{"id":1382,"date":"2021-04-13T13:12:34","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T12:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2021-04-13T13:17:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T12:17:58","slug":"we-are-wordsmiths-maria-wolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=1382&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"We are wordsmiths: Maria Wolf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this issue: Maria Wolf, Managing Director, Translator and Interpreter<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What is your goal for 2021?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Nothing that I didn\u2019t already intend to do last year and every year before that: make our customers\u2019 lives easier by providing them with outstanding service while trying to become a better person.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from that, I\u2019m nursing the hope that I\u2019ll once again be able to travel, visit friends, and go to the seaside and up into the mountains both here and abroad. I\u2019m also dying to be able to go to restaurants and cultural events and am eager to do my bit to revive those industries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Over the course of your career, have you noticed specific changes in language usage?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One major change was definitely the spelling reform that German underwent in 1996. The idea was to simplify things, but the numerous revisions over the subsequent years (2004, 2006, 2011, 2017, and 2018) coupled with overwhelming resistance from publishers and newspapers showed just how complicated an ill-conceived \u201csimplification\u201d can be. Neither teachers nor students of German found that the reforms made things simpler. It\u2019s hard to follow the many inconsistencies and they\u2019re just as mind-numbing to memorise as the phonetic stumbling blocks of spelling that came before. Here\u2019s an example of the logical inconsistency I\u2019m talking about: According to reformed German, the Schankwirt (barman) in the Sch\u00e4nke (pub) stands at the Ausschank (bar). But when he then goes to pull a pint, instead of aus<em>sch\u00e4nken<\/em>, he must aus<em>schenken<\/em>, which sounds the same but shares its root with schenken, the verb for gift giving. If he then gave me the beer as a present, that would at least be some comfort.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What animal are you tempted to translate literally?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Kuscheltier \u2013 literally \u201ccuddle animal\u201d, but really \u201ccuddly toy\u201d. The word alone conjures up an endearing sense of warmth and comfort. And don\u2019t tell me it\u2019s not a real animal! All my cuddly toys had exciting lives of their own.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Is the glass half full or half empty?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What counts is what\u2019s already \u2013 or still \u2013 in the glass. That\u2019s always a heartening way to look at things.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Working from home: Yes or no?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019ve worked from home for the vast majority of my career. For me it\u2019s heaven. What I do miss are the events and conferences where you meet, laugh, work, eat, and drink with people in three dimensions. I sometimes think that in the long run, holding meetings and maintaining relationships in the two-dimensional online world will become somewhat superficial, with things happening literally only on the surface.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lake or ocean?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019d rather be on a lake than on the ocean, but at the ocean rather than at a lake. But I like swimming equally in both. In short, I\u2019d rather have too much than too little of either.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a good 18 months since our last interviews with Klein Wolf Peters. Quite a lot has happened since then (understatement of the year!). Time for some questions to help us return to a semblance of normality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[581,97,582,98,99,580,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1389,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions\/1389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}