Katja

Katja Neumann grew up in Leipzig, in eastern Germany, and spent short stretches in Dresden and Cologne before moving to Munich, where she lives now. People in Munich sometimes tell her she has no accent. She holds a degree in computer science and works as a software developer, a freelance graphic designer and a German teacher, which she sees as one question asked three ways: how do you make something understandable?

Katja shoots only on film and develops the pictures herself, because she likes not knowing right away whether a photo worked. She hikes alone and early, often in the Bavarian Alps, and she relaxes on long walks with a podcast. She joins local cleanup days without making a fuss, eats Thai food every week, loves "Hey Jude" despite every objection, and reads crime novels quickly.

Katja came to teaching after two years of remote software work in which she barely spoke to anyone. Her classes are structured, and she would rather show a real form than recite a rule. She was surprised to find that you can hear nervousness in a breath before the first word. When she asks "Alles klar?", she means it as a real question, and she insists German is not hard, just precise.