Overview

For the next few months, McElroy will be running a series of articles that highlight some of the characteristics of top languages used in doing business globally. This month, we look at German, in an interview conducted with McElroy Translator Gerhard Preisser.

What are some pitfalls to avoid, specific to this language, a client should be aware of when translating into this language?

First off, a general observation: A good German translation of an English source text is not only a product of good linguistic skills in both languages on the part of the translator; it also depends to a smaller or greater extent on the content, specifically the degree to which a given text is steeped in cultural/societal idiosyncrasies. English texts that draw heavily on concepts or experiences that are foreign to the intended German reader will require more than a translation to have the same impact they possess in English. Some examples: Advertising material with liberal baseball analogies, biographical texts highlighting school and university degrees commonly offered only in the US, product literature highlighting devices mostly unknown in Germany (such as a food disposal).

Some comments about technical documents (such as user manuals):

• Clients should be aware that lengthy introductions common to US publications, expressing gratitude and appreciation for the customer for having bought a specific product, are considered somewhat ingratiating; a simple “we’re happy you bought our widget” will suffice perfectly.
• Technical documents produced in the US sometimes tend to be quite personal in tone—this does not translate well into German and should be avoided (no need to say “please”).
• Warranty information should reflect EU or German conventions and legal requirements; it is pointless to have finer legal points such as those regulating commerce between US states translated.
• Toll-free phone customer service phone numbers are of no special help to potential callers from abroad.
• Advising users of any given product to use non-metric tools (e.g. a “3/8 inch socket”) to manipulate non-metric devices/fasteners is rather pointless.

What are characteristics of this language that are unique or different from English and/or other languages?

1. Unlike English, German is a highly declensional language, based on a system of a multitude of inflections and cases. For each word in each word class—noun, verb or adjective—there is a substantial set of possible inflections. This makes stemming considerably more complicated compared to English.
2. It is possible in German to build compounds by joining two or more words, e.g. “Haustür” (front door) or “Schulbusfahrer” (school bus driver). In theory, any number of combinations—noun+noun, adjective+adjective, adjective+noun, adjective+verb, verb+noun, etc.—is conceivable. A popular example is the word “Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitän”—captain commanding a steamboat on the [river] Danube.

How do these characteristics make it important to use properly qualified, professional translators?

Given the complex system of endings, it is not surprising that even native speakers of German with an average education occasionally get it wrong. Infamous trouble spots are the weak vs. strong declension of adjectives, correct endings of adjectives following certain indefinite numerals, verb forms in the subjunctive I, and strong vs. weak past participle forms of verbs. Yet mistakes of this sort, while relatively common, DO get noticed by discerning readers and anyone who thinks they have an above average grasp of the language (i.e. the vast majority of Germans holding post high school degrees), and they do cause irritation. Professional translators can be trusted to avoid such errors.

While declension and conjugation follow precisely and comprehensively defined rules, the issue of word building through compounding is by nature a bit more intuitive. Compounds lend themselves to the formation of perfectly acceptable neologisms; a police car is a “Polizeiauto,” the moon vehicle a “Mondauto,” and should there ever be a car made to ride on the surface of Venus, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be called a “Venusauto.” Compounds enlarge the available vocabulary almost endlessly, and I can think of dozens of perfectly legitimate compounds one won’t find in most dictionaries. Forming a compound, however, is not always as easy as taking one adjective/noun/verb and simply adding another adjective/noun/verb. Many require linking letters—such as s, es or er—and depending on the letter(s) chosen, the very same compound word may take on a different meaning: “Kinderkopf” is a child’s head, “Kindskopf” a childish person; “Geschichtenbuch” is a story book, “Geschichtsbuch” a history book.

The creation of compounds that make sense and are formed correctly is difficult to learn by a non-native speaker of German and, since compounds cannot always be verified by checking an available dictionary or glossary, a “finer point” of the language best left to experts.