I felt the need to start blogging when I started to teach German to refugees in the fall of 2015. I wanted to share my experiences, mainly with friends. Since I have German and English speaking friends it became a bilingual blog: I wrote every piece once in German, once in English, alternating the starting language (today it is English first).

This had two unexpected by-products. For one, my writing became clearer and more succinct because it had to make sense in both languages. Being a professional translator I know that translating a text can lay bare its inherent bullshit. Writing in two languages I caught myself waffling on occasion and tried to be more precise. My pieces, btw, are not straightforward translations. Rather they are written in one language, and then transcribed in the other. In the process I’ll switch from one text to the other, and in that way it will grow.

And secondly, I became a teacher of a different kind. Some friends told me that they started reading the blog because they were interested in the subject but stayed because they enjoyed testing their German or English, whatever the case may be, and learning in the process.

I’ve been writing this blog since August 2015. I’d be honoured if you had a look: Refugees Welcome.

From time to time I wanted to say something that had nothing at all to do with teaching, so I started a secondary blog called Debris of the Mind. I don’t write in it very often, sometimes months go by without a new post. This is also in English and German.

In 2018 we became servants to a black cat and at least the first year of our master, friend, and bedfellow is well documented in Henry is our cat. By now I had realised how much work a bilingual blog is and hence, I only write about Henry in English. He has mostly English speaking fans in any case.

Today, my main blogging is done in Pictures Imperfect (i.e.: this one), a blog consisting mainly of photos, usually responding to a photo challenge prompt, with the occasional short text. What started out as an attempt to show a few pics has developed into a more serious hobby in which I indulge when I need to switch off or just to procrastinate.

Refugees Welcome sampler

Debris of the Mind sampler

Henry sampler

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Blogging