tinimaus is what my dad used to call me when I was little. I'm German, but I've spent a third of my life in Britain, and I've been bilingual in German and English much longer than that. My interest in translations started when I realized how crap German translations of science fiction novels where, but I did not start working as a translator until after a detour at university studying at various times japanology and sinology as well as communications electronics. The latter really helped in my work as a technical/patent translator while I was still in Britain.Anyhoo, I don't want to bore you with too much of my life story. Suffice it to say that I love learning languages. I did English, Spanish, French & Japanese while still in school and Chinese at university. I can puzzle out simple written Italian. Currently, I'm working very hard on my French because by some twist of fate I've ended up with a francophone branch of my familly.
I've also recently moved back to Germany, which was very bizarre from a language point of view. When I left, mobile telephony and the internet were in their infancy and I had no German vocabulary for these things when I came back here. Well, I say German when I really mean 'bad pseudo-English ' (what the heck is a 'handy'?). I also still think in English, which at times gets me so confused that I refer to it as 'being speechless in two languages'.
I regret not having had more time for more languages until now. My interests took a serious swerve that led to me getting a bachelor in maths/statistics (don't ask), but there's always another language I wish I could pick up. Why did I not learn Welsh when I lived in Wales (instead of Wenglish)? Why am I not doing some Turkish, considering how many Turks live in Germany?
Life's unfairly short.