This morning, I received an e-mail in my inbox from my friend Crystal with a subject that said, "Translation!" It was pretty clear what would follow, which made me mildly nervous. My German is far from perfect and far from the level of a true translator. At the same time, it's sort of fun to have a useful purpose for my second language.
Crystal is working on a story about the Kaiser Wilhelm church, which still stands in a shopping district of Berlin like a broken tooth after it was bombed during World War II. There is an effort underfoot to restore it since some say it is becoming dangerous. Crystal was assigned to ask a few Germans what they think should happen to the church -- whether it should stay or go and what their feelings are about it.
So I came along with her to interview a few people. It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. We actually managed to get a few salvageable quotes from some Germans. Now if I could only get motivated today to write my own stories.
Lessons learned: Interviewing someone in German in person is a lot easier than over the phone.
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