Wishing you a happy birthday, with some jam in your shoe!

If mum hadn’t called me I would have completely forgotten my Birthday. The sunny weather and warm temperature today made me feel not so far away from home (Sydney) and perhaps Berlin was giving me birthday greetings with a beautiful day.

Our teacher opened the lesson today with a funny birthday song for me, it’s not your classic Happy Birthday song (see the picture below). Apparently all children learn this in kindergarten. Wait, have we English speakers been using a German word, Kindergarten, without realising it? Cool! Ok, back to the funny birthday song, how cute would it be to hear little children sing „Marmalade in the shoe and apricots in the pants,” mean but cute. Is this an example of German humour being taught from a young age?

As you can see from the picture, there was a grammar lesson hidden within the song. Is this an example of German practicality? Our teacher is the sweetest, she just wanted to ensure we learnt more than just new vocab from the song.