I originally come from a small farm in a village near Detmold in the Lippe region of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1980 I moved to Germersheim, a small town on the Rhine to study English and Spanish translation. At first I felt like I was abroad, as many people here in the Palatinate region still speak a rather strong dialect :).
When AI started to change many aspects of modern life and translating became post-editing machine translation, I discovered Chatterbug and have been enjoying the live lessons with you ever since.
As well as English, I learnt French and a little Russian at school, as well as some Swedish. I’ve always felt that I needed to understand grammar very well in order to learn a language. However, I’m not so sure anymore and it’s great to see how quickly you progress with Chatterbug’s interesting and entertaining dialogues, texts and pictures.
In my spare time, I like to play all kinds of indoor and outdoor games such as Scrabble, Skyjo, Skat (a typical German card game), Mensch ärger Dich nicht, Wikinger Schach or Boule.
For those of you who like cycling: My husband started a trade fair for special bicycles in 1986, which gradually attracted visitors and exhibitors from America, Asia and Australia. So every year in April there was a great festival of special bikes from all over the world here in Germersheim! Due to the pandemic, we stopped holding the show, so it no longer takes place in Germersheim, but in Freiburg in southern Germany instead. Nevertheless, it is still worth visiting the website to enjoy the extraordinary diversity of the cycling world!
In 2022 and 2023 I co-translated to non-fiction books (Zurück zum Mond by Joseph Silk and Der Chip-Krieg by Chris Miller. I also worked as a teacher on a daily German course for migrants in 2023 and 2024, which I really enjoyed, but found too strenuous. I have had multiple sclerosis since 2008 and unfortunately my condition keeps deteriorating. Therefore, I have recently limited my Live Classes to weekday mornings from 8 am to 10:30 am. As I take Wednesdays off you can also book me on Tuesday afternoons from 4:15 pm to 6:30 pm.
I enjoy every single class with each of you because I am fascinated by being part of your learning process. You all have different approaches to memorising German words and grammar, and I’m always impressed by how successful nearly every strategy can be. I do my best to support your personal learning style, and I welcome any feedback on what has and hasn’t been helpful.
Ps: ich wohne in der Nähe 
I missed our little chat but I booked another session for next week 
