I like sharing my fascination on the universe with people. I think it is an important part of the life of an astronomer. In the end it is the public who pays our salaries. And even if you don’t think about such a mundane aspect of it, Universe is a magnificent place and I like to share its secrets with people. Still, when you live in another country than your native one, the language adds an extra complication.

My mother tongue is Finnish, a funny language that only 5 million people speak. The last 11 years I have spoken more English than Finnish, and last seven years I have lived in Germany. Despite my German not being perfect I still participate in the public outreach activities of my home institute. I was in the 100 Hours of Astronomy in April and the at ESO Open House in October. In these events I only need to talk to couple of people at a time. That is usually fine. I can have a conversation in German, but I have to admit that explaining adaptive optics or optical interferometry are not the easiest conversation topics I have tried in German.

My biggest challenge in doing public outreach in German came the second week of November this year. I already wrote earlier that I had volunteered for the School Week of Astronomy. So, I went to talk to two classes of 9 year olds about the Solar System. I was really nervous before this, and I actually several times wondered why an earth I always volunteer for things… Anyway, when I got there and realised how eager the children were to know about things, and how they didn’t care at all about my not-so-perfect German I relaxed and had a good time. Now afterwards I am very happy that I did this, even though it meant some nervous hours for me worrying about my language skills, it also showed me that I could do it, and most importantly it was great to share our amazing Universe with the schoolkids. so, next time there is an event like this, I am afraid I will again volunteer and spend some more nervous hours before it.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:14 pm and is filed under astronomy, personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.