My experience was very similar. We spoke German at home and always, with any of our family.
I learned Rumanian only when in first grade. I spoke it well in school and after leaving Rumania in 1947, soon I had trouble remembering many Romanian words. After learning Spanish, as we lived on south America ( Ecuador ) starting in 1948, I was, little by little, unable to communicate in Rumanian and soon forgot it 98 percent. I used to know Yiddish, but it becomes German when I try to speak it.
All that, most likely due to total lack of practice.
Felix
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 15, 2014, at 7:19 AM, "E. & G. Weissmann" <EGWeissmann_at_gmx.net> wrote:
> Bless you Hedwig, with your incredible memory. What would we do without your lively mind? You are a real encyclopaedia!
>
> As to language - My father spoke excellent German with a light Czernowitz/Austrian accent, having studied and spent years in Vienna and Switzerland. He understood a little Yiddish of course, but would not speak it.
> My mother spoke typical Czernowitz German, and with two of her three sisters, as soon as they started talking they would switch to Yiddish. With the others, she spoke German. At home, we always spoke German, in Romania and in England.
> My parents never got the Romanian accent. My father spoke it correctly, my mother managed quite well, but myself, born in Bucharest, often
> made fun at their accent, especially my father's. And when we lived in England, my mother wrote the most incredibly incorrect Romanian to her
> friends in Bucharest, although she had spoken it better . And I just laughed to tears. Her friends too, must have had their fun at reading the letters.
> I came to England when I was 14. I grasped English fairly quickly, but until today my accent did not quite make it...not much of a British one...probably one must start earlier.
> Gabriele
>
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Received on 2014-01-16 05:34:35
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