English Life in the Ruhr? Yes, there is. For many years I thought there are only offers for some students of English. After being engaged and then married to an American girl, I found much more. Finding more English life seems to be a very slow process because nothing is really connected. No one really seems to know what the others do. We were looking for a church to marry in and we found an English speaking congregation. My wife gave a talk about the US presidential election in 2008 and a friend showed up with people from his group of English speaking and native speakers of English that meet every week for more than ten years. He never had told us about it. His group knew that another group once existed. Wrong! It still exists as I knew.
Furthermore, there a some commercial offers in the Ruhr. Cinemas show original movies with original soundtrack and not with the German dubbing. More and more, there are books about the region and its cultural heritage published in German and English language. The project of the Ruhr being the European Cultural Capital in 2010 supports the rise of the amount of available English texts about the region.
Last but not least, English has left from companies and grown up education and has arrived in Elementary Schools – private and public ones. Nowadays-Germans are anglophile and feel sorry if they believe they speak bad English. As well the people of the Ruhr with their own, special traditions think that English is the important language in a globalized world.
This site aims at collecting and presenting all form and places of English life in Ruhr.
# fettes12 on June 10th, 2009
Your site is a good idea, but why not get a native speaker (your wife?) to proofread the English?
# Dirk Schmidt on June 15th, 2009
She’s proofreading it from time to time. The older articles are proofread. And one evening the others will follow. She prefers to do several ones at once
# rob on July 20th, 2009
Quite enjoyed the site, and there are some things going on of which I was not aware. I have met or know a few english-speakers around this area and I am sure there are a lot more, but getting them together seems to be difficult. I for one would like a lot more contact to English speakers. I will continue dropping by to see what’s going on…now I know you are there!
Thanks and keep it up!!!
# Dirk Schmidt on July 20th, 2009
I am working on a list of English roundtables but haven’t visited all of them. Maybe this is something for you.
I would like to hear about you (from where? why here?) and English avctivities/hints/shops etc. in the region.
# Wolfgang Wosmann on October 29th, 2009
Dear Herr Schmidt,
For the last couple months I haven’t read any further news on your website. What’s wrong? We are always interested in further information about English-speaking activities in this area.
# Dirk Schmidt on October 29th, 2009
Dear Mr Wosman,
I am sorry but I lack time. The situation should change soon. I earn my money from politics and after two elections and campaigns there is still a lot to do. I already collected some stories to write but need time for this to do.