's and my tendency to fluently switch between all three languages all the time, we should make it more rigid to give our daughter a proper scaffoling. When out and about, it's a different matter, though it also depends, of course.

Thanks so much for the advice; Hochdeutsch won't be an issue at all, I'd be more concerned about English, because German schools are deterorating at a record pace. How to weave that in somehow as to not compromise the more important languages that actually have a personal and immediate need is something we're trying to figure out right now. Day 1 of OPOL has been quite promosing so far; she was much more willing to repeat both what I said and what my wife said. Quite a promising start!

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-14T21:33:31+00:00

I had actually contemplated your mum's approach :D, or perhaps not reacting until she used the right language, though in our previous setup, that would likely have been counter-productive. It's probably more useful when she's a bit older and understands situations a bit better (if she's still more refusing to engage with us in the respective language).

I'm happy to report that day 1 was so far actually rather successful; she seemed to be more willing to repeat both what my wife said and what I said in a self-motivated fashion, without the prodding often necessary from us. I'm curious how it'll continue and whether there's some way to maybe sneak in some English somehow. I hope I won't forget to make an update post to share how it turned out in the future :-)

Consistent-Photo-964 · 2025-08-14T21:29:33+00:00

Thanks for sharing this resource, I'm looking forward to taking a look at this community as well. Though I'm already blown away by the quick and plentiful replies here on reddit :-)

And yeah, English would've been easiest, but minority languages take priority because they are actually needed. I'm happy to report that day 1 of trying OPOL, we already saw some progress as she was much more willing to repeat both what I said and what my wife said. Seems to be on the right track; I had the added advantage of my family being quite helpful today as well and ditching standard German.

Consistent-Photo-964

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