Alice spent her childhood between Darmstadt, London, Jugenheim, and Malta (where her naval officer father was occasionally stationed). Her mother noticed that she was slow in learning to talk, and became concerned by her indistinct pronunciation. Eventually, she was diagnosed with congenital deafness after her grandmother, Princess Battenberg, identified the problem and took her to see an ear specialist. With encouragement from her mother, Alice learned to both lip-read and speak in English and German. Educated privately, she studied French, and later, after her engagement, she learned Greek. Her early years were spent in the company of her royal relatives, and she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of the Duke of York (later King George V) and Mary of Teck in 1893. A few weeks before her sixteenth birthday she attended the funeral of Queen Victoria in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and shortly afterward she was confirmed in the Anglican faith.