Tell me more ×
German Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of German wanting to discuss the finer points of the language and translation. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 12 down vote favorite

I am looking for a German term to describe StackExchange - the English term seems to be "Questions & Answers site" (Q&A) which has no equivalent in German (that I'm aware of). The literal translation "Frage und Antwort Webseite" sounds too complicated to me as a native German speaker, there must be a better term instead of "Frage und Antwort". Any suggestions will be appreciated.

share|improve this question
2  
For me (also native speaker) Frage und Antwort sounds ok, only Webseite sounds ugly. I would use Frage und Antwort Seite(n) or the denglisch "Frage und Antwort-Site. – knut Jul 1 '12 at 20:52
1  
Most people would prefer "Netzwerk" or "Community" above "Seite", as "Seite" sounds very crude in this context. – Mr. Beast Jul 2 '12 at 3:06
1  
Was an Frage & Antwort ist komplizierter als question & answer? Wieso muss es etwas einfacheres geben? Wo ist dieser Zwang verortet - ist es ein Naturgesetz, eine juristisch fixierte Sache? – user unknown Jul 2 '12 at 8:27
3  
@userunknown: Im Deutschen werden Komposita bevorzugt, so dass "Frage und Antwort" weniger als ein Objekt wahrgenommen wird. Im Englischen sind unverbundene Kombinationen mehrerer Wörter dagegen üblich. – Jakob Jul 2 '12 at 12:42
2  
Schnee und Eis, Kaffee und Kuchen, "Ton, Steine, Scherben", dumm und dümmer - so ungewöhnlich als dass sie eine Schwierigkeit wären sind Konjunktionen und Aufzählungen auch nicht. Die Behauptung war aber auch gar nicht dass das eine häufiger ist, sondern dass es komplizierter ist. Inwiefern ist es kompliziert? – user unknown Jul 3 '12 at 10:12
show 6 more comments

5 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Frage-und-Antwort-Seiten

There is nothing wrong with using these idiomatic pair of expressions for an Internet Q & A site. It will be perfectly understood as we do use these expressions in other contexts too, e.g.:

In case we do not want to use this more or less literal translated form we may reword it to something like:

"Stack Exchange bietet Internetseiten für Antworten auf Fragen." - "Die Internetseiten von SE beantworten ihre/deine Fragen." - "Für Antworten auf Fragen wird man auf den Stack-Exchange-Seiten fündig"

share|improve this answer
"Seite" is a poor translation, it also understood as "page" and StackExchange is more dynamic. How about "StackExchange ist ein Frage-und-Antwort-Netzwerk." and "Die Frage-und-Antwort-Community unter german.stackexchange.org beschäftigt sich mit der Deutschen Sprache"? – Jakob Jul 5 '12 at 14:35
1  
I deliberately made it plural because of that and asked another question: german.stackexchange.com/questions/4871/… ;) – Takkat♦ Jul 5 '12 at 14:47
1  
Einfach "Seiten" in Mehrzahl zu verwenden ist wahrlich clever! – user unknown Jul 5 '12 at 22:39
I've never heard "Frage und Antwort stehen" and it sounds very wrong to me. Of course that's just a subjective perception. – celtschk Jul 15 '12 at 17:15
@celtschk: Sounds kind of strange to me too, but the similarity makes it easily recognizable. "Jemandem Rede und Antwort stehen" means to answer all questions, so it's already close, and it seems that "Jemandem Frage und Antwort stehen" is already in use as a derivate of the former, just like Takkat said. – OregonGhost Jul 25 '12 at 10:43
up vote 1 down vote

I particularly like the "Community" cited by syneticon-dj, but I don't consider "Frage und Antwort" bad; however one might omit the "und" here. Therefore my suggestion:

Frage-Antwort-Community

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

From time to time, for example in the PM-Magazine, I have seen the literal translation "Fragen und Antworten" - abbreviated "F & A". See the result of the Google Search and the Wikipedia article on Frequently Asked Questions.

As it seems like "F & A" is not used very often (yet), I would say "Website mit Fragen und Antworten zu ..." - or join the Avantgarde and use "F & A-Website".

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

I remember that a while ago I contributed to the German Wikipedia article "Digitale Auskunft" which described a more general concept. "Auskunft" may be a good translation of "Frage und Antwort", as well as "Ratgeber" or the composition "Frage-Antwort" suggested by syneticon-dj. How about "Kollaborativer Auskunftsdienst"?

Edit: As suggested by Mr. Beast and syneticon-dj, "Netzwerk" or "Community" fit well. "Auskunft" instead of "Frage und Antwort" is a known and simple term but its connotation is somehow against the collaborative nature of most Q&A sites. So the best I could find by now is "Auskunftsnetzwerk" or "Auskunftscommunity".

share|improve this answer
3  
I don't think "Auskunft" matches the intent of SE very well. "Auskunft" suggests the very thing SE wants to avoid: People coming here to ask a question, and not caring any more after the answer has arrived. – celtschk Jul 2 '12 at 8:49
@celtschk: Hmmm, true, but so does Q&A, strictly speaking, doesn't it? I think the "-dienst" part is much more of a problem here: it sounds quite literally like a service hotline or something... – Mac Jul 3 '12 at 20:32
Do you seriously discard Frage und Antwort as too complicated just to suggest "Kollaborativer Auskunftsdienst" as an alternative for the common man... a well earned -1 – Emanuel Jul 4 '12 at 10:29
@Mac: I don't think "Q&A" does suggest it in the same way, because unlike "Auskunft" it doesn't tell on which side the visitor is (you wouldn't expect to go to an "Auskunft" in order to answer questions, only in order to ask them). – celtschk Jul 5 '12 at 8:36
@celtschk: True, good point! – Mac Jul 5 '12 at 8:51
up vote 13 down vote

Looking at the larger German Q&A sites and what they are calling themselves, there appears to be no standardized term for it:

  • gutefrage.net: Die Ratgeber-Community
  • wer-weiss-was.de: Know-How-Netzwerk

I would simply revert to "Frage-Antwort-Seite" / "Frage-Antwort-Forum" since this is closest to the English Q&A original.

share|improve this answer
Thanks for the suggestions. Note that there is no simple abbreviation such as the English "Q&A". – Jakob Jul 2 '12 at 7:28
1  
@Jakob: Note that there has been a software called Q&A, which was sold as F&A in Germany. – user unknown Jul 2 '12 at 8:30
Das Wort Seite in Frage-Antwort-Seite stört mich ein wenig, da es sich ja nicht um eine Seite, sondern eine Site handelt. – splattne♦ Jul 5 '12 at 11:23
@splattne It sounded too Denglish for my ears, hence the "Seite". Especially since the two words are pronounced rather similarly and used in a similar context for the web: website - Webseite. I guess it would be understood, although I agree that it is not extraordinarily elegant. – syneticon-dj Jul 5 '12 at 22:56

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.