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Where this is a forum post and the tone is one in which I did, indeed, get something to translate out of the post (exclamation with an elative tone, I suppose). I did try a dictionary and googling but turned up nothing. It’s a quite specific question, I think …

I did think of the possibility:

Ich habe gehofft, dass ich etwas zu übersetzen aus diesem Beitrag holen können würde.

But that seems wrong to me. Or if not wrong, not very idiomatic.

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  • Your suggestion is almost correct. "zu übersetzen" should be replaced by the nominalization "zum Übersetzen" which sounds more natural to a native speaker. I'm not completely sure why, probably because vocal collision is avoided. Furthermore, expressions like "holen können würde" (more than two verbs in a row) should be avoided whenever it's possible. "holen könnte" is perfectly fine.
    – Œlrim
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 0:48

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You could say:

  • Ich hatte gehofft, dass ich etwas zum Übersetzen aus diesem Post herausholen kann/könnte.
  • Ich hatte gehofft, dass dieser Post etwas zum Übersetzen hergibt.
  • Ich hatte mir von/in diesem Post etwas zum Übersetzen erhofft.

The third option is the most formal one, the others are rather colloquial.

However, ich hatte gehofft does not indicate whether your hopes came true. If you want to clarify that, you can start your sentence as follows:

  • Ich bin froh, dass … (I’m glad …)
  • Ich wusste, dass … (I knew …)
  • Schön, dass … (Nice to see that …)

or

  • Schade. Ich hatte [eigentlich] gehofft, dass … (Pity! I was hoping that …)
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