Until you find out your kids now speak English with a heavy Texan accent. Howdy ho!
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a-reno!
The thing with English is that its spelling and pronunciation are an absolute mess and you really need to have lived in an English speaking country to be sure that you aren’t teaching wrong stuff*.
I mean, even native speakers sometimes read a word and just don’t know how to pronounce it, let alone a non-native. I’d be more confident in teaching German than I’d be teaching English for that reason - I see a word I don’t know, I’m anyway able to pronounce it in the correct manner.
Interestingly enough, when it comes to spelling, non-natives are usually better. Because non-natives mostly learn by reading, while natives learn by listening.
Anyway… I’ve been speaking English at home for almost two years now, to get my daughters used to the language. Despite my issues with accent and pronunciation, it’s working out great, better than expected. We’re now trying to force them to watch more TV in English, so they can move on from my imprinting and get used to other people.
But… I’d have done as Ema is doing, if I had the chance: look for a native speaker.
*edit: that also depends on the country, I was shocked when I found out that “advertisement” has two different pronunciations depending on whether it’s UK English or US English. So, in the end, why bother? Just make up a plausible pronunciation and if questioned, say it’s how you pronounce it in your country 
I just found this on the internet 
(original url)
I have now read every single one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, except for Live and Let Die, which I had to stop once I hit the chapter title which includes the N-word. Here’s a list of things you will encounter in these books:
• James Bond throws up due to trauma at least once per book
• Racism
• No, really, more racism than you’re expecting
• Yes, even for the 50s
• At one point Bond writes a letter in his own pee
• “All the real hep-cats smoke reefers!”
• Many comments on the nature of American culture, including the “exotic pungency” of American road signs
• Extended passages of James Bond being racist against various ethnicities you didn’t even know one COULD be racist towards
• No seriously, James Bond inexplicably despises Bulgarians
• A lengthy passage in which Bond shares his opinion that homosexuality is caused by giving women the right to vote
• Bond gets tortured for the first time and immediately comes over all political and philosophical like, “Maybe communism is good actually, and also the Devil is a good guy?”
• At one point Bond gets brainwashed by the KGB into trying to kill M
• Bond is a grade-A Karen who delivers all of his restaurant orders with lengthy specifics as to how the food should be prepared, and gets pissy if it’s not up to his specifications.
• “a gay, happy little crocodile”
• Bond is very excited to learn that in New York there are places where you can watch porn with sound AND color.
• James Bond is The Most Boring Man in the World. His hobbies include golf and complaining about food.
• Late in the books, Bond’s fiancee is killed right in front of him, and he starts showing PTSD symptoms and, instead of being all macho-man “I don’t need no help,” immediately starts going to every doctor available trying to get treatment
• At one point the government tries to offer him a knighthood or some such and Bond messages back that he refuses the knighthood and that “My principal reason is that I don’t want to pay more at hotels and restaurants.” When told that this is too rude, he amends it to, “I am a Scottish peasant and I will always feel at home being a Scottish peasant.”
• At one point the Bond girl is tied down by the villain of the book to await being eaten alive by crabs. Bond is terrified for her, but she, being something of an amateur zoologist, knows perfectly well that crabs aren’t gonna eat a living human, so she just chills there on the beach and waits for them to go away.
• There is literally a damsel in distress tied to the actual train tracks, presented without irony
• An MI6 agent speculates, in an official report to headquarters, that the target may be homosexual because he can’t whistle. Apparently men who can’t whistle are gay.
• Bond is drafted to act as the villain’s secretary not once, but two separate times in two separate books.
• When Bond is at a boring party at a hotel conference room and is ordered by his employer to liven up the party, he accomplishes this by ORDERING THE HOTEL BAND, who were previously singing a censored version of some song, TO PERFORM A STRIP SHOW FOR HIM AND THE GUESTS WHILE SINGING THE DIRTY VERSION. This is his second idea, after he previously livened up the party by using one of the girls in the hotel band - the same one he wants to strip for him - as target practice by balancing a false pineapple on her head and shooting it.
• Bond exchanges a look with a fellow secret agent that is said to be “the recognition that exists between crooks, between homosexuals, between secret agents.”
• “A hand-painted sign said ‘SNAX’ and, underneath, ‘Hot Cock Soup Fresh Daily’.”
• The backstory of the villain of The Man with the Golden Gun is as follows: there was once a circus elephant who got REALLY HORNY and then went on a rampage and was shot by the cops, and then came back to the circus to pathetically and tragically attempt to perform its circus act one last time. The child who was supposed to ride the elephant in the circus act witnessed all of this, and when the cops shot the elephant dead while performing its tragic act, the boy grabbed a pistol and SHOT ONE OF THE COPS in revenge for HIS ELEPHANT DYING. And that boy grew up to be a deadly, womanizing, hired gun, with three nipples, whom MI6 speculates must be gay because he can’t whistle. And that’s the villain of the book.
• These books will make you hate the British as much as every single villain seems to
• Waaaayyy more casual drug use than you would expect
• like, seriously, at one point Bond is AT DINNER WITH HIS BOSS in his boss’s fancy-ass club, and he orders an envelope full of benzedrine from HQ and just casually pours it into his glass to drink with his champagne.
• M lives with the man who used to be M’s Chief Petty Officer on his last naval posting, and who had followed M into retirement, and I am pretty sure they are boyfriends.
• When Bond sleeps with the Bond Girl of Dr. No, she orders him to “Take those off and come in” and “You owe me slave-time. Do as you’re told,” proving once and for all that James Bond is a switch, I rest my case your honor
The first isn’t untrue, but the second doesn’t follow. I do happen to have spent a few months in the US, but that mainly affects some subtle gaps in your vocabulary and a wider exposure to different accents. I think the only pronunciation I learned was cajun, which I thought looked like some Mexican word so I pronounced it cahoon. But all of that happened within the same 5-10 minutes because it was also a word I didn’t know.
At home I would’ve quickly checked the dictionary for pronunciation.
If you’re not listening to the BBC on AM or shortwave radio every day you’re doing it wrong imho. This isn’t 1822.
We can use modern technology to our advantage. Listen to podcasts, find a YouTube channel that interests you, seek out media from the country, read along while listening to the audiobook.
As to pronunciation, let me try to briefly explain how most of us attain native pronunciation.
So, you start out with a book like Sounding Better, pictured below because I couldn’t find my American equivalent right now. Basically you have to learn how to listen. You could do this all by yourself, and realistically you do anyway, but having a (near) complete overview of where to start is tremendously helpful.
There are two big aspects. Pronouncing sounds natively and stressing words and sentences natively. Typically you train them separately.
The way training works if you use the tracks from the CD that comes with the book and you transcribe it. You focus on different aspects, where there’s elision, where the stress is, those kinds of things. I’m summarizing, you’d generally focus on one aspect at a time until you’re further along and the pronunciation’s a non-issue.
So after you listen to the recording, whatever the source, you record yourself saying the same thing, doing your best to pronounce the sounds correctly and place the stresses correctly. You then listen to yourself and analyze where you went wrong. Rinse and repeat.
And because this is your mindset you do the same thing while visiting the US/UK/whatever and you do make adjustments.
But the key is that to an very largely extent this is laborious effort. This doesn’t just happen. Anyone who’s studied a language at a sufficiently high level has done something like this.
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What do you call an angry Bulgarian?
A Brulgarian.
–
Well, it’s better in Dutch. (brul = howl/roar)
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I originally did not want to continue discussion, but due to today’s news coverage, I feel I must add this comment:
What I was alluding to, in response to Guga’s “offensive” Emoji (
), is the phenomenon of Cultural appropriation, which I think might have been the reason for him being scolded.
While there is certainly merit to cultural appropriation being totally inappropriate depending on circumstances, I’d also want to pose the question who should feel offended in such a case? A member of the misappropriated group? Certainly. A random SJW? Probably not so much.
Anyway, gotta remember to be offended the next time I come across some non-native dressed in Lederhosen for Oktoberfest (or in fact, any merry drinking party labelled “Oktoberfest” at a place other than Munich). If I am allowed to, that is, being from a part of Bavaria that’s considered to be as unbavarian as it gets (by both the locals and the “true” Bavarians, so no hard feelings).
Oh, and I also wait for anyone to find out we’re not all starring in The Simpsons 
.
Jokes apart, I am aware of what a “cultural appropriation” is, and I was perfectly aware of the fact that “cultural appropriation” was the reason why Guga was scolded.
My point is: “come on! Picking the wrong skin tone for a thumbs up emoji is REALLY a cultural appropriation?!”
Why shouldn’be a cultural misappropriation a german guy getting a tan, so?
Or an italian guy bleaching his hair?
Or, say, a Catholic Pope wearing a native american headdress?
We risk to lose sight of the focus…
EDIT:
PS, I would not be surprised if this headdress story would rise criticisms…
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No, rather this, which is probably not big news for non German-speaking outlets.
That picture you quoted was 2 articles further down the list, and I guess out of context some people would be entitled to take offense, but my assumption would be that the headdress was given and worn in an officially approved fashion.
Wow. I don’t like to use big words, but this looks like fascism to me.
Art must be free.
Saying a white guy can’t be a reggae musician is absurd and fascist.
Just like saying a black guy can’t be part of a baroque ensemble, for instance.
This world is getting crazy.
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Dunno about the world, though dominant media conglomerates like YouTube enforcing American mores does negatively affect our media landscape.
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Yes, and you used your own judgement to come to this conclusion.
And that’s what I’m saying since the beginning: one must use their discretion and discernment when evaluating, and not just appealing to conventional rules, in order to avoid paradoxical or ridiculous effects.
The problem is the extremism of saying “this is NEVER allowed”
(and this can range from the use of an emoji to the kind of music I like to play).
If somebody can get into trouble because used “the N-Word” in a QUOTE to report an abusive use of said word, it means a Pope must get in troble because he wore a headdress donated by a Native American in an official meeting.
A doubt: is it racist to laugh at this video?
Exactly. And while it is bad enough in its own right, I am even more taken aback when this is done by people that are totally open in regards to gender identity and sexual orientation. It’s actually a big conundrum to me, hence my original post. (Google “Richard Dawkins stripped of Humanist Award” for some of the thoughts that went through my head at that time)
Going off a bit on a tangent, my personal utopia would be a future where we do away with all national states in favor of a “world government” (kinda EU-style, I guess), so that people can mingle freely and the only thing left would be more regional culture and traditions (because many nations aren’t really as homogeneous as they may appear from the outside, e.g. Oktoberfest above). I’d hope that in such an environment any inequality would truly be a thing of the past, while people could still be proud of local heritage and customs. So when somebody advocates for segregation instead of unification, by disallowing one group to adopt the style or background of another, I don’t really see how this could lead to a better society as a whole. I feel it just cements any existing resentments. So yeah, that’s why this is kinda a hot topic for me.
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What difference does someone’s opinion on gender identity and sexual orientation matter in this context?
Sorry if I repeat other points made already, I am lagging behind on the many posts in this thread. And I haven’t checked the one about RtMI yet 
I think PC wants you to focus on the intent as well - which is why if I would refer to someone as “a handicapped one”, I’ll always use that as an argument of why it wasn’t meant derogatory when called upon it by an overly PC person.
I remember we had to learn the difference between emigrants and immigrants at school. Today you cannot even use the word immigrant as it is considered non-PC. Instead you had to use “migrant”. And probably something else by now. Like “permanent traveller”?
The point you make about kids using certain words to make fun of someone -even in cruel ways- is spot-on I think. And if the referred-to group of people cannot speak up (or prefers not to, because they don’t care…), the term will remain in the vocabulary as either a descriptive or a mocking term that can be used in different contexts.
8 year olds can call someone a baby or a toddler. When that someone is 8 years old, they’re making fun of him/her. But it could be about their little sister or brother as well who actually is just 1 or 3 years old. In that case if you’d react (as an 8 year old knowing only the mocking use of the word) with “ha ha, your brother/sister is a ba-by!” or something along those lines, you’d probably get a reaction ranging from “huh, dude, that’s what I just told you? Are you deaf?” to a push and a punch on the nose.
But none of the actual babies and toddlers will ask for another word to be used to refer to their age demographic. Even when toddlers use the word toddler themselves to scold at someone.
It’s all in the intent and intonation. As babies and toddlers can’t write (typically) that is all they have anyway, so they don’t care about how your inner voice reads words and may be offended by the bare word.
As anyone with kids (or even without kids - I don’t want to be non-inclusive ) can attest: when your child sees a short person or a bald person or an old person in public, they might just say “hey look! That person is bald/really short/really old!” and then you as a parent are the one to be held responsible for the bad behaviour or at least will be standing there ashamed not knowing what to say*. While technically speaking those are correct observations and even formulated using neutral descriptive words. But still… it is not done to shout such truths across the street or when waiting at the checkout in a store. Is the solution to teach your child to speak in codes, avoiding any words that could be considered offensive? Or teach them that they shouldn’t voice everything at any place and time?
Another thing is: you can use probably any word to offend someone if you have intent. “Oh, you’re such a screwdriver!” “Doorknob!” “Don’t be a tunahead!” On the other hand, I always get offended when some people use MF to refer to anyone as alternative for “dude”, even in positive ways as in “bad MF”. Think Samuel L. Jackson…
“Bad MF”… is that like a double negative? 
*By the way the correct reactions are: “so are you”, “so were you, “so will you”.
Actually that’s digital blackface. Also for some people you’re not allowed to react with memes depicting black people, e.g.
By my experience, the more left-leaning people in terms of freedom of identity are also the more protective when it comes to races, so I agree with @kaiman here. It’s the kind of person so focused on protecting minorities that are going a level beyond in creating a new segregation.
“AAVE terms are not for you to be used”, “you can’t wear dreads”, “Joe Gardner from Soul is black so he should have been voiced by a black actor in the Danish version” and so on.
It’s people who are trying to fight racism with more racism actually.
Uh, deaf is an ableist term 
you should say “hearing impaired”.
And, as I told, I find this equation a generalisation*. I don’t care much about being up-to-date with the “PC-word-of-the-week”, but since I’m old fashioned, I’m quite sensitive to generalisations.
I express positions that can lead people to label me as a “left-leaning person”. I don’t like to be labelled too, but I can accept this.
I would not accept it if it implies that, being labelled, I autmatically become “the kind of person so focused on protecting minorities that is going a level beyond in creating a new segregation”.
Saying “left-leaning people are like this” is like “black people are like that”, or so.
I’d prefer “alternative listener”.
(*)
And, in the previous post by @kaiman, my discomfort due to what I felt as a generalisation was enhanced by the fact that, with all due respect, I “read between his lines” that gender matters have a negative connotation for him. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong
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To quote one of the greatest philosophers of our time, “you’re still today, as you’ve always been, poor communists”