about me

Darija was born in Essen, North Rhine Westphalia. She grew up in Bavaria but attended highschool in Siegen, North Rhine Westphalia. At the age of 16 Darija attended a one year class at a highschool in Granville, Normandy, France. Back to Germany her family welcomed homestay-students from Quebec, Canada, Brisbane, Australia and North Carolina, USA. Such early international education duly was the basis for Darija`s future in a cross cultural career. By the time she graduated from Evangelisches Gymnasium in Siegen she was fluent in both English and French. Darija then decided to enhance her language skills and matriculated to the Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen at the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn in 1984: Japanese and Korean language and culture together with basic economics. Darija had fun leaning Hiragana, Katagana and many many Kanjis but untill she visited Japan for the first time at the age of 22, Darija did not capture the Japanese language at all.  

Assistance of a wonderful native speaker in Japan was needed and found. That person was not just any native speaker but a person of excellent educational background and a sense of humour who had the age to simply know more about her own country than young people. This person had reasoning power and common wisdom. Isn`t it generally indispensable to first gain conciousness about your own culture and mentality before one can be a good intercultural guide. She had it all and was Darija`s perfect tutor when she  three months in her house in Matsuyama, Shikoku.

2 years later Darija went to Kyoto. She lived in a students` house near the Ryukoku University and did her best as a very open-minded young student to meet the high level requirements of her professors.

After little more than one year in Kyoto she returned home to successfully graduate from Bonn university in 1990: "Diplom-Übersetzerin Japanisch/Koreanisch".