On 5/2/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
One of the best writers of English on the projects is Erik Müller, a German. His English is much better than the average English speaker and indeed much better than even a lot of Wikipedians.
Even so, I will rarely notice him writing something that doesn't sound quite right. Usually this is not quite an _error_ but just some kind of _oddness_. His English is German-flavored.
The worst thing about it is that I'm speaking and using English so much that it's taking a toll on my German. Whenever I speak at a conference in Germany, people later come up to me, with a slightly confused look, and ask me: "That was very interesting, Mr. Möller, but I have just one last question. Where are you _originally_ from?"
The Brits tell me I sound American, the Germans tell me I sound like a foreigner, and the Americans tell me I'm "German flavored". And you still didn't get the umlaut right, you insensitive clod! ;-) It's Möller, not Müller. Unless you were talking about some other guy, in which case you can disregard this posting. ;-)
Erik