Translating "Ten Good Things Happen To Felix Gaeta"

[trovia]

Original: "Ten Good Things Happen To Felix Gaeta" by lls-mutant. I'm going to post it tomorrow or something. (rap541's "Going Native" is online though: Unter Wilden"Ten Things" was easy in terms of finding the right words but there were a couple of interesting general difficulties which I think are rather typical for English-German translation. I warn you though,

Comments

[brennanspeaks]

Fascinating . . . I have essentially no exposure to German beyond what I overhear from my roommate who's majoring in it.
Lots of rules. Like millari, I never quite got tu and usted, even for the little bit I had to do in Spanish class. Languages: a hundred different ways to end up with your foot in your mouth.
It's cool how you worked it into your translation, though. I kind of wish terms of respect and honorifics were more a part of Anglophonic culture (people give me funny looks when I call the cleaning staff "sir" and "maam," but what am I supposed to do? They're old enough to be my parents.)
Ah, the bases . . . I think they vary a little with each generation. I once got up the nerve to ask my mother, and her answer matched lls mutant's, but my (now ex) boyfriend's definition involved the mouth, not the hands (by this definition, he docked himself a base, poor kid.) But, no, nobody really worries about the bases much and the dating structure itself is starting to blur.

[trovia]

Languages: a hundred different ways to end up with your foot in your mouth.

Hell, yes. You wouldn't believe how often I've screwed up, using, say, "it" when refering to a child. ;) I occasionally forget that it doesn't work like that in English.

But, no, nobody really worries about the bases much and the dating structure itself is starting to blur.

It's funny that you should say that, considering we've started to import the dating to Germany. I know people younger than me have started talking of dates.

[safenthecity]

I found this really interesting. I knew exactly nothing about German before reading this, and now I know you have fun pronoun dilemas. :)

I really wish I had been taught another language. I took some French, and if people speak slowly I can usually catch a general idea of parts of conversations, but I'm hopelessly jealous that you can switch languages.

[trovia]

The French use their pronouns very similarly to us, I believe... at least I don't remember having any trouble with them in school. But, although I took French classes for five years, I barely remember anything. :)

You could still learn, you know. You could learn German, now that you've been introduced to the pronominal mess. ;)

[safenthecity]

Yeah, vous vs tu, we pretty much learned that as meaning formal/plural vs.informal/singular.

I want to. I may look into that in the future. I think languages are so interesting- I just don't have a knack for them.

[prophetkristy]

These are so fascinating! I'm getting some cultural education, which is never bad ("we just attack and score": HEE! actually, that seems to make sense with how you've described our differences in courting!). Plus I learned the German word for smile (isn't it sad that I didn't know that before?) and was able to read and understand „Und danke, dass Sie ein gutes Wort für mich eingelegt haben. Ich kann Ihnen nicht sagen, wieviel mir das bedeutet.“ without reading the English bit first. :-) Yeah, my German is pretty bad.

[trovia]

Well, German is hard to learn. I'm impressed whenever I encounter a person who does. Yaih for understanding that line! :)

I never would have thought that there are so many cultural differences, at first. But there are, although they are all very subtle.

[zeroambi]

Dieses Protokoll Gesieze im Militär/auf der Arbeit in den US Serien-Synchronistationen macht mich echt kirre

[trovia]

Interessante Vorschläge. "Fürsprecher" kam mir auch in den Sinn, aber letztendlich hat mir "Rückendeckung" besser gefallen.

Jupp, im Militär ist "Sie" Dienstvorschrift. Sogar in der Grundausbildung. Und auf der Arbeit wird auch ziemlich oft "Sie" benutzt, obwohl sich die Betroffenen privat duzen. Halt in offiziellen Meetings usw. Unsere Doktoranden duzen unsere Profs privat, benutzen im Seminar aber "Sie". Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass Hoshi und Gaetas Unterhaltung im CIC wahrscheinlich von niemandem mitgehört wird, ginge zwar auch "du", aber sie sind ja beide sehr korrekte Menschen, also hielt ich "Sie" für aussagekräftiger.

Interessanterweise hatte ich ursprünglich "zugehört" benutzt, habs dann aber in "hingehört" geändert. Ist in diesem Fall wahrscheinlich wirklich Geschmackssache. Über das "schräg" werde ich mir aber auf jeden Fall mal Gedanken machen. Manchmal nimmt man ja gar nicht wahr, dass man regionale Ausdrücke benutzt.

[mondenengel]

If I ever get to a point where I start talking about pronoun difficulties in my translations, I'll simply point to your entry here (because I'm lazy like that and could never explain it as good as you did here. Might be because you're studying stuff like this while I'm struggling through American Literature and moldy Portuguese texts...)

I found the cultural parts of this post very intresting, especially since I started taking DaF courses this semester and am slowly getting sensitized to these small differences. Well, once again I'm keeping that in mind. =)

[trovia]

Well, I do have an unfair advantage with the pronouns. I wrote a paper on it once, and I picked it as a subject in one of my finals. It's tricky to figure out all the rules. I don't think I could. I'm drawing on the literature I read on it.

I started to get sensitized to the cultural stuff when I got involved in the American fandoms. It's nothing overt, but there are little things that keep throwing me. Like when I beta, and I'm told thank you the tenth time in a row, and I run out of answers. In German, it's all "Could you beta? - Sure. - Thanks." In English, it's like an obituary. ;) Fortunately, people catch on to it. I'm starting to get less "Thank you" and more "You're awesome" which you know I cherish. ;)

[mondenengel]

I'll wait for the day when something I write papers about gets useful for writing/translating.

I've read somewhere that in the U.S. for Germans it's hard to tell when people aren't actually only being polite to you, e.g. when telling you to call them or something (because apparently for them it's only polite to tell you to call after meeting you even if they don't mean it). As a rule of thumb it was suggested that when they repeat it three times then they really mean it. I found that very fascinating. :)

(New icon for variation purposes...)

[trovia]

I've always picked my subject matters by way of watching out for the interesting stuff (pronouns used by students, lesbian slang, why did people kill themselves after reading Goethe, that kind of thing ;)). On the upside, very useful for fanfic (you've read my experiments with gay slang, I know... which reminds me that you've never read "Aus der Asche" :p. I abused all my knowledge on psychology for that one). On the downside, I now have to deal with homosexuality and holocaust literature and I can't find any literature on it! Arghl!

That said...

I've read somewhere that in the U.S. for Germans it's hard to tell when people aren't actually only being polite to youI totally get that. I would have a problem with that as well. I also wouldn't know when "How do you do?" actually warrants the truth. British politeness, on the other hand, is easy. Very straightforward. I never had a problem with that when I was there. And the Canadians are just cute. :D When I talk to Canadians, it's all 50% politeness, 50% actual content. Very wordy.