Dear All,
Have any of you come across the name (and work) of a Dutch-born diocesan priest, Father Michel Remery? It is worth drawing attention to him and his work for a number of reasons.
One reason is his focus on youth and young adult ministry worldwide... and indeed, truly worldwide! Father Michel can be found in one or other country or continent at any moment, which is why you may well have run across him at some stage (e.g. the WYD in Lisbon at the DeoQuest Stand).
But there are other reasons too: he is a polyglot, among other things. Besides his native Dutch he is fully fluent in German, French, Italian, English, Spanish. He spent some years as the vice-secretary general of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE). Before becoming a priest he worked with the Dutch Royal Air force, became a qualified engineer with an interest also in architecture and worked with an engineering firm in the Baltic States.
And although he is not a Salesian he does get help from a Salesian when it comes to his content and written English (no matter how fluent the non-native speaker of a language may be, written work will always show up the influence of one's mother tongue). So don't be surprised that the very successful ONLINE WITH SAINTS (https://www.onlinewithsaints.com/ ) contains some of our own!
Recently, I asked him about the process he and his team use when it comes to language. Which language does he think in? Which language does the team work in? Here is his response: ‘When I write or speak, I do so thinking in the language I am using. That is true for English or French, for example, but even for languages I do not speak very well, like Portuguese. In the latter case I may get stuck in my thoughts because I do not know how to express myself to myself ;) Our team always used English for communication. I sometimes speak with individuals in their language, but often we stick to English as our working language. It is only natural that the two Brazilians communicate in Portuguese when they meet between them.’
You may like to take a look at some of his other work. And as he says, ‘we will be happy to collaborate with whoever wishes to translate our resources, usually beginning with the book Tweeting with GOD (https://www.tweetingwithgod.com/en), which indeed will be rebranded Navigating with GOD. New publications in preparation carry that name already.’ If you wish to be in contact, try https://www.tweetingwithgod.com/en/content/contact-us. Or I can give you his personal email and you can be sure he will respond.
There are other texts too: How to Grow in Faith, Your Neighbour is God, God is Still at Work. Check out the following on Youtube: https://www.facebook.com/reel/811806253983770 All of this work now comes under the umbrella of an organisation called DeoQuest.
Editing texts like this, which are not only for print purposes, but also for social media, website... calls for particular skills. More recently he has been sending along video scripts for language revision, and that is quite a different use of language. The Best Practice for this week focuses on the skills of what is known as TEP (Translation-Editing-Proofreading).
