Shrinking Violet - Why you shouldn't use babelfish for your book
So first of all let me say that I didn't like this book. At all. It was predictable and the plot was very weak. Since I always say the first sentence has to pull you in and try to do that in my story here's the first sentence: You're listening to Sweet T on 92.7 WEMD SLAM FM. These little quotes from the radio are in every chapter the real chapter begins with: "Until a few years ago, I always dreamed that a radio station would be a sleek glass architectural gem on Ocean View." Kinda boring huh? I mean I for one have seen radio stations in bigger citys so that's really no news for me that they aren't every architects dream. Though she mentions that she thought Flash neon lights would be on top of the building and I have seen that. But enough of my radio experiences.
So first I will explain the story. It's about a very shy girl (we're not talking me shy and that means something) who can hardly speak to classmates and teachers. Her dream is to become a DJ on the radio under the name Sweet T (as mentioned above). Well her stepfather is the manager of a radio station. You should think she'd have thought of asking him to be an intern sooner huh? Well for the sake of the book she didn't. Anyway she constantly lusts after some of the new music stars (like PJ Squid - WTF? I'm imagining a squid in a pjs here) and tells us all about how she always discovers the new and coming artists and nobody knows what a good DJ she would be and acts out radio shows in her room. And her mother is a bitch (sorry she is to me) who constanly harps on her because she used to be heavier. She's not allowed to eat bagels or late and she has to walk 20 minutes to school despite having a driver's license. As far as I understand her mother is some kind of gold digger. I really don't know how she got anyone to marry her being a bitch and all. XD Anyway maybe I'll give an example....
"I promised Mom I'd lose weight for her wedding, and I did. She wanted the photos to come out perfect because she'e never had a proper cermony before" (p. 17)
"'If you have to start your day with carbs, you should only eat half.' Mom holds out her hand to collect the bad half."
Anyway somehow she manages to become an intern anyway. And while doing that she's doing a project in English class. She's Helen Keller and has to present something together with another girl (Kayla) and boy (Gavin). So since that's hard to do without speaking she uses hand signs like Helen. Well she falls in love with Gavin blah blah blah and gets to do the show with another upcoming DJ when one DJ is not there one day. Anyway the DJ with whom she was orginally the intern sets up a contest for prom and who writes the best song gets to got with Sweet T (her DJ nickname). So Gavin tells her he will go to a concert the day of the prom. And of course he already knows that she's Sweet T because she said the exact same thing about a band on radio and in school. So of course Gavin wins and her mom tells her big secret that made her in such a bitch. And everyone lives happily ever after.
Anyway on to the bad german. I've been noticing the trend of people adding german characters, words etc. to make their book more interesting. Or whatever they want to achieve with it. For example Patricia Briggs and her Mercedes Thompson Series. I haven't read the series myself (at least not all of it) but I heard there are some mistakes made. Of course I have to include JKR who had some germans (who spoke pretty bad english) murdered by Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. But her german was all correct and it didn't feel like she added it to seem more interesting. Not that she needed PR or anything right? Anyway I also see a lot of babelfish german (as I like to call it) on the Hetalia Kink Meme but since it's a kink meme that teaches you about history I really can't expect MORE. Anyway if you have any idea why people feel the need to add german to their english books or maybe examples where people add words or sentences in your own language in english books and do it wrong leave me a comment. :)
Okay on to the examples. This will also contain a bit of plot criticism since we somehow have to get to the point where a girl that doesn't take german speaks it. So she goes to the language lab of her school to practice speaking for the radio. Since she can't practice english with her being already english she takes german. She wavers a bit and frets that people will hear her speaking blahblahblah.
Okay I noticed now that I'm being a bit nit picky here but oh well. You don't have to read it. I think there are more parts but since it's just single words I couldn't find them so fast.
"At first I let the disc run and don't say anything, listening to the thick German accent. It starts off pretty easy, counting from one to twenty. I don't know how they communicate with all those hard K sounds. I'm afraidn I'd accidentally let loose some flying spit and hit someone in the eye. Not so attractive for a speech-deprived girl." (p. 62)
Well I for one manage the K sounds. I don't know what she means since I'm german and it's all natural to me so I can't say much about it.
Okay so she learns number. Eins, zwei, drei. And then she looks around again to make sure no one is watching.
"Coast is clear. I move on to short sentences, "Ich habe eine gute idee."
I have a good idea? I'm not so sure about that After a while I pick up the momentum and am repeating every word after the speaker.
Wo ist die Toilette?
Ich fühle krank.
Where is the toilet? I feel sick. Those are two sentences I should definitely hold on to in case I evertravel to Germany." (p. 63)
Okay not much wrong but it's "Ich fühle mich krank." It's pretty obvious that someone directly translated the english Ich = I, fühle = feel krank = sick. But since the grammar is different it diesn't quiet work. Notice how at this point they remember that germans have the weird habit of starting all nouns with a capital letter? But not in the above sentence. Idee (=idea) is a noun and as such should be written with a capital letter.
Well next time she goes to the lab she practices a weekdays and her "enemy" (Popular girl, The Libby) follows her and sits there saying things like "'Dorkstag. Geekstag. Freaktag.'". Apart from it being weird that the person overseeing the lab doesn't notice someone is not practicing it's just childish. And stalking the person you don't like alone to the language lab to make up childish things. Anyway I personally think the weird person here is Stacey (The Libby) because it's just weird to take you obsession so far.
Okay after their presentation Kayla gives her an invitation to a party for "german enthusiasts"
"Join us for the annual deutsch Klub Partei at the German Institute at 4150 Brickell Avenue..."
This is the funny part. Partei does mean party. Only it means political party. So this is a pretty funny mistake. Tere (Sweet T) goes on about how it's her first partei invite and stuff. If you want to say party in german you can assume that young peoplem would say party. After all we take words from the english. Or Feier, Fest, Fete which all roughly mean celebration, party.
Thanks for reading. :)
So first I will explain the story. It's about a very shy girl (we're not talking me shy and that means something) who can hardly speak to classmates and teachers. Her dream is to become a DJ on the radio under the name Sweet T (as mentioned above). Well her stepfather is the manager of a radio station. You should think she'd have thought of asking him to be an intern sooner huh? Well for the sake of the book she didn't. Anyway she constantly lusts after some of the new music stars (like PJ Squid - WTF? I'm imagining a squid in a pjs here) and tells us all about how she always discovers the new and coming artists and nobody knows what a good DJ she would be and acts out radio shows in her room. And her mother is a bitch (sorry she is to me) who constanly harps on her because she used to be heavier. She's not allowed to eat bagels or late and she has to walk 20 minutes to school despite having a driver's license. As far as I understand her mother is some kind of gold digger. I really don't know how she got anyone to marry her being a bitch and all. XD Anyway maybe I'll give an example....
"I promised Mom I'd lose weight for her wedding, and I did. She wanted the photos to come out perfect because she'e never had a proper cermony before" (p. 17)
"'If you have to start your day with carbs, you should only eat half.' Mom holds out her hand to collect the bad half."
Anyway somehow she manages to become an intern anyway. And while doing that she's doing a project in English class. She's Helen Keller and has to present something together with another girl (Kayla) and boy (Gavin). So since that's hard to do without speaking she uses hand signs like Helen. Well she falls in love with Gavin blah blah blah and gets to do the show with another upcoming DJ when one DJ is not there one day. Anyway the DJ with whom she was orginally the intern sets up a contest for prom and who writes the best song gets to got with Sweet T (her DJ nickname). So Gavin tells her he will go to a concert the day of the prom. And of course he already knows that she's Sweet T because she said the exact same thing about a band on radio and in school. So of course Gavin wins and her mom tells her big secret that made her in such a bitch. And everyone lives happily ever after.
Anyway on to the bad german. I've been noticing the trend of people adding german characters, words etc. to make their book more interesting. Or whatever they want to achieve with it. For example Patricia Briggs and her Mercedes Thompson Series. I haven't read the series myself (at least not all of it) but I heard there are some mistakes made. Of course I have to include JKR who had some germans (who spoke pretty bad english) murdered by Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. But her german was all correct and it didn't feel like she added it to seem more interesting. Not that she needed PR or anything right? Anyway I also see a lot of babelfish german (as I like to call it) on the Hetalia Kink Meme but since it's a kink meme that teaches you about history I really can't expect MORE. Anyway if you have any idea why people feel the need to add german to their english books or maybe examples where people add words or sentences in your own language in english books and do it wrong leave me a comment. :)
Okay on to the examples. This will also contain a bit of plot criticism since we somehow have to get to the point where a girl that doesn't take german speaks it. So she goes to the language lab of her school to practice speaking for the radio. Since she can't practice english with her being already english she takes german. She wavers a bit and frets that people will hear her speaking blahblahblah.
Okay I noticed now that I'm being a bit nit picky here but oh well. You don't have to read it. I think there are more parts but since it's just single words I couldn't find them so fast.
"At first I let the disc run and don't say anything, listening to the thick German accent. It starts off pretty easy, counting from one to twenty. I don't know how they communicate with all those hard K sounds. I'm afraidn I'd accidentally let loose some flying spit and hit someone in the eye. Not so attractive for a speech-deprived girl." (p. 62)
Well I for one manage the K sounds. I don't know what she means since I'm german and it's all natural to me so I can't say much about it.
Okay so she learns number. Eins, zwei, drei. And then she looks around again to make sure no one is watching.
"Coast is clear. I move on to short sentences, "Ich habe eine gute idee."
I have a good idea? I'm not so sure about that After a while I pick up the momentum and am repeating every word after the speaker.
Wo ist die Toilette?
Ich fühle krank.
Where is the toilet? I feel sick. Those are two sentences I should definitely hold on to in case I evertravel to Germany." (p. 63)
Okay not much wrong but it's "Ich fühle mich krank." It's pretty obvious that someone directly translated the english Ich = I, fühle = feel krank = sick. But since the grammar is different it diesn't quiet work. Notice how at this point they remember that germans have the weird habit of starting all nouns with a capital letter? But not in the above sentence. Idee (=idea) is a noun and as such should be written with a capital letter.
Well next time she goes to the lab she practices a weekdays and her "enemy" (Popular girl, The Libby) follows her and sits there saying things like "'Dorkstag. Geekstag. Freaktag.'". Apart from it being weird that the person overseeing the lab doesn't notice someone is not practicing it's just childish. And stalking the person you don't like alone to the language lab to make up childish things. Anyway I personally think the weird person here is Stacey (The Libby) because it's just weird to take you obsession so far.
Okay after their presentation Kayla gives her an invitation to a party for "german enthusiasts"
"Join us for the annual deutsch Klub Partei at the German Institute at 4150 Brickell Avenue..."
This is the funny part. Partei does mean party. Only it means political party. So this is a pretty funny mistake. Tere (Sweet T) goes on about how it's her first partei invite and stuff. If you want to say party in german you can assume that young peoplem would say party. After all we take words from the english. Or Feier, Fest, Fete which all roughly mean celebration, party.
Thanks for reading. :)