Ministry of Propaganda - 25/Oct/2003: "Blogging in English"

[Previous entry: "Off to Westonbirt, probably"] [Home] [Next entry: "Pictures from Westonbirt"]

Blogging in English

Back from Westonbirt, a nice day out even though it did cloud over during the afternoon. If any of the pictures come out well I'll post some later today or early tomorrow.

But now for something different: Why do I blog in English? Why not in German? Currently there is a discussion in the German blogosphere about bridging language barriers and why some German bloggers blog in English.

It started with Ton Zylstra discussing language barriers, which was picked up by Martin Roell. Martin mentions a few other German bloggers blogging in English, of them Heiko Hebig responds. And Heiko's thoughts are picked up by Stefan Smalla.

So how about me? After all I'm German, so why don't I blog in German? Well, while there is no particular reason standing out there are a multitude of reasons and motivations:

• I've lived the vast majority of my working life in the UK, where I've also lived for the whole time I've been blogging. And obviously still live. This leads to two things: 1) Almost all my daily communication is in English, even with German colleagues (there are a few other Germans here) I frequently communicate in English. For a lot of words I don't even know the German word, simply because I learned the word here and never translated it. 2) My life is now centred in the UK, what happens here has an impact on my daily life. Most of what happens in Germany has not much (if any) significance for me. Result: Blogging in English seems just natural.
• Most of the Germans I know understand English reasonably well, including my family. And if my mother (She reads this blog, I think she might even have it set as her Home page in her browser. An easy way for her to find out what I've been up to) doesn't understand something she asks me for a translation. On the other hand only a handful of the Brits, Americans etc I know understand German. Result: Blogging in English makes more sense if I want to reach all of them.
• Kind of similar to the previous point, when I first started to publish on the web (Shameless plug: The Armin Grewe Homepage; my travel, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Isle of Islay site) back in 1999 I decided to write in English for the simple reason that English is the "universal language" understood by most people. In particular back in 1999 the web was predominantly English and I wanted to reach as many people as possible. Result: I decided to apply the same to my blog (even though the dominance of English has been reduced over the last few years).
• Practice makes perfect. To continously improve my English I believe the best way is to practise in various ways, one is to write in English. Writing down thoughts and reading (or potentially hearing) reactions to it helps me to improve my skills. Result: Daily (well, almost) blogging in English.

I think that about sums up my reasons to blog in English. And now I'm curious what other bloggers living abroad think: Why is Stuart not blogging in French more often? Why is Ralf blogging in English most of the time? Why is Morgaine blogging in English instead of Dutch or French?

Before I finish this entry a related point, my thoughts about Stefan Smalla's dream: I'm in violent disagreement with his dream. While I agree that it would be good to have a common language everyone could communicate in (which English de facto is going to be) I would hate to lose the multitude of languages and even dialects. I wouldn't want a world where everyone speaks American (which effectively is what Stefan is dreaming of). I very much prefer a colourful world with different languages and dialects. Just read and listen to this. Take a look at this blog (via which I found the previous link, despite not understanding a word of Welsh). Take a look at these beautiful characters (or whatever they are called, I'm not sure). No, I wouldn't want to lose all this.

End of entry

Entry trivia

When writing this entry the weather was: Cold, rainy

When writing this entry I was listening to: The Strokes - Room on Fire

During the last hour before I wrote this entry I visited this website: PapaScott

End of entry trivia

Send me feedback about this entry:

The form below will send me an e-mail. To discuss in public, please use my discussion forum.

Your name (required)

Your e-mail (required, will not be published or passed on)

Your website (optional, but recommended)

Is this feedback
public (i.e. contents can be published in a future entry)
private (i.e. contents are only for my eyes)

Your feedback for this entry:

Home © Armin Grewe 2024 -- Last update: 26 October 2003 -- Contact