The Translation Post

Translating a text on renewable energy today I stumbled across the phrase “erneuerbare Energietechnologien,” a German term that has gained broad usage and which appears to be a direct translation of “renewable energy technologies.” It occurred to me, however, that the German version is actually quite strange, as it involves the formation of a compound noun between “energy” and “technologies.” The adjective “renewable” thus refers to the “technology.” Yet this is all wrong. The “technology” itself is not renewable, the “energy” is. In English, of course, “renewable energy” in this context is a compound modifier, and it could be hyphenated as “renewable-energy technologies.” We are talking about technologies that involve “renewable energy,” not “renewable technologies” that involve energy, as the German word formation implies.

For me, this is just another example of how creeping Anglicisms are destroying German. Wehrt Euch!

I just thought I’d take the opportunity to point out a false cognate I regularly run across – this time around, the error was committed by the English website of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment.

In discussing the organizational structure of the institute, the website refers to the “BfK Structure.” In German, of course, the term “Struktur” can be used designate to the way in which an institute or firm is organized; in English, however, the word “structure” alone is not sufficient, and a bit strange. “Organizational structure” is the term that’s needed.

The term “bourse” (in English and French) or “börse” (in Geman) refers to an exchange where buyers and sellers of equities meet. The term owes its origin to the founder of an early stock exchange, the Flemish merchant Ter Beurze.

On the subject of stock exchanges, Bloomberg has an interesting article today on the decline of the New York Stock Exchange and its imminent merger with Deutsche Börse AG, as well as on the changes the stock market has undergone in recent years with the rise of electronic trading.

Yesterday the Bundestag voted to shut down all of Germany’s nuclear power plants by 2022.

Although the anti-nuclear-power movement has a long history in Germany, a new consensus about the need to abandon nuclear energy emerged in the wake of the Fukishima disaster.

Yet ulterior motives and strategies often play a significant role in political maneuvering. Could it be that the vote yesterday represents a broad effort to uncut an important base of support for ultra-right-wing factions in Germany?

The picture below was taken from the cover of a brochure for Krümmel Nuclear Power Plant (Kernkraftwerk Krümmel, or KKK). It appears white supremacist activity has been a rampant and growing problem at Germany’s nuclear power facilities.

The KKK acronym gives the term “clean area” a pretty sinister ring.

In this post I wanted to briefly touch upon a problem that I have frequently encountered when translating from German to English. I think the problem can be broadly subsumed under the heading “the general vs. the specific.”

As is the case with so many of the linguistic discrepancies one encounters when transcribing between languages — or at least those discrepancies that might be worth writing about — this one is hard to delineate precisely. Its contours are fuzzy, and elude precise demarcation. I will nonetheless try my best to provide a rough sketch of the problem.

Although German has many strengths as a language that English lacks, one conspicuous weakness — which may in fact be directly tied to these strengths — is the frequency with which one encounters imprecision in verb tense usage. With the exception of some differences — German for example, lacks the progressive tense (or, more precisely, the “progressive aspect”) — German and English essentially share the same range of opportunities for expression in relation to verb tense. Yet in the “living” German one encounters on a daily basis — particularly in spoken language — the prevailing patterns of usage are such that German refrains from assigning the same chronological specificity to events that would otherwise be called for in English. These patterns of usage are most certainly in part a product of the tendencies that result out of the structural characteristics of German grammar, for in the examples furnished below, possibilities for greater specificity in tense usage are possible, yet they are not used. This has certain ramifications. Let us turn first, however, to an example.

In general, the present tense gets used in German much more frequently than it does in English. In German, in fact, it is common to use the present tense to describe relationships when the future or past tense would invariably be used in English. Thus, in a German text describing how a planned building will look when it is completed at some future date, Germans typically end up writing in the present tense: “The corridors are 10 meters long.” Although one might well adopt the present tense in certain sentences when writing about the same subject in English, the “future, not yet existing” aspect of that which is being described would certainly be much more clearly demarcated for the reader through intermittent reversion to constructions employing the future tense.

Regardless of the ultimate reasons for the general tendency to revert to the simple present tense one so often encounters in German — Is it a product of sheer laziness? Of the unwieldiness of German grammar? Or perhaps of the broader trend, also evident in English, of written language becoming more like the spoken? — this tendency manifests itself in much more elusive guises than that provided in the example above. This brings me to the crux of my point: When translating from German, it can sometimes be quite unclear whether the writer intends a certain statement as a generally binding rule or rather as a specific observation solely applicable to the situation at hand.

An example: “Die Regulierungs- und Kartellbehörden bemängeln seit einiger Zeit unzureichenden Wettbewerb auf unterschiedlichen Wertschöpfungsstufen des Strommarktes. Dies kann auch den Netzausbau behindern.” ^[1]

My translation: “Regulatory authorities have for some time criticized the lack of competition at various stages of the value creation chain in the electricity market. Insufficient competition may hinder investment in power grid expansion.”

Disregarding for the moment the omission of “auch” from the translation — “may also hinder” would simply be incorrect (I’ve have written here previously about the problems associated with “auch,” a devil of a word) — let us turn our attention to the second sentence.

Essentially, the second sentence appears to be a generally binding statement about the effects of insufficient competition, i.e. that it may hinder power grid investment. Yet in the text’s foregoing paragraphs, the discussion centered specifically on the lack of investment made in recent years. For this reason it would have been much more logical to formulate the second sentence with greater specificity, i.e. that lack of competition “may have led to date” to insufficient investment. However, the author instead chooses to make a broad statement about the consequences of insufficient competition in general; it is only implied that this has relevance in the current case.

Although the sentence cited above may not be the very best example of the problem I am trying to illustrate, one often encounters claims in German phrased in the simple present — thus denoting their general applicability — despite the fact the discussion may only warrant a claim with narrower specificity. Moreover, it may in some instances be unclear whether the author intends the claim to be generally binding or more specific. As a result, it would appear to me that due to the conventions of German grammar, claims with a rather narrow specificity can easily assume a much broader applicability — perhaps even in the speaker’s own mind.

I in no way mean to imply that German grammar leads to illogical thoughts, but rather that German as a language lends itself far more readily to all-encompassing, generally binding claims. The Germans of course have a reputation for speaking in absolutes, in universalities. To what extent is this the product of the constraints and possibilities of German grammar?

1. ^[1] Thure Traber, Claudia Kemfert, Jochen Diekmann:
   Strompreise: Künftig nur noch geringe Erhöhung durch erneuerbare Energien. The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Wochenbericht Nr.: 06-2011. ↩

In the run up to the 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama’s plans to speak at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin sparked a wave of controversy in Germany. Many politicians, including Angela Merkel, thought that the historic monument, a powerful symbol of Germany’s division and unity, shouldn’t be misused as an electioneering platform for a US politician.

The degree to which Germans consider Brandenburg Gate to be imbued with a sacred historical significance was well displayed by the victory celebration held yesterday for Sebastian Vettel, the Formula 1 Wunderkind.

What better way to consecrate the landmark than with screeching tires and a few skid marks?

Hi, Chris here. I wanted to share an interesting problem I ran into the other day when I translated a questionnaire from English into German. The questionnaire asked consumers about their purchases of biscuits, cake, and crackers. Finding a good translation for biscuits and cake was easy – which is not surprising, considering that both types of snacks have a long tradition in Germany. Indeed, the range of choice for these these items in a standard German market rivals that of a big American supermarket.

It was not so easy to find an appropriate translation for the term “crackers,” however. With the exception of Knäckebrot (which has virtually no taste, and is no way comparable to Sundried Tomato & Basil Wheat Thins), I don’t recall ever eating crackers as a child. Crackers only gradually became popular in Germany while I was growing up and I remember how special, almost exotic, they once seemed.

The fact that crackers are not typical German fare is underscored by the German Wikipedia article on crackers: “Cracker sind Fingerfood und werden entweder belegt (Canapés) oder wie Kartoffelchips pur oder mit einem Dip verzehrt.” How many words in that sentence are of foreign origin? Fingerfood, chips, canapés, chips, dip – crackers cannot even be defined in German! The quoted definition fulfils the Aristotelian requirement of naming a genus proximum (fingerfood) and a differentia specifica (canapés, chips, dip) – but the entire concept of crackers itself is clearly foreign to the German cultural space, making reliance on foreign terms necessary.

I finally chose the translation “Salzgebäck” (which is a compound that means “salty baked good”). Although I don’t really imagine a typical American cracker when I hear this word in German, I think people who see this term on the questionnaire will ultimately understand what is meant.

This was perhaps not an ideal solution, but the other alternative – to use the English term “cracker” – was also not acceptable, as not every German is familiar with it.

Just as challenging was the repeated use of the term “snacks” to refer to biscuits, cake, or crackers. The word “Zwischenmahlzeit” (interim meal) does exist in German, but it definitely has the connotation of a somewhat formal affair with the family sitting around the table eating home-baked cake. Other expressions like “Knabbereien” (which refers to small salty snacks like chips and nuts; the term itself means literally, “small things to chew on”) or “Süßigkeiten” (sweets) are too specific. That’s why I felt (for once!) more than relieved when the customer asked me to keep the English word “snacks” in the German translation.

In German and English, parenthetical inserts are used to provide additional, clarifying information or examples in cases in which a freestanding sentence would be inappropiate. However, there are often marked differences between the usage of parenthesis in German and English, particularly when it comes to the enumeration of examples. While parenthetical examples in English are typically of a substitutional nature or extend naturally as a subclause of the main sentence, in German one often finds examples that are not directly substitutional, in which the precise relationship to the main sentence must be deduced. Although this sort of parenthenthetical insert can be considered poor style in German, one encounters it with great frequency.

The following sentences are not atypical in German and demonstrate the point quite well:

EXAMPLE 1
German: “Abschließend gehen wir auch davon aus, dass sich Deutschlands Ausgaben für multilaterale Entwicklungsprogramme zugunsten Afghanistans (UNO, NATO, EU, Weltbank) erhöht haben.”

English translation: “Finally, we assume that Germany’s expenditures for multilateral development programs that benefit Afghanistan (UN, NATO, EU, World Bank) have increased.”

EXAMPLE 2
German: “Am Arbeitsmarkt muss alles dafür getan werden, dass die günstige Arbeitsmarktentwicklung nicht durch neue Regulierung (Zeitarbeit, Mindestlöhne) gefährdet wird.”

English: “Everything must be done to ensure that the favorable development of the labor market is not endangered by new regulations (temporary work, minimum wages).”

As one can see from the sample sentences above, the items listed in paranthensis are examples, yet the precise relation to the remaining sentence is simply not clear-cut. In the first sentence, of course, one would assume initially that examples of “multilateral development programs” are being enumerated – until one realizes that these are in fact organizations that would administer such programs. For this reason, the translation above certainly violates standards of usage in English.

Similarly, in the second sentence, the items stated in parenthesis would appear at first to be examples of regulations – but they are, more precisely, examples of areas in which regulations might be instituted.

In both cases, a few small adjustments suffice to remedy the stiltedness of the direct translations above.

EXAMPLE 1:
“Finally, we assume that Germany’s expenditures for multilateral development programs that benefit Afghanistan (such as those administered by NATO, the UN, EU, World Bank, etc.) have increased.”

EXAMPLE 2:
English: “Everything must be done to ensure that the favorable development of the labor market is not endangered by new regulations (e.g. concerning temporary work, minimum wages).”

The larger point illustrated by these examples is that there are unavoidable structural discrepencies between German and English. Clearly, the translator must play a proactive role in filtering and reshaping the contents of the source text in order to arrive at an adequate and readable translation. Rote word-for-word translations cannot be charaterized as “faithful” if they dishonor the intended meaning of the source text, disregarding the ways in which the reader will process the presented information.

Certainly most non-translators would be surprised at how often the translator encounters words in a foreign language for which there is no generally agreed upon translation. This is clearly one factor that severly limits the capabilities of translation software. Google Translate works by sifting mountains of reference translations. For standard terms in clearly formulated sentences, this sifting strategy can work quite well. As soon as non-standard terms crop up, however, Google Translate stumbles, not least due to the fact that many reference translations are of questionable quality or applicability. The problems of ambiguity that plague the task of translation are regularly apparent when one searches for hard-to-translate terms at online dictionaries like LEO or reference sources such as the EU’s database of legal translations.

I confront terms for which there is no preexisting entry at LEO or clearly understandable direct equivalent in English nearly every day. Here are a few:

Overwhelmed by her victory in the Eurovision song contest last night, Germany’s Lena Meyer-Landrut was at a loss for words. She had clearly not yet come to grips with her win, or, as the German announcer covering the event put it: “Sie hat ihren Sieg noch nicht realisiert.” Lena herself admitted as much later, stating: “Ich hab’ das alles noch gar nicht richtig realisiert.” Strictly speaking, however, “realisieren” in German means “to bring about; to concretize” (as in, “Das Projekt wurde realisiert“). The meaning “to grasp or understand clearly” is a calque, the result of recent infiltration by the English language. Sadly, many – if not most – Germans are unaware of the questionable nature of “realisieren” in this context. Thus, the dilution of German by the Weltsprache continues apace.