23
votes
Can anyone provide any translation of this tombstone?
wir haben euch zur Ruh gebracht
ihr schlaft nun eine lange Nacht
kein Ruf zu wecken euch vermag
als die Posaun am jüngsten Tag
In English it is something along the lines
we have brought you to rest
...
- 8,753
17
votes
Accepted
"bieten" with the meaning of "to ensure"
The example sentence is slightly wrong. The verb is supposed to be etw. / jmdm. Einhalt gebieten, meaning "to stop sth. from happening / to stop so. from doing something". The author simply ...
- 17.6k
14
votes
Accepted
What is the lady saying between 0:45 and 0:47 in this radio episode by SRF?
It is Swiss German sali zäme, which corresponds to Standard German salut zusammen.
- 7,262
13
votes
Accepted
Why is " arbeiten " at the beginning of the sentence? "Arbeiten muss ich nicht mehr"
Another possible word order is:
Ich muss nicht mehr arbeiten.
The word "muss" is the finite verb, the verb that is inflected according to person ("ich muss" but "wir müssen&...
- 20.9k
12
votes
What is the lady saying between 0:45 and 0:47 in this radio episode by SRF?
As covered in mach's answer, this is a colloquial Swiss German greeting. Since there is no standardized written form of Swiss German, you may find it written in various different ways:
First word:
...
- 751
11
votes
Accepted
Wenn Leute sagen, dass das deutsche Wort "Mist" "Gülle" bedeutet, ist das wahr oder nur ein Witz?
Das deutsche Wort "Mist" bezieht sich tatsächlich auf tierische Ausscheidungen. "Gülle" stimmt nicht ganz, wie Janka schon erklärt hat; als englische Entsprechung könnte man "...
- 19.2k
10
votes
So what's a "Realencyclopädie"?
Spanish real ("royal") stems from Spanish rey, which roots in latin rex ("king"). The Real-Prefix in your word stems from latin res ("thing"), which is, by the way, also ...
- 17.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Can "Zusammenstellung" mean "summary"?
In my feeling, "Zusammenfassung" and "Zusammenstellung" are clearly different, I don't see how context might influence this. "Zusammenfassung" = "summary" is ...
- 3,181
7
votes
Accepted
Translation of poem
It is key to separate this mess a little. Let's start with the second phrase:
Es geziemt, da der Meister selber schweigt, daß die für ihn Dir nun danke, der Du oft seither gezeigt, daß in Deinem Sinn ...
- 17.6k
7
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of "vor den Teufel" in this sentence "Mag ich vor den Teufel nicht" in an Opera?
Meaning of vor
vor is archaic here and would be für in modern German
für and vor have been used interchangeably, both with the meaning of Latin pro.
Two examples:
Petrus aber stund draussen fur der ...
- 17.6k
7
votes
How should this sentence with the seemingly critical words "willst" and "doch" be interpreted?
This is just a case of a bad transcript. Below is the whole verse as it is transcribed here, which is obviously full of incorrect punctuation. It seems like they just mindlessly put a full stop at the ...
- 26.9k
6
votes
One translation uses "were used" while the other uses "could be used"
The original translation has the correct meaning
The German uses a roundabout way of saying that the feat was achieved.
This form also exists in English:
Example "Finally the culprit could be ...
- 251
6
votes
Accepted
Ka-Binen Sänger - Joke?
In some southern dialects the pronounciation of
Kabinensänger (= singer in a cabin/cubicle/here in the sense of shower)
Is very similar to
kein Bühnensänger (= no stage singer)
(Phonetically the '...
- 10.7k
6
votes
Wenn Leute sagen, dass das deutsche Wort "Mist" "Gülle" bedeutet, ist das wahr oder nur ein Witz?
Mist ist nicht dasselbe wie Gülle. Gülle bezeichnet ein flüssiges Gemisch aus Kot und Urin. Mist ist hingegen weitestgehend trocken, weil an Einstreu, meist Stroh gebunden.
- 60.4k
6
votes
Accepted
How come bold part of the sentence is subject?
If Personalchefs were the subject, the verb would have to be in plural, because Personalchefs is plural.
Also, if the bold part were accusative, it would have to be einen Berufs- oder Personalwechsel, ...
- 15.9k
6
votes
Accepted
When to use the present participle (-nd) in German vs gerund (-ing) in English
You're right in that English uses the -ing form much more often than German uses the -nd form. In particular when you say "is ...-ing" in English you almost always have to rephrase. So "...
- 11.5k
6
votes
So what's a "Realencyclopädie"?
It's another name for a so called Realwörterbuch, or by modern laymen terms a Lexikon. In English this would be an encyclopedia.
The contrasting term is Sprachwörterbuch. Those explain the word rather ...
- 60.4k
5
votes
Help Identify the name of the Hessen-Cassel Grenadier Company 1786
It is definitely "Flügel Grenadier Compagnie". The second "l" is a spelling mistake.
Some interesting links are
Militairy and phaleristic history of the Kurfürstentum Hessen, ...
- 10.6k
5
votes
Accepted
One translation uses "were used" while the other uses "could be used"
The English "could be used" is possibly slightly more ambiguous than than the German "konnten zum Einsatz gebracht werden" but still ist the translation nearer to the original. It'...
- 10.7k
5
votes
Accepted
Bismarck/Caprivi cigars
Bismarck smoked cigars very often. Here is a caricature showing Otto von Bismarck and Eduard Lasker as cigars: link to image and here is another cartoon showing Bismarck smoking: another image.
I ...
- 123k
5
votes
Wie habe ich das nur gemacht?
"Wie habe ich das gemacht?" would be a neutral question, where I ask another person to tell me how I did it. For instance, an illusionist could ask this his audience, after performing a ...
- 481
4
votes
Accepted
What are the two words on the first line?
Quite sure the first word on all three lines is "erhalten" (meaning "received" or, much less likely, "preserved"), and the second word on each line looks like a (possibly ...
- 26.9k
4
votes
Accepted
Clarification of a piece of German text
Whose account (Konto) is it that the money is coming from when the machine (die Maschine) disburses it to somebody?
What's meant here is not the account or cash cartridge of the machine, but the ...
- 26.9k
4
votes
What is the meaning of "vor den Teufel" in this sentence "Mag ich vor den Teufel nicht" in an Opera?
It's a simple intensifier. The mention of "devil" indicates that it's a strong intensifier, but the literal meaning is arbitrary, just as something "hellishly" difficult doesn't ...
- 14.8k
4
votes
What's the difference between "ertragen", "erdulden" and "aushalten"?
Those verbs are almost synonymous in meaning. Aushalten is the most colloquial of those:
Hälst du es noch ein wenig länger aus?
Geht's noch!? Der Lärm ist ja nicht zum Aushalten!
The verb ertragen ...
- 60.4k
4
votes
Accepted
Why is "keiner" masculine in this sentence? "Keiner sagt dir, was du tun sollst"
Keiner is a pronoun; the ending -er is masculine. One of the functions of the masculine is referring to persons, most clearly shown by interrogative wer (as opposed to neuter was, which refers to ...
- 26.4k
4
votes
Can "Zusammenstellung" mean "summary"?
The question is difficult to answer without context - a concrete sentence or paragraph, where the word is used.
"Zusammenstellung" is a Verb (verb) made "*Nomen" (noun). The Verb ...
- 8,300
4
votes
Accepted
Error converting the time to 24 hour format
The translation by Google Translate is wrong, but also »Es ist einundzwanzig Uhr dreiundvierzig.« is a weird way to write the time. Nobody writes it that way, and maybe that's why Google has never ...
- 123k
4
votes
Accepted
So what's a "Realencyclopädie"?
I concur with the other answers in that real (from latin res, via realis; sachlich) means dealing with more than the meaning of words, instead presenting knowledge in a summary format. Realwörterbuch ...
- 26.4k
3
votes
Accepted
Help translating 1940 Fraktur font from Google snippet view
… Intensivierung der eigenen Landwirtschaft selbst einen großen Eigenbedarf haben. Bekanntlich sollen bis zu einer Million polnische Arbeitskräfte eingesetzt werden. Allerdings ist diese Zahl bei ...
- 60.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible