Transblawg

18. September 2007 — Deutsche Sprache schwere Sprache: Falls Sie der- oder diejenige sind, der die Kopfmassage erhalten möchte, ist das Wichtigste, sich jemanden zu suchen, der Dich krault! Und vielleicht möchte er oder sie ja auch „kopfgekrault“ werden… Sitzen Sie sich hierzu aufrecht mit dem Kinn na…

30. August 2007 — It's a good thing I got into translating into English while it's still necessary. Practically the only German is Eröffnungsangebot and Keine Wartezeit. The items on the price list are cut & style, colour, multicolour, haircare. In the left-hand window are the pictures of four stylists, ea…

29. August 2007 — Now that the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg is merging with the Sachsen Landesbank, the FTD has some language assistance. Article with glossary: # Ei for|bibbch, sächs.: erstaunter Ausruf; (schwäb.: Heidenai, Heiligs Blechle) # Fehds, der, sächs.: Spaß; nicht zu verwechseln mit der amer…

17. August 2007 — Under the heading Oh Gott in Frankreich, Ullrich Fichtner writes in Der Spiegel (my emphasis): Ach, Frankreich! Im Land der kulinarischen Weltmeister ist Verfall im Verzug: Käsemacher geben auf, Bauernhöfe werden still gelegt, in den Supermärkten herrscht der Fertigfraß. Und wer hat Sch…

31. Juli 2007 — Some time ago I was irritated, like many people, by the then minister of cultural affairs' use of the word brain up. Scarcely twenty-four hours after I had posted about this, I had to eat my words (in German, one eats Hirn rather than Gehirn): sure enough, the term could be justified - alth…

10. Juli 2007 — Deutsche Sprachwelt reports that the German Wikipedia is in the process of purging a large number of articles, mainly on associations for the preservation of standards in the German language: Bereits gelöscht sind Lexikonartikel über den „Tag der deutschen Sprache“, die „Theo-Münch-Stiftung…

7. Juli 2007 — An article by Stefan Klein in the FAZ yesterday, headed Dümmer auf Englisch, discusses the death of German as a language of science. He mentions a conference where six of the speakers were Germans, three Americans and one British: Und alle sprachen Englisch oder, im Fall der deutschen Red…

11. Juni 2007 — An article by Jan Keuchel in Handelsblatt, Frau Thiemes Gespür für Sprache, describes the role of Stephanie Thieme, a lawyer who has also studied German at university level, in making German statutes easier to understand (I see from her firm's website that she has also worked as a publisher'…

2. Juni 2007 — Professor Ulrich Noack's blog Unternehmensrechtliche Notizen has frequent and interesting posts. Today he posts a link to an English PDF file, intended to introduce people who don't read German to the current situation in German corporate law (87 pages). Germany's Corporate and Financial La…

28. Mai 2007 — Medien, Internet und Recht reports on a case before the Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht (Hamburg Higher Regional Court - scroll down to download the full judgment as a PDF file) where someone had applied for an interim injunction and then withdrew the application and immediately made it at an…

16. Mai 2007 — Das ß sollte abgeschafft werden, wie in der Schweiz - das Problem sieht man in der Überschrift. Es mausert sich aber langsam zum Großbuchstaben, das Versal-ß - siehe Berlin Blawg (mit guten Links) und das praegnanz.de Blog. The header here shows the problem: the German ß is only a lowercase…

9. Mai 2007 — The translation of forms of business association is quite complex and takes so long to discuss that the steam goes out of the boiler before the discussion has got off the ground. I met some U.S. translators briefly last Friday, but not too briefly for one of them to tell me that all the U.S…

3. Mai 2007 — 1. (Print your own photos on) Golfhandtuch mit Befestigungsöse fürs Bag Handtuch bei 60 Grad waschbar Bildgröße bis 20 x 30 cm Komplett nur EUR 11,95 2. GolfRange Nürnberg Sommergrüns geöffnet Sehr geehrte Mitglieder und Gäste, ab sofort sind die Sommergrüns wieder geöffnet…

18. April 2007 — Heading in the Independent: Stressed Britons opt for 'well-being' breaks So that's the word for the German Wellness, even if the Independent puts it in inverted commas. There are plenty of other uses out there. ('Britons' is best headlinese, of course). Actually, they do use the word 'welln…

13. Februar 2007 — Here's a list of German names for places where Germany is not the official language. German has a particularly large number of those (Mailand for Milano, Hermannstadt for Sibiu, Löwen for Leuven). The list is the second edition, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations. It is not exh…

12. Februar 2007 — German page on Sabine Cretella's terminology wiki Wordsandmore. Wer deutsche Terminologie zu diesem Wiki beitragen möchte, findet jetzt hier ein deutsches Portal mit allen Erklärungen, wie es geht: http://wordsandmore.org/index.php?title=Portal:deu Das kommt aus einer Zusammenarbeit zwisc…

24. Januar 2007 — There's a query on ProZ that I can't help mentioning. It's a quote from the judgment of a German court and the asker requests that it should be answered by native speakers of German. I think it's not always easy for native speakers of German to understand the grammar of their language, unless…

24. Januar 2007 — (Note snow) It's hard to tell if this is intentional or not. Mind you, the firm has an even more worrying Triple Willy on its website. …

9. Januar 2007 — Seen on the Fürther Freiheit this morning: I stuck to the Galla and Pinova (note the careful distinction made between Italy and Südtirol) …

7. Januar 2007 — I haven't previously had to translate Abwicklungsvertrag. This was in the context of an attorney's practice areas, which included drafting Aufhebungsverträge (a contract terminating employment) and Abwicklungsverträge (a contract dealing with the end of employment, after termination has alrea…

3. Januar 2007 — The year is still new, but the German word of the year has already appeared. In February last year, the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) found that a statute permitting civilian planes to be shot down if they were hijacked was unconstitutional. The New Anatolian repor…

29. Dezember 2006 — Fliegen ohne Air Berlin ist wie City ohne Shuttle. This sentence appeared on the screens of the plane to Nuremberg yesterday. Interpretations welcome. …

16. Dezember 2006 — Did George Bush steal a German word? The Nürnberger Nachrichten has an article by Evelyn Scherfenberg on German words that have been exported. Schon auffälliger war, als George Bush 2004 einmal einen politischen Gegner in Alltagsdeutsch abkanzelte: “You are too wischiwaschi!” The legal co…

28. November 2006 — From a review on amazon.de (three stars out of five): Was mir jedoch nicht gefallen hat, ist der fürchterliche Schreibstil des Autors, der sich hinter dem Pseudonym “Gesetzgeber” versteckt (ich glaube, ich weiß nun auch endlich, welcher Autor das berühmte Schild in deutschen Aufzügen verf…

28. November 2006 — Annggargoon's language of the week is North Texas German. Article in the Houston Times, and site of Texas German Dialect Project (TGDP) with sound clips. Texas German is a unique dialect of German that is spoken by the descendants of German immigrants who came to Texas beginning around …