@Ahiku: My mom isn't German herself and my family hasn't been German in terms of living in the country for a couple generations, but her father was raised speaking Pennsylvania Dutch (which, if anyone else is wondering, has nothing to do with the Dutch and is actually a dialect of German). He tried dropping that language from his family since at the time it was only "lower class" families that used it, but he'd slip up a lot when I grew up living with him. My mom wasn't raised speaking German, but she's pretty intent on keeping that part of our family history alive, so she tries making it a part of our daily lives as much as she can, though she's focused on the German part, not the Pennsylvania Dutch part. It is actually useful in the area I grew up since it's still used in some parts of the community, mainly in Amish and Mennonite families. Pennsylvania Dutch is used more for everyday conversation while high German is used more formally, mainly in church. It's kind of fun to be working at a farmers' market with the Amish farmers there because they think I can't understand what they're saying at all, but little do they know... But I'm still learning myself since I really struggle with languages in general (I mean, I only passed Spanish II in high school because I was dating an illegal immigrant from Mexico that semester). While it's a miracle if I can keep up with a conversation, I still really love the language and it feels a lot more "right" to me. The sound is comforting to me, I prefer how the language looks written out over English, and even if my vocabulary is super limited, speaking it feels really comfortable in terms of saying the actual words, as if the sounds fit in my mouth better than any other language, if that makes any sense at all... My dad thinks it's more important to know more widely used languages like Spanish (even though he actually forgot Spanish when he used to be fluent as a kid), but my parents are separated so he can't really control that from across the country. My sister speaks Spanish, though. I can understand a little of that, but speaking it is even more embarrassing than trying to speak German since my mouth refuses to say anything without a horrible American accent (Bwen-ahs man-yawn-as!). But hey, that works for her since she's seeing a Panamanian guy. Anyway, maybe I can practice my German a lot more now that I'm not trying to keep up with work or school! But at this point I'm still way too self conscious to try speaking it outside of my home. I get super embarrassed with even the smallest mistakes.