لغة
لغة means language
My name is Hakan Özkan, I hold a PhD (Aix-en-Provence 2006) and a postdoctoral habilitation degree (Münster 2019) in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Münster. I am a translator for Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, French and Greek into my native languages German and Turkish, respectively. I am also a trained industrial clerk and have several years of international experience as an SAP consultant (CV).
Languages and language learning have always fascinated me, so that as soon as I discovered a language for myself, I wanted to learn it. So far I speak 10 languages more or less fluently. I am particularly fond of Arabic, Turkish and Persian – hence the name of this website: ex oriente (lux). I started teaching languages more than 20 years ago. As a language coach, I focus mainly on language acquisition techniques.
Books and more ...
I offer various translation services, including consecutive interpretation, translation and multilingual consulting in the fields of art and culture, business, marketing, and IT (some testimonials on proz.com). In my many years as a lecturer, I have designed and translated, amongst other things, teaching materials and entrance exams for German universities (Arabic-German and vice versa).
I acted as an interpreter at industry and trade fairs, curated international poetry festivals and readings in Germany and Turkey and accompanied them with translations, multilingual moderation as well as performances: e.g. the international literature festival berlin 2017 (an example here) or International Istanbul Poetry Festival (2009-2016) and Üsküdar Şiir Festivali 2015-2016 – readings with translations from Arabic, German, Spanish, French and Greek into Turkish: including works by Mahmoud Darwish, Rocío Cerón, Antonis Samarakis, Joachim Sartorius, Marc Delouze and many more.
Translations in book form (novels, poetry collections, stories, non-fiction) are available in the following language pairs: Arabic-German, Arabic-Turkish, Spanish-German, Spanish-Turkish, French-Turkish (detailed list and translation samples on request).
Learn to learn
Nothing makes us more human than language. Even as infants, we are confronted with giant creatures that pelt us with strange sound clusters. We seem hopelessly overwhelmed and apparently understand nothing. In reality, we understand more than it seems, but who wants to babble and whine like an infant before she pronounces the first word correctly? Every exposure to a new language brings us back a bit to this state of being overwhelmed.
Fortunately, as adults, we are better equipped to deal with this state more swiftly. However, when you start learning a new language, some hurdles, often imagined, get in the way. My language coaching will help you overcome these hurdles. A teacher for such diverse languages as Arabic, Turkish and French stand me in good stead, so that I can also offer you language-specific help. You will also benefit from my language learning background (10 languages and 3 Arabic dialects so far). For the past year, I have also been helping people learn languages on YouTube, where I share my experiences of teaching and also learning.
