What is the best way to translate the phrase on the fly? For example in:
I’ll try to capture the data on the fly.
The only translation that I was able to find was spontan, but I’m not sure if this translation is any good.
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Sign up to join this communityWhat is the best way to translate the phrase on the fly? For example in:
I’ll try to capture the data on the fly.
The only translation that I was able to find was spontan, but I’m not sure if this translation is any good.
I agree with Stephie's answer. However, there is a different non-technical use.
I'm going to give a presentation, but I don't need to prepare anything. I'll deal with questions on the fly.
That would be roughly translated to German like this:
Ich werde eine Präsentation halten, aber ich muss mich nicht vorbereiten. Fragen beantworte ich aus dem Stegreif.
Duden.de defines that as without preparation:
ohne Vorbereitung; improvisiert
Because that has come up, Stegreif
without an h
is indeed the correct spelling. Wikipedia.de explains nicely that it is an oldfashioned form of the contemporary word Steigbügel, which is stirrup in English. The things you put your feet in when riding a horse, and also what you use to lift yourself up when climbing on the horse.
The Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache e. V. explains the German idiom Aus dem Stegreif as follows*.
[...] Ursprünglich war aus dem Stegreif rein wörtlich zu verstehen als ›etwas tun/vortragen, ohne vom Pferd zu steigen‹. Hieraus leitete sich die übertragene Bedeutung ab, die sich bis heute gehalten hat: ›etwas ohne Vorbereitung, ohne langes Überlegen tun oder vortragen, improvisieren‹. [...]
*) Cut marks [...] mine.
In a technical context like your example on the fly is used in a sense of "without stopping (the machine / the current process / the data flow / ...)".
For these situations the German translation would be:
im laufenden Betrieb
(The other sense of "in a hurry" doesn't really fit your example - unless you want to say that you get the data real quick.)
Oder französisch/schachspielerisch:
If you're working in an IT environment, you can write:
Ich werde versuchen die Daten während der Laufzeit aufzuzeichnen*.
or
Ich werde versuchen die Daten zur Laufzeit aufzuzeichnen.
*("aufzunehmen" would work, too)
Whereas "aufzeichnen/aufnehmen" is usually translated as "record" and "zur/während der Laufzeit" as "during runtime".
On a personal note: reading your sentence I rather understand that not you personally are recording the data but rather your application, device or something like that. So, a better way to phrase this would be (IMHO)
Data will be captured on the fly. - Die Daten werden zur Laufzeit aufgenommen.
Especially when you're talking about processing data, you could use "in Echtzeit" (in real-time, without latency).
on-the-fly can have many different translations. Here are a few that come to my mind:
The meaning your sentence uses is "in Echtzeit". Alternatives for the same context are "ohne Verzögerung" or "zur Laufzeit" or "im Betrieb". Literal back translations of these are in order "without delay", "during run-time" and "during operation" (As in "while the program still operates").
Ich werde versuchen, die Daten nebenher zu erfassen.
"Nebenher" something that's done alongside, without halting or hindering a simultaneous process.