Typing in Dutch

When my RSI got out of hand, I became almost a monoglot in written form. Speech recognition software works very well in English, but in any other language, at least in my experience, it is a bit more difficult. I did use the Welsh speech recognition software, but it is clearly not anywhere near as well-developed as the English language stuff. It gets a lot of words wrong, and then you have to correct it with your hands anyway. Just typing it straight away is not even that much more demanding on arms and hands.

I know my phone should be able to understand Dutch; my sister can dictate in Dutch, and she has the same brand phone. And I have tried to use that functionality, but I failed miserably. The closest I came was speaking to my phone in Dutch, and it then indeed writing down the text in Dutch, but immediately afterwards also writing the text down as if it was just very strange English. For instance, if I would want to dictate ‘ik wil een fiets’  then I could, but it would be immediately followed by ‘it will in feet’ as that would be what the phone figured I probably had said on the assumption I was speaking English. So I gave up on that. But only after the phone amusingly assumed I had called  my sister a ‘crazy cold pinecone’.

It is almost 3 years ago that I had to sign off sick with serious RSI. And since then the situation has greatly improved! I've still not fully recovered; I guess that might take another year or two. But I am increasingly able to type a bit. Especially on my phone, as that is good with predictive text. In April I already started typing messages to my sister again. I had spent years only recording voice messages, as that is easier on the arms! And I still do that if I have a lot of text, but I am glad I can send short messages in written Dutch without thinking too much about it.

If I wrote emails, I still did that exclusively in English or Welsh. And some of the emails I would have preferred to do in Dutch was to two Dutchman who give guest lectures in my applied marine geology module. It was weird sending them emails in English, as I had always just communicated with them in Dutch. I both know them from my time at Free University.

This year I felt confident to ask if they were on again this year, in Dutch. I did compose these emails on my phone, for reasons of predictive text. It felt good to have the choice again! I am glad that there is still progress. And as I said; I sort of hope that after some two more years of this malarkey I can put it behind me. I think I will always be careful! But I am glad it is not likely to be something that really hinders me for the rest of my life. I am still doing one set of physiotherapy exercises for my arms every day. I've been doing them for years! And I see no reason to stop. 

I will be careful and not overexert myself, but I thought this was so hope-inspiring I wanted to share it!