Translations from German / Denglisch
am 16.11.2006 von http://transblawg.eu
I am proud to be able to present Ben Teague’s checklist on ‘Was this text translated from the German?’ - all the way from Athens (that’s Athens, Georgia). I will comment on this separately. Apologies for the copyright sign in the middle - I’ve forgotten how to prevent a c in brackets appearing thus.
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(1) Already misused in sentences like
bq. *Already in 1969 human beings visited the Moon
. . . or, even worse,
*Human beings visited the moon already in 1969
This often comes from language such as bereits 1969. Better:
Human beings visited the Moon as early as 1969 (virtually the same meaning)
As early as 1969, human beings visited the Moon (nearly the same meaning, time stressed)
By 1969 human beings had visited the Moon (the meaning now a little distorted)
By 1969 human beings had already visited the Moon (with the schon item restored, but note that already implies a link to a further part of the discourse)
(2) Beziehungsweise. Several things can go wrong in the translation:
(2a) Use of respectively as a conjunction. It isn’t one.
(2b) Use of the blatantly un-English abbreviation resp.
(2c) Rendering of beziehungsweise (bzw.) as *or in one of the cases when it doesn’t really mean that.
(2d) Use of respectively when it doesn’t accomplish anything.
(2e) Attempts to make respectively carry too much freight.
Cases (a) and (b) call for just one remark: Don’t ever make these errors.
Case © is deeper and more difficult. German writers use beziehungsweise to keep lists straight:
Die Wahrscheinlichkeit eines Sturms bzw. einer Flut ist hoch. …
In case in British and American English
Transblawg / There is a difference in meaning of ‘in case…+ verb’ in common U.S. and British usage. A non-native speaker could make a confusing mistake here. I quote the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995 ed.), the best learners&#…
The regulation of offences / Rechtsenglisch
Transblawg / The word regeln is used a lot in German legal texts. I’ve always been irritated to see it translated as regulate. I recently received a query quoting a question ‘Is theft regulated by the common law in England and Wales?’ This is…
Accessibility / Barrierefreiheit
Transblawg / Jeremy Keith of Adactio went to Berlin last December for the BIENE website accessibility awards and wondered about the German language, under the heading 'The language of accessibility': … I was thinking about the German word being use…
Anus motion/Übersetzungsprobleme
Transblawg / Matthew Baldwin of The Morning News reports - or reported - that Spanish-speaking drivers have been getting out of drunk driving cases because of a deficiency in Spanish-language cards used by traffic cops: “But the defense somehow got a copy…
Ban Ki-Moon is coming to town
RA-Blog / Ban Ki-Moon, der frühere Außenminister von Südkorea, wurde am Donnerstag als UN-Generalsekretär vereidigt. Diesen Monat hatte der Nachfolger von Kofi Annan in einer Rede vor UN-Berichterstattern weihnachtlich angekündigt, wie er seinen neuen Jo…
Lawyers avoiding the passive/Vermeidung des Passivs
Transblawg / Arnold Zwicky at Language Log has an entry on The passive in law. This relates to the frequent call by Plain English advocates: ‘Avoid the passive’. Language Log has pilloried this before, and rightly so. Not every use of the passive in…
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