Jim Murdoch

seine Pappenheimer kennen

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:12:14 +0000

Means to know your own shortcomings, or another’s weaknesses and is in relatively common usage, I found it in a story related to a computer game – can’t get commoner than that! Now regarded as being ‘abwertend’, i.e. negative the original meaning was more in the other direction. The phrase originates from Schiller’s ‘Wallenstein’s Tod’ (The Death of Wallenstein, final part of Schiller’s ‘Wallenstein’s Camp’ trilogy, set during the 30 Years War) and is attributed to the eponymous Bohemian General (from Bohemia, not someone who lounged about smoking opium and doing a bit of sketching), he was something of a freebooting commander with a regiment of 30,000+ troops. Wallenstein came out with the statement, “I know my Pappenheimers” when speaking to a delegation of rival German General Pappenheimer’s heavy cavalry ‘Kürasserie’. P. and his troops also were especially famed for their valour and these serious characters had come over to check whether or not Wallenstein had been negotiating with the enemy Swedes. So in saying he recognised his Pappeneheimers when he saw them, he was saying he recognised strength and, thus authority. So the modern usage of the phrase sees its meaning turned through 180 degrees. Interesting…

Tinte, Pult, Feder, Tafel, Kreide

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:39:32 +0000

How times change. A couple of days ago I showed my 15 year old daughter a copy of ‘Aufenthalt in Deutschland’, (Sojourn in Germany) Book I, the very first German textbook I had at school. It’s a wonderful period piece, first published in 1949, my (I’m sure little changed) edition is 1955 and I would have been using it in 1968-9. As you might imagine it’s very straight-laced and not just dull but decidedly gloomy – the gloominess being most amply furnished by the dark b/w etchings or engravings (?) of scenes to illustrate each chapter’s main German text which is also the subject for comprehension exercises and introduces new bits of grammar and vocab. At the end of each chapter there is a list of vocabulary.

When I showed the list from Chapter 1 to my daughter (a consistent A* student of German) she immediately pointed out the five words above: Tinte: ink, as in the fluid you might pour into an inkwell. Pult: desk, as in the type possibly with a steel frame and a lift up lid, Feder: fountain pen, well like a fountain pen which kids certainly don’t use in schools anymore. And the last two: Tafel: blackboard and Kreide: chalk – a truly prehistoric combination. She didn’t know these words, they were irrelevant to her and her every day school routine, she had never needed to learn them. Dontcha feel old some days?

Kaulquappe

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:55:49 +0000

I certainly don’t belong to that elite group of translators who know every single word in their source/target languages – or seem to / like to give the impression that they do and yesterday I found my own modest German Wortschatz expanded by one further most excellent word: ‘Kaulquappe’ – ‘tadpole’. It’s clearly amazing how in er, just short of 29 years of (hopefully increasing) proficiency in German I have managed to muddle through without knowledge of this word. Rest assured, Amphibians / ‘Amphibien’ are set to feature more heavily in my future German discourses. Say the word out loud to yourself: “COWLQVAPPEH”. Wunderbar!

As this here Wordblog is obviously most throughly researched, you may also wish to know that I learned another word for ‘tadpole’ too – ‘Polliwog’ – apparently in quite common usage in American English. I must be watching the wrong shows…

Marketing-Texte

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:29:57 +0000

Just completed a quick job of 300+ words of ‘marketing text’ for a computer game. Being such a great whizz at these things, my translations into English often then become the master version for subsequent translation into other languages. As I was working on this text and spending a disproportionate amount of time labouring over certain words or expressions – inevitably involving excursions to other Internet sites to check a possible metaphor, or indeed find some inspiration for another way of expressing ‘hervorragend’ (outstanding, excellent, brilliant, ace, egregious etc…), for example possibly tying in with the game’s subject matter: ‘tyre-smokingly fast acceleration’ – that’s just for illustration OK! Phew hold on, that sentence was just reaching Germanic proportions. [Pause] I was wondering just how far you should go with such translations? If, to continue the car/speed thing, I were to slip in an image culled from the 70’s cult, now reborn through retro-isation, ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ TV show, would a French or Spanish translator be er, tuned into the fact that, for example ‘General Lee’ was the name of the boys’ car?

So while a translator who produces a ‘master version’ does need to be aware of the ‘Chinese Whisper’ effect, should he/she rein in their creative translation and merely render the orginal as closely as possible into their target language with the result that the client might end up with, shall we say, 5 bland target language marketing texts? Meanwhile the German orginator (who of course isn’t a bad English speaker on the side) says: “Why has Jim translated ‘hervorragend’ as ‘brilliant’? If I’d meant that I’d have said ‘genial’ or ‘glänzend’.” You can’t win… (NOTE: The illustrations in this post are hypothetical, loosely based on actual events.)

Mischregie

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:18:36 +0000

An excellent word which cropped up in translating a website for a recording studio. I eventually opted for translating this as ‘mixing suite’. The word appears to be a er, ‘mix’ of ‘Misch’ (mischen – to mix) and the French word ‘régie’ which most commonly (for the English reader) is seen in French film credits and would you believe, can be translated as ‘mise en scène’… ‘Mise en scène’ meanwhile is described in Wikipedia as film cristicism’s “grand undefined term”*. So you can see right away how this translation lark can quite rapidly descend into a farcical etymological romp. If you let it… which I all too often do… This will, believe me, affect your productivity. I seem to have skipped the fact that ‘Regie’ also crops up in German too. Duden offers ‘verantwortliche Leitung’ as its no. 1 meaning. ‘Responsible direction/leadership/charge’. Take your pick. See, translation’s not just about swapping one word for the next. WE ARE UNDERPAID for the intellectual input required for this work.

So how did I eventually end up translating ‘regie’ as ’suite’??? Well I happened to know that the text pertained to a picture of a room containing a mixing desk (Mischpult) among other things – a ’suite’ of other things no less. I also happen to know from my own experience working in video production (see BIO) that both the room in which video editing takes place and also the electronic hardware itself can be jointly and separately referred to as an ‘edit suite’. ‘Mixing suite’ does sound rather better than ‘mixing direction room’ you have to agree.

Tempting but, ‘Regie’ – ‘Regierung’ and the latin invasion will have to wait another day.

*Brian Henderson, “The Long Take,” in Movies and Methods: An Anthology, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 315.

Bitte lächeln

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:28:11 +0000

Ich mache ab und zu ‘Surf-Touren’ wobei ich DE/EN Websites erforsche und die ein bisschen unter die Lupe nehme. Es interessiert mich nämlich wie man den Inhalt aus der Ausgangssprache in die Zielsprache konvertiert hat. Es ist ja überraschend gerade wieviele deutsche Firmen diese ‘Konvertierungsarbeit’ eigentlich intern machen lassen. Natürlich bei vielen deutschen Unternehmen gibt’s auch viele Leute, die sehr gute Englischkenntnisse haben. Genau wie dieser, sind die von ihnen erstellten Texte zwar verständlich aber muss man zugeben, daß es auch kein ‘Englisch’ (bzw ‘Deutsch’) ist. Ich möchte mich jedoch nicht dafür entschuldigen, daß ich kein 100%-ig korrektes Deutsch schreibe – bin doch Engländer, bin auch in England wohnhaft. Aber wenn ich mir etwas auf Deutsch ausserhalb des Blog-Rahmens veröffentlichen möchte, würde ich mir einen Übersetzer mit der entsprechenden Muttersprache dafür einstellen. Zufälligerweise bei solchen DE>EN-Bedarfen kann man sich hier bei mir melden.

Ach du liebe Zeit!

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:02:08 +0000

Just testing here to see what this rather nice, quaint even, German expression looks like. It’s a pretty tame old-fashioned phrase and can be used freely without giving offence.

Lit. “Oh you dear time!” meaning: “Oh dear!”, “Goodness gracious!”, “For Pete’s sake!” etc.

You can pep this phrase up a little by exchanging ‘Zeit’ with ‘Scheisse’ and dispense with the ‘lieber’ at the same time, thus giving us “Ach du Scheisse!” This gives us “Oh bugger it! or “Oh bollocks!” or “Oh shit!” even… or something of a similar register.

Welcome to the JMCS GE>EN Wordblog!

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:11:29 +0000

Thanks for visiting this new JMCS site – things are slowly coming together and as you will have seen when you clicked on GE>EN Wordblog tab, there are now a few entries here.

It’s my intention to populate this blog space with some words that I drop upon in my daily work (which is mainly GE>EN translation) and which I would like to talk about. I speak/write as an autodidact and critical academic types may well shudder at my assertions and non-academic pseudological musings. Well be that as it may, I would welcome any professorial comment.

Most importantly though I would like you to enjoy this content and keep dropping by to see what’s new. If you’re a potential client and would like to employ a translator / writer/ editor / proofreader who may well have a different approach to the job from the one you’re used to, then please get in touch. No flags, globes, pictures of laptops and smart people in business suits here.