I'm about to become a person with poor grammar.

This really bothers me. Speaking English, my spelling and grammar are generally very good, and mistakes I make are usually made for being silly or joking around. I'm pretty good about changing the tone of my writing based on my audience, and know the right amount of 'polite' for any given situation, leaning towards a bit too formal versus too casual.

In Germany, I really only know two-ish ways to speak German. They're not nuanced, the grammar is not always correct (or maybe even often), and I can't read the tone of other people's speech very well yet, either. Humor goes right out the window for a while, especially my own ability to produce humor. I know this will get better with time.

But Anja's definitely going to come home with tones and words that I wouldn't approve of in English, but won't know better in German. And I won't be able to help her with language-learning, explaining the nuances of words (we do that a lot here). Nor will I be able to correct her spelling or grammar or help her with those things as she starts school. Wow. School just becomes all about Anja smarts and not at all about mom-and-dad smarts. Hrm. That's going to be... interesting. I almost start to see why people keep their kids in English-speaking or bilingual schools when they go overseas. That's not to say that I'd ever do Anja's work *for* her, I loathe that, but to have the amount of help I can give become so sorely limited... that's going to be really hard for me.

Helping Anja cope...

Looking good resources or thoughts on hoping kids cope, both ahead of time and at the time of the move? Anja had a nightmare last night about her friend Louise going away and never seeing her again, and told me that it's about moving to Germany and how much she will miss her and "never see her again." I explained that that's not true, they'll get to visit when we come back to the states to visit, and they have a long time yet this school year to hang out, and this summer. But I know it still really hurts for her... how do I help her cope with that?

Impossible things to teach a four-year-old....

Verbatim from trying to explain this to Anja tonight...

"Auf Deutsch" means 'in German,' in German. "Auf English means 'in English,' in German.

Ow, my brain. We tried for about 5 minutes and didn't get anywhere, because she wanted me to explain what "auf Deutsch" meant... Omgz.