It's all French to me!

Ever since I was little, there have been little bits of German sprinkled into conversation.  You know a "danke" here or an "auf wiedersehen" there.  And my parents NEVER said "Bless you" when we sneezed.  Nope, we were firmly in the "gesundheit" camp.

And of course all of these common German words were reinforced when David and I lived in Germany.  We added more phrases and words to our repertoire.  I even have this sign on the back of our front door:

We like telling people "bye" in German without saying a word.

The kids, especially Jessa, LOVE to hear stories about Germany and see pictures of places we visited.  Jessa loves to eat brotchen and feel like she is a cool German kid!  And even though they both take Spanish in school, we still use lots of random, broken German at home.  "Want some milch with your cereal?"  "Set the table, bitte."

So Jessa took this little thing we do to school.  When her teacher would hand back a paper, she would smile and say "Danke."  Her teacher was intrigued.  She asked her what did it mean.  Jessa told her "Thanks" in German.  So her teacher asked her, "How do you say, 'You're welcome.' in German."  Jessa told her "Bitteschön."  Other children sitting near her heard this.  Other children started saying "Danke"  and the teacher started saying "Bitteschön."

Now, I think that is pretty neat, don't you?  Our little trendsetter!  Teaching her teacher and classmates a little bit of German.  And they must think she is pretty cool to want to emulate her.  Isn't imitation the highest form of flattery??

The other afternoon, Jessa says, "Mom.  Do how do you say thank you in French?"  I thought for a minute and said, "This is more Daddy's area, but I think it is 'Merci'."  She said, "Oh, OK, Mom.  Do you know how to say "You're welcome in French?"  "No, honey.  I know how to say it in Spanish."  She looked disappointed and said, "I don't need Spanish."  I didn't think much of it.



A day or so later, Jessa asked, "Mom, do we have a French and English dictionary?"  I told her, "No, I don't think we do, honey, why?"  "I just wondered," she said.

The next day, she asked me again.  So I finally said, "Jessa!  What gives?  Please tell me what you need it for."




She looked pained and said, "Well, Mom, now everyone around me is saying thank you and you're welcome in German."  I said, "Uh, OK, and?"  And she paused and said, "Well, now it isn't special anymore.  Everyone is doing it.  So I was thinking about starting to use French to say thank you and you're welcome.  Then I will be special again."

Bless her heart!  I tried to convince her it was super cool that she started something neat in her class.  And to be proud of herself for teaching everyone something new.

Nope.
She wasn't hearing any of it.

So here's to our special girl!

I may need to start learning some Mandarin to keep up with her.
How much is Rosetta Stone again?