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I am currently writing my master thesis in computer science. The thesis is written in German, but due to the subject a lot of words are English. The thesis is about the deployment of an application (which means the distribution and installation of the software). I have a lot of sentences like this:

Sie können lokal getestet werden bevor sie auf einen Cloud Anbieter deployt werden.

If have two question about this sentence:

  • How do I write combinations of English and German nouns? E.g. Cloud Anbieter or Cloud-Anbieter or Cloudanbieter? I think it is obvious that I cannot translate the term Cloud in this context, so I need to include it somehow in my German text.

  • How to decline English verbs in a German sentence? E.g. would to deploy something be deployt werden or deployed werden?

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    Concerning the second part of your question, this post might help: german.stackexchange.com/questions/4435/….
    – c.p.
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 8:59
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    Thanks! The question/answer is really good. So I would go with deployt.
    – Thomas Uhrig
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 9:06
  • Both questions have already been answered on this site. @c.p. already provided the link to question 2; and here's question 1
    – Em1
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 10:01

4 Answers 4

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"Germanizing" English loanwords has no generally accepted rules. See

Both, deployment and to deploy are well known technical terms which are not easy to transfer to German grammar rules. Both deployt, and deployed are awkward in a German sentence.

Therefore I would use the German counterpart Softwareverteilung and verteilen. You may also define somwehere in your introduction how you use these, e.g.:

Unter Softwareverteilung (engl. deployment) versteht man...

English terms in compounds are usually built using a hyphen: Cloud-Anbieter.

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  • As a software developer in Germany have to disagree with "deployt" and "deployed" being awkward in a German sentence, as they're used interchangably all the time. For example "...auch das Portal/Webseite wurde jetzt deployt..." is something one sees often.
    – Jimmerz28
    Commented Dec 17, 2018 at 9:27
  • @Jimmerz28 That may well have changed in the last 4 years. The Germanized verb deployen may eventually find its way into the dictionaries. But still, a rule whether to say deployt or deployed may take some time.
    – Takkat
    Commented Dec 17, 2018 at 9:45
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I would like you to reconsider writing your thesis in german. While I feel more comfortable writing in german, too - it gets very difficult with such problems at hand. Also, if you are reading a lot of english texts for your thesis, you will begin to think in english - then you want to write down your result and have to translate your sentence to german. Also, translating a lot of concepts is very difficult - translations are never catching the exact meaning. Last, you would have the added benefit of demonstrating good english skills and a wider target audience for your thesis.

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    You are somehow right. I really thought about writing in English. But everybody involved in the thesis (my professor, second corrector, my colleagues, myself) are native German speakers. I wrote some chapters and ended up with a bunch of simple grammatical question, nobody could answer me. Like can you says that something is shifted to the cloud or is it ported to the cloud? Or both? Of course, everybody will understand what I mean, but is it correct? Neither my professor nor I could tell that for sure. Now I have 90 solid pages in good German and a bunch of blog posts in English.
    – Thomas Uhrig
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 12:52
  • @ThomasUhrig Somehow, writing the thesis in English and use English Language & Usage or English Language Learners makes more sense to me than writing it in German and then as here how to best use English fragments. ;)
    – Raphael
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 14:07
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  1. Cloud-Anbieteris the right form to use. Don't use Cloudanbieter, switching the language 'mid-word' makes reading difficult. As Elena pointed out in comments, don't use a "Deppenleerzeichen" (space) instead of a hyphen.
  2. I am not sure about that, but there should be fitting translations for verbs. E.g. deploy could be translated to installieren. If you can't find any good translation there is topic on canoo, that might help.
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  • It is really hard to find a good translation. To deploy sth. is not the same as installieren or verteilen. It is a kind of fixed technical term.
    – Thomas Uhrig
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 9:10
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    DO NOT write "Cloud Anbieter". German compounds are written either in one word or with a hyphen, but NEVER EVER with a Deppenleerzeichen. That would be a spelling mistake.
    – elena
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 9:30
  • @elena I wasn't aware there was a rule, thank you
    – Pasoe
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 9:40
  • Deppenbindestrich instead of "Deppenleerzeichen"? Huh. I'd rather go with Cloud Provider.
    – Raphael
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 10:57
  • @Raphael me as well, but as I said, I didn't know the rule. ->Wikipedia
    – Pasoe
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 11:06
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In this particular case, I'd use

Cloudprovider or Cloud-Provider

which is closer to the English original (if capitalised) but still understandable; "Provider" is widely used for (German) internet and mobile service providers.

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  • @Takkat "Cloud Provider" as English compound certainly needs no hypen (in most circumstances); are you suggesting to Germanify the grammar but not the words?
    – Raphael
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 14:06
  • You may be interested in the official rule §45 E1 which says so - alternatively we can build a composite Cloudprovider (but this hurts my eyes too much).
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 14:23
  • @Takkat In that case, I'd take the proper compound without "Deppenbindestrich"; but apparently, that's a matter of taste.
    – Raphael
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 14:27

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