Abstract
Describing his, his wife's, and his three childrens experiences as an American family settled in Germany, the author retraces the childrens linguistic development, which exemplifies the decisive influence of the language(s) spoken in school (English-German bilingualism) and, in the long term, by theparents at horne (English by thefather, French by the mother). A striking difference between countries ofresidence, due apparently to their official approach to foreigners, emerges from their experience: after moving to France and having a year ofschooling there, the children feit French. But despite continuous residence in Germany, despite intense, early contact with the German language and German playmates and classmates, and despite the fact that the three children are today partly perceived by their California relatives and by others as German, they have never claimed tofeel German or German-American. English rather than German has become their main language, with French a dose second.
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