Welcome. I am glad you are interested in hearing more about how you might use this blog!

Since I am hopeful that this blog will prove useful for a wide range of readers, I am attempting to categorize my blog posts in such a way that it is easy for different readers to find what they want. In other words, I expect that some readers may want to go to the tab of categories on the right side of my blog and work through the blog posts in a certain category, depending on their specific aim. Here is an attempt to map out how I see the blog working for different readers.

1) Readers who do not (yet) know German

Readers who do not yet know German should be able to profit from my “reflections” and from my translation of German texts in all categories, which should provide at least something of a window into the wonderful world of German scholarship.

2) German Scholars

With the category “German scholars” I hope to introduce junior and senior German scholars (including PhD students) and their work to the English speaking world. If you are a German scholar and wish to submit a passage for consideration, please see here. I also encourage my German readers to let me know when I make mistakes as I am more than happy to learn from them!

3) Readers who already know German and want to keep it up and use it in their scholarship

Readers who know German will probably profit most from the categories “key quotations” and “German scholars” since these categories will provide them with translations of key passages that have been selected by me or by German authors. I also hope that PhD students and other scholars will submit material or questions from their own research under the categories of “Research Assistance“, key quotations, and “model sentences“.

4) Readers who are just now learning German

Readers who are learning German will probably profit most from the category “model sentences“, since it is here that I provide the most thorough grammatical analysis of the German material that is under discussion. For a collection of my “model sentences” posts, see here.

5) Translators

Unfortunately, I have not had much guidance in my own experience as a translator. For the most part, I have simply tried to figure things out as best as I could. With this in mind, I hope that this blog will prove helpful to other translators and perhaps that it will help future translators to be better equipped. While all categories should be relevant for translators, I suspect that the categories “Translator’s Notes” and “words and phrases” will be especially useful. And I suspect that some of my “reflections” will focus on theoretical and practical challenges of translation (see e.g., here). I am also trying to tag my posts with relevant German words so that it will be possible to use my blog as a dictionary of sorts by using the search function.