Word! The Language Column  Today Is Tomorrow

Why? When? What? Bettina Wilpert's daughters are discovering the world by asking questions – and the peculiarities of the German language.  Extremely stimulating for parents – and sometimes exhausting, because not every explanation comes easily.

My one-year-old daughter is just learning to speak. As a feminist mum, I couldn't be prouder, as her first word was ‘no’. She uses it especially when I offer her healthy food. Apart from banana, no fruit or vegetables go anywhere near her mouth. Apart from that, her vocabulary so far consists of the words ‘have’ and ‘hello’. She waves to everyone we meet on the street and greets them with her cheerful ‘allo!’ How wonderful it is to react so openly to everyone and not yet know anything about the horrors of the world.

Curious and Inventive

The German language is not easy to learn, even for native speakers: my four-year-old daughter has understood how past tenses are formed: I played, I took a nap, I watched Peppa Wutz, I walked to daycare - oh yes, irregular verbs, there was something.

Every now and then she invents new words: ‘The bush is quite thorny.’ And interesting creatures appear in the role play: ‘I'm the schoolchild unicorn and you're mummy.’ ‘Mmhh, okay.’ In the end, I wished I didn't have to play so much father-mother-child with her.

Because of my children, I am constantly forced to question my view of the world. About a year ago, my daughter was in the why phase. ‘Why is it raining?’ ‘Because the trees are thirsty.’ ‘Why do you have to go to work?’ ‘Because I have to earn money.’ ‘Why is the child standing there?’ ‘I don't know.’

Having to Explain Even the Worst

Not all questions are easy to answer. Every morning on the way to daycare, we pass three stumbling blocks. It was only when there were flowers and candles there on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that my daughter noticed them. She asked what they were. I explained that people had lived there who had died. ‘Why?’ ‘Because very bad people used to kill other people they didn't like here.’ Wait, let's start again: ‘They weren't actually very bad, they were actually quite normal, your grandparents were too and well, anyway, you shouldn't kill anyone!’ How do you explain the Holocaust to a small child?

When Does the Future Become the Present?

One topic that my daughter is very interested in at the moment is time. She already has a feeling for it. Every morning she wakes up and asks: "What are we doing today? Who will take me to daycare? Who's picking me up?" And in the evening: "Who's going to put me to bed tonight? What are we going to do tomorrow?" ‘We don't have any plans for tomorrow yet.’ ‘And what are we doing the day after tomorrow?’ ‘The day after tomorrow, we're meeting your friend Alma,’ I answer her. I have a feeling for the past and the future. But she doesn't yet know exactly how long it will be until tomorrow. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, at the weekend, on holiday - everything is diffuse in the future.

Once she asked again in the morning: ‘What are we doing today?’ ‘We don't have any plans for today.’ ‘But I thought we were meeting Alma.’ ‘No, we're meeting Alma tomorrow.’ ‘But today is tomorrow,’ was her reply.

Time Runs Forwards and Backwards

In narrative theory, a distinction is made between narrative time and narrated time. The former comprises the period of time that the narrator needs to tell a story, or the time needed to read the text in reality. Narrated time refers to the period of time encompassed by the content of the story; it is not bound to real times and places. This is why the sentence ‘Tomorrow was Christmas’ can also appear in a novel. But wasn't it just Easter? Perhaps time is not as linear as we like to imagine.

Christiane Rösinger once sang: ‘Everyone lives in their own world, but mine is the right one.’ And in my child's world, today is tomorrow.
 

April 2025