Why I make my videos bilingual... but not my blog posts...
I decided I needed to address an issue. My YouTube videos are in both English and German. But my blog posts are only in English. Some people wonder why that is. Well... there is a reason.
I started American Baker in Germany as a blog. But my written German is a point where every little flaw is painfully obvious. I make a lot of mistakes when writing, particularly in the arena of der/die/das. Which article is correct? Nominative, accusative, dative, genetive? Which case? Did I use that word correctly, or does that sound antiquated? How should I know? Basically because German is not my first language I don't feel confident enough to communicate how I made the cakes in the written word.
That being said, I actually speak the language pretty well. Most people don't even hear my accent, or if they do, they don't mention it. I've lived in the country for ten years now. I didn't want to have a YouTube channel I couldn't have my neighbors watch. I mean, how awkward is that conversation? "I speak fluent German, but my YouTube channel is only in English. Sorry." No way! I actually find that fairly disrespectful. If I didn't speak the language, sure. Then it would make sense. But I do. I speak it well enough that I can communicate unhesitatingly with native speakers daily. So... why wouldn't I translate my videos?
That being said, I could have translated my videos without making them twice. I am aware of that. It was pointed out to me that I could make my own subtitles. I know. I actually do make my own subtitles. But when it comes to tutorials of this nature, I find it the most helpful to be able to listen to what is being described while watching how it is done. If you try to do this while reading subtitles, you'll miss half of what makes the tutorial interesting. No way. I also wanted to make the tutorials accessible for children who are interested in baking. That's why I started the baking basics series.
As for the how... it's easier to explain in the video, so see the links below. But the short version is that I cut the footage, write out what I want to say, record the voice over, add it to the video. Then, I resave it as the German version, edit the words that appear on the screen, delete all the voice overs, replace the intro with the German version, translate what I wanted to say, redo the voice overs and readd it to the video. Does it take more time? Of course it does. It takes probably easily twice as long, even though I am able to reuse the cut together video and translating what I had said in English doesn't take that long, it probably adds 2-3 hours of extra work per video. It's a sacrifice that I have chosen to make to make my videos bilingual. I hope you all enjoy them.
Disclaimer: every video is released in both languages. If you wander into the wrong video language, there is always a link in the info box within the first 5 seconds to the other language. No one is forced to watch my videos in a language they don't understand.
To watch how I do it, click here: https://youtu.be/W0w_YaQlWwc
Um zuzuschauen, wie ich es mache, hier klicken: https://youtu.be/JEPBtz4c5G8
I started American Baker in Germany as a blog. But my written German is a point where every little flaw is painfully obvious. I make a lot of mistakes when writing, particularly in the arena of der/die/das. Which article is correct? Nominative, accusative, dative, genetive? Which case? Did I use that word correctly, or does that sound antiquated? How should I know? Basically because German is not my first language I don't feel confident enough to communicate how I made the cakes in the written word.
That being said, I actually speak the language pretty well. Most people don't even hear my accent, or if they do, they don't mention it. I've lived in the country for ten years now. I didn't want to have a YouTube channel I couldn't have my neighbors watch. I mean, how awkward is that conversation? "I speak fluent German, but my YouTube channel is only in English. Sorry." No way! I actually find that fairly disrespectful. If I didn't speak the language, sure. Then it would make sense. But I do. I speak it well enough that I can communicate unhesitatingly with native speakers daily. So... why wouldn't I translate my videos?
That being said, I could have translated my videos without making them twice. I am aware of that. It was pointed out to me that I could make my own subtitles. I know. I actually do make my own subtitles. But when it comes to tutorials of this nature, I find it the most helpful to be able to listen to what is being described while watching how it is done. If you try to do this while reading subtitles, you'll miss half of what makes the tutorial interesting. No way. I also wanted to make the tutorials accessible for children who are interested in baking. That's why I started the baking basics series.
As for the how... it's easier to explain in the video, so see the links below. But the short version is that I cut the footage, write out what I want to say, record the voice over, add it to the video. Then, I resave it as the German version, edit the words that appear on the screen, delete all the voice overs, replace the intro with the German version, translate what I wanted to say, redo the voice overs and readd it to the video. Does it take more time? Of course it does. It takes probably easily twice as long, even though I am able to reuse the cut together video and translating what I had said in English doesn't take that long, it probably adds 2-3 hours of extra work per video. It's a sacrifice that I have chosen to make to make my videos bilingual. I hope you all enjoy them.
Disclaimer: every video is released in both languages. If you wander into the wrong video language, there is always a link in the info box within the first 5 seconds to the other language. No one is forced to watch my videos in a language they don't understand.
To watch how I do it, click here: https://youtu.be/W0w_YaQlWwc
Um zuzuschauen, wie ich es mache, hier klicken: https://youtu.be/JEPBtz4c5G8
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