English instead of German - but Why?
for those of my friends and family who wonder: Yes, I am writing everything on this website in English. And for those who don't know, I grew up in Germany, still life there, I lived in Canada for half a year but languages where never my thing. So the question is, why do I write everything in English?
Well, there are two things you probably think about right now:
This guy wants to be international even if only his friends and family read that stuff and they are all Germans.
He wants to point out he can go international and show his friends and family how far he has come.
believe it or not, it's neither one of those points. There is a third reason but I will keep it a secret for now to address the first two points.
There is noting bad about being prepared and ready to be "international". The changes to get in contact with people around the world are just higher if I use the most common language.
I know that there is a service called "google translator" and I think it is really good. However, you have to press the button for the translation. This is a barrier. Writing this stuff in English opens more opportunities, that's clear, but it's not the main reason for doing so.
Putting myself in the center and telling everyone what if have accomplish would be me 10 years ago, especially when it was about music and work. Somehow this changed when I met my wife and started studying.
Now it seems like the complete opposite which is also not good. This means I understate myself when it comes to achievements. So I might need to dig into that fact. However, for the second statement I can assure you, this is not the reason why I write everything in English.
So why I am doing this?
I just feel much more comfortable telling my thoughts and feelings in English. Since I was in Vancouver for half a year I watch content most of the time in English, I tried to read more books in English, started a job with a lot of English conversations.
I didn't plan this, it just happened. But all of that lead to the fact that my English got better and better. Today I work at a big company in the automotive industry which "forces" me to speak English pretty much half the day. So on the one hand I started to communicate in English much better than before.
now comes the interesting part... I think that the words I am typing and saying in English don't affect me as much as my native language. Even though I know that I make mistakes in grammar I am not feeling insecure if I publish something.
Let's use a very strong example for it: Last week I had a big discussion with an external partner of the company. It was about a time plan which I should follow without having a saying on the dates and without them knowing what was needed to accomplish the dates. The meeting was in English and I lashed out at the people in the meeting by telling them that "I am sick of people coming to me with their time plans I have to follow". Not that big of a deal right? It got a little bit emotional and I got a little bit upset. However, I would have never said something like this in German. I am very patient and I am not using such strong words in German.
So the question is: Does English help express my feelings better? Or is it the other way round that the language does not give me the sensitive feeling when you should control yourself? I haven't figured that out yet. What do you think?
as this is pretty much my first article on my website I would love to get some feedback from you!
thank you for your time,
daniel
