As I was fluent in English and French at 16 I wanted spend one year at a highschool in France. I found a school in Normandy which accepted me as a guest highschool student. Which was great and my speaking ability and cultural knowledge grew enormously. So, by the time of graduation from highschool, I was trilingual and to further broaden my horizon of languages, I enrolled in the Seminar for Oriental Languages at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn, Germany to the diploma course for translators. I chose “Modern Japanese and Regional Studies” at the Institute of Japanese Studies, which was headed at the time by Prof. Josef Kreiner whose lectures on Okinawa were so incredibly exciting.
About me
Our textbook was the „Japanese for Today“, by Gakken. The very first textbook introducing the Japanese language written in German by Professor Bruno Lewin did not appear until 1986.
It was on July 26., 1986 that I first stepped on Japanese ground. It was a very ‘mushiatsui’ むし暑いday! I still feel priviledged that I was given the opportunity to spend three summer months with that hospitable homestay-family in Matsuyama on Shikoku island. And I lived unvalurable moments learning a lot about Japanese etiquette to follow as a ‘daughter of a good family’, a Ojōsama (お嬢様) I then continued my studies upto mid-term at Bonn university, took the JLPT-N3 test and gladly returned to Japan on April 1., 1989. I moved into the campus dormitory of the buddhist Ryūkoku Daigaku in the Fushimi district of Kyōto. Japan then was a booming nation and the country’s plentiness was seen everywhere which was overwhelming to me. My memories of 1989-91 are deeply engraved in my heart as the most interesting years of my life.
In 1991 I graduated with a translator’s diploma for Japanese language from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University and took a job in a Japanese company in Düsseldorf; I got married and moved to Starnberg on the beautiful lake in Bavaria in 1996. Where I live and work at the Max-Planck-Institute as foreign languages assistant today.
I gained my teaching experience inA1 – C1 level Japanese during 25 years private teaching and taking over teaching jobs from agencies. I’ve been giving courses at the VHS-Starnberger-See since 2012 and due to the corona virus, I’m now teaching and coaching my students online in my virtual class room via Cisco-Webex.
Curriculum vitae
- Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry since 2013
- Sa:Su Network, agency for Japanese trade fair exhibitors, Munich. 2007 – 2010
- Fairchild Dornier GmbH [i .I.], aircraft builder, procurer engineering services. 1998 – 2005
- Sumitomo Kagaku Deutschland GmbH, Düsseldorf 1991 – 1998
- Ryūkoku University, Kyōto, Japan 1989 – 1990
- Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University, Bonn, then capital of Germany
- Philologische Fakultät – Seminar for Oriental Languages
- Thesis topic: Economic considerations on the Japanese healthcare system. japanischen Gesundheitswesens. .1984 – 1991
- Lycée Polyvalent Juillot de la Morandière, Granville, Normandy, France 1980 – 1981.
