“How?”

“Hmm.. let me take an example. When the tiny birds cry, I record it, so that others can hear it too. I recorded the common spadefoot toads call for their lovers and when Heinrich Dathe spoke his final word at a conference at Berlin Zoo, in 1987, there was a male, adult, grasshopper and I recorded him. I observed him as he jumped and landed only 10 cm away from a female grasshopper who rejected him and disappeared. I observed him as he rubbed his legs towards each other, searching for her, and I observed a green bottle fly intervene. Heinrich Dathe shooed it away and I observed that too. I wrote down all my observations and published them online because I want my observations to be useful for others.”

What Karl is trying to say is that it’s all about translating knowledge and converting meanings between different frameworks, different languages. “But why does it always have to be in German?” you ask. “Or English?”

“Because they are the languages that I understand,” he replies.