Helen FieldsScience Writer

Today was my first day at the new workplace, Die Welt. (“The World.”) It’s got the same publisher as Bild but is somewhat higher-brow. For example, there are no naked ladies on the cover and very few exclamation points in the stories.

I wasn’t optimistic about my first day – I’d never managed to reach my official contact before starting, and when I reached a secretary on Friday, she appeared to be mad at me – but it went really well. I already have an assignment for tomorrow. And it’s for a story I proposed myself. At a meeting. IN GERMAN.

I showed up in the morning and spoke German and somehow they took this to mean that I actually speak German, rather than just being able to fake it in brief, uncomplicated encounters, and they keep speaking it to me. (And repeating themselves more slowly and with simpler vocabulary when I’m confused, bless their hearts.)

I’m afraid the editor thinks I am also writing my story in German. My written German is like that of a five-year-old who has only learned one or two sentence structures and has a severely limited vocabulary and was probably also raised by wolves (see example of corrections here). Of course, everyone here reads English perfectly well and I’m sure I’ll be able to get translation help if I need it. But it’s for Wednesday’s paper. So they’d better help fast.

Wish me luck.