You might remember that a while ago I asked for advice on whether to build or buy a base SAXS system for expansion. Almost all the answers were in favour of buying a base system and adapting it afterwards for our fantastic flights of fancy. Since then, I have been spending an enormous amount of time writing up specifications in English, and then translating everything into German with the help of my fantastic colleagues. Likewise, I have spent 90% of the last week coming up with, and translating fringe specifications for the request for quotations (RFQ).
This is now done, and I hope that the RFQ will be made available within the coming days. If and when it does, here’s the place to look if you are interested in my dream specifications for my dream system!
I never thought it would be this hard to spend wads of cash.
Hi Brian,
As i do not speak german i haven’t found where i have to look to see how dreamer you are :)
Do German companies not understand English? I am surprised.
Do you learn actively German?
English is perfectly usable amongst the scientists at our institute. For the administrative departments, however, it’s a bit of a toss-up. Therefore, in order to have no misunderstandings, it is best to deliver in both languages. As for me, I’m not actively learning German, but I am Dutch (whose language closely resembles German), have had four years of high school German, and kept reading (old) German scientific papers, so I’m picking it up quite readily now.