Stop Monolingualism!

I find this ironic: I left the mono-cultural, homogenic little Germany twenty years ago, to move to the melting pot, heterogenic, multicultural US. Now I moved back here, to find a true, buzzling global city. 

On a regular subway ride in Berlin these days you are guaranteed to hear conversations at a minimum in English, French, Arabic, Turkish, and Spanish. Often Russian and Polish, and very often one or two additional mystery languages you can’t identify. German? Not so much. Germans tend to be quiet and grumpy on the subway.

Ruby and Rory now go to Nelson Mandela International School in the center of the old Westberlin. This year, students from 54 countries are attending, speaking I don’t know how many languages, the common one of course being English. But ALL these kids are multilingual. I am really happy that my kids get to be in this environment. Ben attends the neighborhood elementary school, and at the parent night this week I spotted two African families, one Polish mom, a Brazilian-German family and another one from Spain. (In addition to a double-dad family, which is cool, but off-topic here…but anyway, congratulations to all my same sex friends finally getting married this week in New Mexico!) Ben’s buddies are starting to study English this year, in third grade. During the English classes, the principal has agreed to work with Ben on his German writing skills.

When I first heard the term “bilingual” in the US I didn’t understand or use it correctly, because in German “zweisprachig” means that someone grows up speaking two languages and masters both equally well. It doesn’t apply to someone learning a second language in school or later in life. Zweisprachig is a higher standard than bilingual. Which may be symptomatic with what is going on in language education and the culture of monolingualism.

I don’t get why there is not an expectation in (many parts of) the US that children learn a second and third foreign language.

When Charlie grew up in an Italian neighborhood in New York, speaking one’s native language was considered a bad thing. It was a sign of failing to assimilate. He was 12 years old until he realized that his dad spoke Italian. The family had to hide the fact that they spoke German at home, this being less than ten years after the end of WWII.

Native American youth in state boarding schools for decades were prohibited from speaking their native languages. We can’t even begin to assess the damage done to the cultural identities and oral traditions of those people and their entire tribes. They are just lost forever.

I heard many Hispanic people in southwest NM communicate in Spanglish. I find no beauty in that tongue, which mangles both languages, much like the Türkendeutsch (Turkish-German) I heard immigrant kids speak when I was growing up in Berlin. There are no consistent Spanish classes offered in public schools, no way for youth to learn the beautiful language of their heritage, and to read Fuentes, Borges, Rulfo, de la Cruz and Paz.

So why is it that immigrants and their descendants in the US try so hard, and/or are coerced so hard to lose their mother tongue? There is not much social, cultural and educational value placed on speaking more than English.

In Northern Europe, on the other hand, you don’t even get admitted to any educational institution above 7th grade without speaking 1-2 foreign languages. It is just considered part of a well-rounded, basic education. There is no choice about it. It made it a challenge to find schools for Rory and Ruby in Berlin that could accommodate their lack of a 2nd foreign language. Now they are at the International School, and Ruby is finally learning French.

Many people in the US have asked me with awe how many languages I speak, and when they hear the answer (four, through no specific effort of my own), they respond with sighs of envy and resignation. My kids, who all speak passable German, again just because they heard it spoken at home, are almost considered little geniuses. Come on. Why not up the ante for your own kids?

If it is true that the language we speak both reflects and affects our view of the world, then this leads to the hypotheses that if we add one language or more, our view of the world broadens and gets enriched. As will our life. Let’s break this down.

Benefits of Bilingualism

Enhanced brain development - early learning of a language makes it easier to learn all your life. Bilingual kids have an easier time to learn math, for example, which from a learning brain’s perspective, is just another language.

Widening of the perceptive horizon - being bilingual helps you better understand concepts from differently thinking cultures and be more open to step out of your own thinking box. For example, Spanish and Italian both have a remote past tense, so English and German speakers’ brains are challenged with distinguishing not so far away past from remote past. Most languages other than English have genders (male, female, neutral) for each noun. In her intensive German course Maddy learned about the German cases (Dativ, Accusativ, etc.) which determine how you declinate verbs and personal pronouns. It’s like the colors that the butterfly sees, that we don’t even have words for.

Better chances in employment in a global economy - Good luck trying to land a job in international commerce, development, or government with just English.

And btw you’ll come off less as a full-of-yourself American who assumes everyone speaks English when traveling abroad. Bilingualism opens up people, as well as their art, culture, history in countries ten times as old as ours. My friend Ed Ward,  part of a new tribe he named American-Europeans,  has now lived in Europe for a third of his life. He will attest to the fact that you can't truly immerse without at least passably mastering the native language. Ed writes about his version of daily intercultural shock (and his 20th anniversary of moving to Berlin) very aptly in this post, and anyway, you should totally follow his blog, which complements this one well.

Continuing on to the.....

Effects of Monolingualism

We (or your kids, for that matter) remain stuck in our own limited culture box, don’t look past the US border, or even over into the next ethnic neighborhood. We can’t communicate with non-English speakers when traveling abroad. We’ll never go to school outside the US and will never be employed at a global company working in other countries. And: Monolingualism breeds monolingualism. If the value of bilingualism is not experienced by the parents, they’ll be less likely to support their offspring in achieving it.

Of course, you, the estimated reader, and all your progressive friends really do know all this. Many otherwise educated US citizens have a sense of national inferiority because of the culture of monolingualism. What I don’t get is why nobody does anything about it. Why don’t tax and tuition paying parents demand language education? Why is this particular issue met with such self-defeating resignation?

Boomtown Berlin

The German economy is growing at a slow and steady pace, expected to speed up in 2014. But Berlin is clearly happening right now: During the first six months of 2013, almost 6 million people came to visit the capital, 9 % more than a year ago. This increase is putting Berlin right after Paris and London, and before Rome as a tourist destination. And tourism is expected to continue to grow at this pace. Currently, 280,000 people are employed in the tourism industry.

The downside: Too many people invest in apartments and turn them into vacation rentals, contributing to the squeeze on available and affordable housing. The Berlin parliament is currently discussing a new law to curtail the use of rentals for tourists. Whole neighborhoods have fallen into the tourist trap. A few weeks ago we walked around Friedrichshain, formerly a sweet, organically grown middle class quarter, now a row of restaurants, tchotchke shops and bars, populated by drunken bachelor parties from the UK. Many residents of Kreuzberg also feel they have lost their hood over the last 10 years, to 24/7 clubbing and drinking visitors. Rent per square meter in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain is now higher than the upper class high end western and southern districts Charlottenburg and Zehlendorf. Which is why we get to live in a leafy green, yet central part of town, and pay less than the hipsters.

Berlin is also the capital of fastest growth in start-ups, 10,000 new businesses incorporate here every quarter. Many of them occupy lofts in Mitte, Friedrichshain und Kreuzberg.  Many of these are internet start-ups, some with names that are now familiar outside of Berlin: Babbel, Ableton, and SoundCloud. When Rory had a problem with Ableton (a music production software), he could call the guys right here in town. Airbnb uses Berlin as its European hub. The startup-map looks crowded. Now Berlin is called Silicon Valley of Europe, or Silicon Allee.

Two large incubators support the growth of new start ups, and connect them with venture capital. One of them, springstar, talks to a dozen startup teams every week. Those that become part of the family receive support through capital and technical assistance.

My cousin Christian works for three-year old start-up that sells a search engine optimization (SEO) subscription. They are doing well, expect that all their staff is constantly being harassed by recruiters, often successfully, making it hard to run a consistent business with ever changing staff.

All new small businesses in Berlin can take advantage of a large array of funding incentives, tax breaks and educational opportunities for new business owners. You can learn accounting, writing a business plan, marketing and latte art, all free or very affordable. Maybe we’ll do that coffee shop here after all. But not in Friedrichshain.

In Search of Water Closets and a Forgotten River

Weird manifestations of expat-ism: How many more times are we going to step in a dark bathroom and blindly grope around the wall for the light switch? It really does make more sense to have the switch outside – if you are used to it. Its sort of the whole German thing of planning ahead. Downside: you sit on the pot and someone turns the light off on you from the hallway.

Berlin is located in an Urstromtal (I loved that earthy word in elementary school!), an ancient gigantic stream valley, created by draining glacier water at the end of the last ice age. Today it's a vast area of rivers, lakes and swamps; the soil is mostly sand. Not until the Prussians got their act together in the late 1700s, was much of it turned into dry land that could be settled and used for agriculture.

But the city’s wet past is still very close to the surface, as it turns out. The groundwater level is only a few meters under ground level. When Potsdamer Platz was re-built in the 1990s, divers had to do much of the foundation work. Now recently, whole neighborhoods in and around Berlin have been experiencing increasingly wet cellars. This year, many basements are just under water – and not just after a big rain. This includes around 50 public buildings, among them the Berlin Rathhaus, the city hall, causing millions of Euros in damage. What’s going on? The ground water level is rising, and dramatically, for two reasons: One, after reunification, all of the state-owned industry around Berlin was closed down, reducing water use. Two, efficient home appliances have reduced residential water use to pre 1989 levels. Berlin is faced with an interesting dilemma. Use more water to lower the groundwater level? Close whole neighborhoods? Pump groundwater out? (This is already done.) Help homeowners build up their basement walls to withstand the water? Build a pipeline to New Mexico?

Berlin is a watery place, with 52 square km of water surface, 180 km of water ways and more bridges than Venice. As part of “managing water” and creating water ways to accommodate the industrial revolution, the 38 km Teltowkanal was completed in 1906. It connects the main two watersheds, Havel and Spree with each other to the south of Berlin. The canal builders re-used some of the natural stream beds of existing rivers and creeks, including the Telte. The Telte was later known as the Bäke, and the Bäke happens to originate under the Fichtenberg, which is the “mountain” (68 m) we live on. Across the street from our house, the historic water tower (now used as a meteorological station by the Free University) probably drew its water right from the spring. 

The Bäke, before it was swallowed by the Teltowkanal was the main river in the south of Berlin, flowing all the way to Potsdam, where it joined the Havel waters, creating wetlands, swamps and providing water for agriculture of the early settlers of the villages (including our own Steglitz) which are now part of southern Berlin.

I know its water still bubbles out of the earth right under our house. So I took a little bike ride in search of this forgotten river. Riding south, across downtown Steglitz, where the river has been channeled underground, I followed its path through green spaces and weekend garden colonies.  Then I found a short piece of Bäke still at the surface, before it joins the canal. It goes on for about 1 km, through a beautiful large park. Found my San Vicente Creek Ersatz!

what's left of the creek

Bäkepark

where the Bäke joins the Teltowkanal

Next we are going to explore the southern Bäke Valley, 8 km down the canal, where the river once more flows its natural course for a short distance, through a little nature preserve, alongside a vineyard, the Machnower Lake, a historic mill and a little castle. Stay tuned.

I'll close this with another potty related observation: In Berlin restaurants, going to the bathroom becomes a test of endurance: You go down the stairs to the basement. You go through the door that says WC, and enter a small hallway. You choose your gender and go through the respective door, to enter another small hallway with no apparent purpose. You go through another door, entering the room with the hand washing facilities. Your bladder really wants it now. After looking around you find another door, leading to the room with the stalls. Exhausted you stumble into a stall. That’s five doors. Add to that finding the light switch every time…..