Overview

Thorsten speaks German but now writes in English. We discuss writing in two different languages and getting your work translated.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/ZqBZY8uQTS4

Transcript

[00:00:46] Stephen: All right, so let's talk some author stuff, and this will be a great conversation. I'm looking forward to it. But before we talk about our topic, what are some things. And this may be completely unique because of going from language one [00:01:00] language to another. What are some things you've learned about writing that you're doing different than you did when you first started?

[00:01:08] Thorsten: Okay. Yeah. So in the beginning there was in my school years, there was no creative writing class. There was just German language arts in the way traditionally told URI classics. Now I can tell you, but from the fifth grade on, until my end of my high school, I just had a D in German. So I was not like, obviously, oh, that's gonna be the writer.

I struggled. I wrote essays like 16 essays in a row over two years were D and I felt like my name was the D oh, force, the D I could write whatever I wanted. So I didn't learn a lot about that. I didn't read a. But I didn't analyze it. Okay. And then when I was in Victoria, that was like 1990, no, 2000, 2000 around I came [00:02:00] across like the, literally like the first time about the Odyssey, like in the way of the structure way of the hero.

Oh, are you still there? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so that was something. That I then followed up with and then read books a different way as well. Uh, and that's why I say this is something I learned in Canada. I learned that in the English language, unfortunately I wasn't exposed to that in Germany, for whatever reason.

I, I wasn't repelled to do secondary language literature. I even bought myself secondary literature, like what the students read in, in high in university. But I don't know. I, it was too academic. It was to academic and yeah. Although I went to university, I studied something else and I didn't finish. So yeah.

I got sidetracked with journalism, a few into words and culture and okay. And then life took a different path. So that is something I learned like that structural.

[00:02:59] Stephen: That's [00:03:00] the thing with English, German language classes that like you said, oh, that's a student. That's gonna be the right. It's not always the.

A plus English kid, that it's one thing to learn the stuff to take a test, and one thing to read the books and that it's a whole nother thing to write a story and they say it so often. Grammar, typos commas, that stuff can all be fixed and learned and put in there. But you have to have a, a soul for writing a story.

And if you don't have a good story, the other stuff doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna read a book and say, wow, the, the grammar was perfect and all the commas were in the right place. The story kind of sucked. You should read this, but they don't do that. Yeah, it it's good to learn that. Plus now we have so many tools to help catch all the little errors.

So. Yes. I'm telling all the kids learn your language, German, English, whatever, learn it. Do good in the classes, [00:04:00] but don't feel like, oh, I could never write because I didn't do well. Yeah, no,

[00:04:04] Thorsten: absolutely. That, and I think nowadays it's also in Germany, more common that you can show what you read privately at home.