Since 2005, we have been donating to a good cause in January. It all started with the Frankfurt women’s shelter ‘die kanne’. That’s where the idea of yoga classes for children came up. The project was well received, so for almost ten years we made regular donations to the shelter in January, sometimes adding a […]
WHAT REALLY COUNTS 2 Read More »
Trend 5: The “Konjunktiv” is being used increasingly rarely to express indirect or reported speech Nowadays, most Germans would not see any problem in the following sentence: „Der Vorsitzende der Gesellschaft hat mitgeteilt, dass er nicht plant, an der Versammlung teilzunehmen.“ This is somehow surprising, as the Duden, which is, in terms of authority, a
HAVE THERE BEEN ANY CHANGES IN GERMAN LEGALESE V? Read More »
We have been providing you with translations of legal and financial texts for more than 20 years. And to mark our anniversary, we naturally asked ourselves whether the language of law has changed during this time. And of course there have been changes. The most important trend is the steady advance of Anglicisms into German
Have there been any changes in German legalese? Read More »
In my last post, I talked about how German authorities have a “somewhat difficult” relationship with foreign words. This is also true for other areas: In technology, for example, only German laypeople talk about a ‘Computer’ when they mean the calculating machine or a ‘Box’ when they have a HiFi speaker in mind. Experts prefer
ABSCHRIFT FROM THE URSCHRIFT II Read More »
German official language always has a somewhat complicated relationship with foreign words. Take, for example, the strange terms that buzz around a German notary’s office: Of course you can say ‘Original’ for an original and call the sheets that come out of the copying machine a ‘Kopie’. But it sounds much more official when an
ABSCHRIFT FROM AN URSCHRIFT? Read More »
I’m sure you remember the conversation between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Selenskyi in the Oval Office. The Ukrainian president appeared without an interpreter, although English is not his mother tongue. Could the scandal have been avoided if an interpreter had been present, perhaps to act as a buffer? Not necessarily, and for a very simple
WOULD IT HAVE BEEN ANY DIFFERENT WITH AN INTERPRETER? PART 2 Read More »
We’ve probably all seen the recent catastrophic meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Selenskyi. Even though the Ukrainian president isn’t a native speaker of English, he didn’t make use of an interpreter, so the two weren’t playing on a level field from the very start. Would the conversation have gone differently if President Selenskyi had
Would things have gone differently with an interpreter? Read More »
You may recall that last year, our January donations went towards protecting young savages – or oak trees – in a new forested area under the Wohlleben Urwaldprojekt. Even at the tender age of 120, these oaks – by primeval forest standards – are still rather green, so to speak. Which is why it makes sense to protect them starting
YOUNG SAVAGES KEEP DOING GOOD Read More »
“I never said that English was an easy language” – these words by Mr Webster, a lecturer at the Institute for Translation and Interpreting at Heidelberg University, are etched in my memory for eternity and beyond. He would go on to recite typical pitfalls like “clocks and watches, scholars and scientists”, etc. But Mr Webster
I NEVER SAID THAT ENGLISH WAS AN EASY LANGUAGE Read More »
The swedes know it too. In Swedish, tår is a cup of coffee. If you are on your second cup of coffee, you say påtår. And because Swedish people love coffee so much, there is also the tretår – meaning the third cup of coffee, for when your 5-minute coffee break is not so short
THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM Read More »
