Welcome to the website of Will Anderson in Fribourg, Switzerland.
Quick index
Output for customers, companies, organizations, contracts and contacts
Swiss Russian Chamber of Commerce, Zollikon, Switzerland
01.2022...present
I write, rewrite, proofread and translate texts for print and for web for the Chamber of Commerce representing two countries of which I am fond.English coach for specialists, engineers and motivated youth
08.2019...present
This activity originally arrived on its own. However, hearing the improving articulation and noticing the improving comprehension of the pupils is quite satisfactory.Hofstetter Gastechnik AG
01.2021...06.2021
André Ramseyer AG
01.2018...12.2020
Updraft Technologies
01.2015...12.2017
- First contact for all inquiries about the product CableRail, which accelerates burial of trackside cables
- Prospection for partners & potential clients by phone & in person
- Representation for client at exhibitions
- Technical collaboration with Korean partners for a pilot project in Paris: protective sliding doors on platforms in stations
Advance Thun AG
09.2011...12.2013
Despite a fear of heights and with no alpine experience, it was with Advance that I learned to fly paragliders, obtaining my permit against many odds and in one go. I performed duties as an aeronautical engineer at Advance, including:
Greenfield Compression AG
04.2008...07.2009
Coordination between architects, suppliers, government authorities and the company. Domains included the construction and handover of natural-gas refueling stations and the delivery of industrial gas compressors. All work performed in German and French.Alstom Power Technology Center
12.2002...04.2008
Compressor and steam turbine Design, CFD mesh and case setup, development of optimization software.Foreign languages
Who doesn't enjoy hearing and speaking foreign languages? Its feels like playing or singing a song. Also, believe it or not, in my generation and where I grew up, speaking languages other than English was sometimes viewed suspiciously! Thankfully this is changing, with more and more young Americans traveling and living abroad.A mastered foreign language is simply the accumulation of all social interactions executed in the target language. It can be challenging to convince initial contacts to converse with you in an infant version of their mother language. Team sports, playing in a band, socializing in bistros, are among the many contexts in which exchanges in proto-language is sufficient for bonding. If, however, your native language is a popular learning choice, like English is in western Europe, then you will initially need to swat through swarms of linguistic parasites. Am I myself a language leech? I contend that I am not, because it was I who relocated, resettled and chose to learn the local vocabulary.
Maybe it is better to locate yourself rurally in a region of the target language, and then maybe it is better to locate yourself in bilingual regions, because there, the natives are balancing already two native languages.
Every language has its own personality and wisdom. Learning a new language is like installing an additional operating system for your life. Make & maintain friendships in the target language and you will end up befriending the target language for life.
Russian - B1
As with all my collected languages, learning Russian never ceases! It is great fun for my ears and sport for the brain.
Romanian - B1
Romanian is, what I call, a "boutique" language. Why? The commercially-active inhabitants of Romania almost all understand and speak English. Nevertheless, I obtained my "avansat" certificate in Bucharest in 2009 and currently self-evaluate as level B1 in Romanian. At least in the Republic of Moldova it is appreciated!
Dutch - B1
Dutch is another language which is mainly fun. There may be no graduate of Dutch compulsory schooling which knows no foreign languages, and possibly all will know some English. When I speak Dutch, the interlocutor often replies that I am speaking German syntax with Dutch words! I have four years of living experience in the Netherlands and one year of formal education in the language. Possibly this means that my level is B1, but I have never taken a placement test.French - C1
It was travelling throughout the Canadian province of Québec and, more generally, it was the French language which dewaxed my ears to the world, and for this, I will always be grateful. I suppose that I began learning French in 1988 and have never stopped.
German - C2
Thanks to learning German, I learned how to form more precise thoughts, more exact syntax and more robust argumentation, in all my languages. Learning German grammar solidified my grammar in my mother language, English. German still is the most spoken native language in the European Union. It has opened many doors for me and continues to do so.
Instruction & Coaching
I work with motivated youngsters, adult engineers, mathematicians and other specialists on their facility in speaking and understanding English. I learned at Ramseyer that we have no business claiming we speak a language unless we can speak it on the telephone. Therefore, I set about learning Russian by telephone, developed my own methods for learning by telephone, and through some mixture of luck and reputation, accumulated students, with whom I have worked for over 3 years. It is quite fulfilling witnessing their abilities grow up into fluency.My role here is to enable the student to speak during the course as much as possible, to answer questions and to correct when comprehension is hindered. Also, all non-English terms must be avoided during the course. If we don't speak English during the course, then when? Some of our favourite methods are: drawing by remote voice control, deconstructing and reconstructing popular music, and working through standard textbooks and articles.
- Vocabulary necessary for navigating a page by audio commands.
- Useful words for learning languages by telephone.
- Numbers for adults without translations.
- Quick vocabulary reference.
Interviews
I measure luck in the quality of contacts I have been able to make and the trust they have shown to me. I have been very fortunate in this life. We can learn complex subjects from documents, but we can learn more quickly and learn which documents are important from open conversations. Occasionally my conversations have been worthy of sharing on the world wide web.
Tim Beam is a Singer-Songwriter based in Freiburg, Germany:Dan Ionescu is a full-time guitarist and now producer based in Bucharest:
Matt Sharp was the founding bassist of the band Weezer:
Henny Vrienten is the frontman of the band Doe Maar, and allowed me to interview him at his home/studio in Amsterdam:
Chris Ballew is the frontman of the Seattle band The Presidents of the United States of America:
Steve Kilbey is the frontman of the Australian band The Church:
Royston Langdon is the frontman of the NYC band Spacehog:
Music performance
My dad was a veteran of two wars, and could rarely find words to share with children. He did, however, shred on the guitar. It was therefore inconceivable for his son not to play the guitar. I started learning to play the guitar before I even knew what desire was and only realized afterwards that I liked it. I never wasted time with abstractions such as written music, but just followed my ears and my fingers into new chords and notes. If only my virtuosity would correspond to my 38 years of playing! In any case, the most comfortable setting imaginable for me is seated with a tree-branch and 4+ steel chords in front of me.Music performance for language learning
Learning to sing and play a song in a foreign language is the consummate lesson in that language. Learning a text verbatim from a recording and internalizing the melody from acoustic information alone flexes the same muscles as fumbling through a school-taught vocabulary the first time we hop in a taxi from the airport in a new country. Only I prefer to accumulate this muscle memory at home. I am not claiming to do this well. But I am open with my beginnings, with my struggles and with my progress. Why? Because it was reading the authentic autobiographies written by my heros which so often was the very inspiration for me to begin stumbling forward!Music performance for rehearsal
I never understood the popular aversion to performing covers. Maybe its just me who somehow gravitated to purists, who decline playing covers. Performing cover songs brings us to the next hitherto unattainable level of virtuosity, lets us inflate our souls with the spirits of our heros and keeps us musically calibrated during droughts and pandemics. Kids are genius in the following regard, but neither does the passing of time automatically condemn adults to lifetimes of ignorance: Never forget the value of play.Original music
Musical performance integrated over life experience from time equals zero to time equals the present yields the composition and recording of original music. Songwriting is an unavoidable symptom of a life fully lived.This website is powered by \\'illPress.