The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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8 The Linguist Vol/56 No/2 2017 FEATURES Astronaut Matthias Maurer tells Miranda Moore why learning Russian is the hardest part of his training I n 2008, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced they were looking for a new cohort of astronauts for the first time in 20 years. Eight and a half thousand people applied from across Europe, among them Tim Peake, a military pilot from the UK, and Matthias Maurer, a material science engineer from Germany. While Peake went on to become a household name in Britain, spending six months on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2016, Maurer's path to space has been more chequered. As a child, he watched the launches of bilateral German-NASA space missions on TV, but never dared to dream it could be a future career. "It all looked so far away," he says. "During my studies I even checked how to be an astronaut but the ESA page never showed an open position. Basically I never started to dream." So when he heard that the agency were looking to recruit, he knew it was for him. "It combines everything that I have interest in: science, technology on the edge of what is possible, working in international teams and also the adventure – it's a brilliant combination." By 2009, following a year of tests and interviews, Maurer was down to the final 10 candidates. But there were tickets for just six and he narrowly missed out, instead taking up a position as Crew Support at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne. His journey to becoming an astronaut would take a further eight years: in February 2017, he was finally announced as the new ESA astronaut. As Crew Support, Maurer gained valuable experience of launch and landing campaigns, background logistics, and communication with cosmonauts at the ISS from ground control in Munich. In 2012, he volunteered to learn Chinese following the onset of talks about a future collaboration between the ESA and China's two space agencies: the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA). In 2015, he added Russian to his language studies – an essential requirement for travel to the ISS. Before blasting off on his Soyuz spacecraft, Tim Peake told journalists that learning Russian had been the most difficult part of the two-year preparations for space flight – more challenging even than high g-force training. Maurer agrees. But while Peake admitted that he was "not a natural linguist" and almost gave up, Maurer has always enjoyed learning languages. Having studied Latin, French and English at school, he decided to spend his third undergraduate year at the University of Leeds, which he describes as the "best investment I've made: Being in a different country, learning material science at an excellent level, and at the same time also learning a language and being immersed in that environment, I was so motivated." It inspired him to complete his degree through a four-nations exchange scheme, learning French and Spanish while studying in Nancy and Barcelona, and taking Italian for a semester. A traineeship in Korea after graduation brought his first brief taste of a non-European language. "Having French and English, it is then easy to add Italian or Spanish because it's all Roman languages," he says. "It's completely different to learning Chinese and Russian, and I'm struggling." Yet being able to communicate with fellow astronauts from either Russia or China will be essential to any future mission. Currently, the ESA only flies to the ISS, where the official languages are English and Russian. All the controls and procedures on Soyuz spacecraft are in Russian and there is always a Russian commander, so knowledge of the language is essential for the other two crew members. The Pilot must have advanced language skills, while the Flight Engineer, who has fewer duties on board, can get by with more limited Russian. To date, no foreigner has worked on board a Chinese craft, but with the CNSA preparing to launch a space station in 2018, the first European could fly with the Chinese in 2022. "It will be very interesting to see The final frontier "In an emergency, there shouldn't be errors in understanding. That's not easy if it's only in Chinese characters" © ESA/NASA/ ©ESA-P HILIPPESEBIROT/ © ESA-A NNEKELE FLOC'H/ © ESA-S ABINEGROTHUES