Questions tagged [translation]
Übersetzung - Questions on issues while translating from or to German. Use with care as these questions are very likely to be closed as a translation request, which would be off topic. Don't use this tag on phrase requests or proverb analogies.
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"Auskopplungen" in musical context
I'm translating a short Wikipedia article about a music band from German to English.
I've done most of it with help from Google Translate and my virtually non-existent knowledge of German language, ...
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German word for "suspension" / "suspended harmony" (music theory)
I'm searching for a German word for suspension, referring to music theory. Suspension as in suspended harmony.
From Wikipedia:
A suspension (SUS) (sometimes referred to as a syncope) occurs when ...
7
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Wie habe ich das nur gemacht?
So the question is in the title.
Because my German is still very basic, and I only know that "nur" means "only", I was wondering if in this phrasing it acts something like a modal ...
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Is there a German word for the exercise phenomenon "second wind"?
"Second wind" is an exercise phenomenon, where after hitting a wall, and getting the feeling you need to stop, you are able to rally your body, and find strength again to carry on at good ...
CommunityBot
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What does the phrase "auf die Nase setzen" mean in "Könnt' ich mir doch noch so einen Schurken auf die Nase setzen, wie den Pedrillo" in an Opera
This sentence is found in Mozart's Opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail".
Sample text link you can find this sentence at the first line.
Könnt' ich mir doch noch so einen Schurken auf die ...
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What is the meaning of "vor den Teufel" in this sentence "Mag ich vor den Teufel nicht" in an Opera?
I'm recently trying to understand the lyrics of the Opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" by Mozart.
In Act 1, Osmin's Aria "Solche hergelaufne Laffen" (one example text and ...
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What is the meaning of "Gift und Dolch" (in Mozart's Opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
Osmin, one of the characters in this Opera said this phrase multiple times.
Gift und Dolch
For example in here
OSMIN
Gift und Dolch! was ist das? wer kann ins Haus steigen?
Another example in here:
...
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Do German speakers who would otherwise use "Sie" ever use "du" out of anger?
I am translating a video game into German and I am sometimes unsure whether someone should be using "du" or "Sie." I have heard that "du" is normally used to indicate ...
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Frage über eine Übersetzung von Celan: die/der/das Wache(n)?
Ich habe in der von Pierre Joris übersetzten Sammlung von Paul-Celan-Gedichten „Breathturn Into Timestead“ die folgende Zeile gelesen (Atemwende, S.12):
Dein vom Wachen stößiger Traum.
die als ...
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4
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"baking in the freezer" in Heinrich Böll
I recently read Heinrich Böll's =The Clown= (in English) and stumbled over a passage that appeared to be an inelegant translation. Our narrator is describing making props out of ice for an act in ...
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"Sätze und satzwertige Infinitivphrasen können Gegenstand von Ausklammerung ins Nachfeld sein."-English translation
Here is a sentence taken from Die Grammatik von Duden:
Sätze und satzwertige Infinitivphrasen können Gegenstand von Ausklammerung ins Nachfeld sein.
I cannot quite make sense of the English ...
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Is it possible to say Ändern des Namens?
I am proofreading a translation by someone who is a native German speaker, but who moved away from Germany at a young age. They have translated the phrase "Modify name" as "Ändern des ...
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Can someone fill in some missing letters?
What I think this says:
Friedrich Adel Ferdinand Torsten Graf Posadowsky-Wehner, Freiherr v. Postelwitz
Kgl. Preuss Oberst und Kommandeur des (2 Oster.) Gren Rgt. 13
geb. am 12 Aug. 1864
u Rinkowken
...
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A German equivalent for "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
I know we get a lot of requests here for translations of idioms and expressions, and many times they don't exist. (Something I often point out myself.) But I thought this might deserve some discussion ...
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Do Germans find the English phrase "it's giving [x]" confusing?
In German, there's a phrase "es gibt [x]" that is generally translated as "there is/are [x]" in English. (Or at least, that's what Duolingo has led me to believe.)
Recently, I've ...
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1
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Use of "soll" in this headline: Trump-Verbündeter Jim Jordan soll Sprecher des Repräsentantenhauses werden
Here's a link to the full article.
By this point I'm familiar with how newspaper articles often use "sollen" combined with the present perfect (i.e. haben/sein with a past participle) to ...
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Bismarck/Caprivi cigars
I'm not quite sure to what extent this is a language question vs a history/culture question, but here goes...
Can anyone explain what's going on in this discussion of cigars/politics? The humour ...
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"Im Augenblick", but in the past
How would we use "Augenblick" to talk about something that happened extremely recently, but is over now?
For instance, in English you can say "I really liked the discussion we had just ...
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Ab Heute arbeite ich von München aus, is it correct [duplicate]
I like to say "From today I am working from Munich."
Bit of context, we are remote company and we have more locations, I want to let my co workers know that from today I will be working from ...
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Choked on a piece of pumpkin [closed]
Welcher Satz ist korrekt? Ich versuche, den englischen Satz „I choked on a piece of pumpkin again“ ins Deutsche zu übersetzen.
Wieder habe ich mich an einem Stück Kürbis verschluckt.
Wieder habe ich ...
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Was ist ein Zeitkonto?
Ein Freund von mir hat einen Newsletter aus Österreich erhalten, der auf ein Jazzfestival in der Schweiz einlädt. Was bedeutet dieser Satz auf Hochdeutsch?
Zusätzlich haben wir aber auch noch ein ...
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„des Leidens herbe Schmach“ - Disgrace or Taste?
In Bach's St Matthew Passion there is an aria in which the lines
„sein Mund, der mit Milch und Honig fließet, hat den Grund und des
Leidens herbe Schmach durch den ersten Trunk versüßet“
are usually ...
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Understanding an old handwritten document from 1850
I have some documents written in German. I can barely make out some of the words. May be someone could read or understand what kind of document this is?
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How can I explain "heimatdamisch"?
I was swapping YouTube videos with a friend, and I showed Die Heimatdamisch, Kids in Bavaria.
Of course, I immediately "won" the "competition" (won one of my own beers).
Q: How do ...
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Warum wird "Sieg Heil" mit "hail victory" ins Englische übersetzt? [closed]
Da "Heil" eine ganz andere Bedeutung als das englische "hail" (jubeln) hat, warum wird dieser Ausspruch allgemein so übersetzt?
Ist es nicht einfach falsch?
https://en.wiktionary....
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Is the sentence "Er trifft seine Mitbewohner im Café jeden Tag" wrong ? Why?
On a German teaching website, the sentence Er trifft seine Mitbewohner im Café jeden Tag was marked wrong as the translation of He meets his roommates at the coffee shop every day. On the other hand, ...
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zurückhalten von den Leiden der Welt
There is a question on another stackexchange site about the meaning of zurückhalten in this quote (an aphorism by Franz Kafka):
Du kannst dich zurückhalten von den Leiden der Welt, das ist dir ...
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What is the best way to say "a large number of [noun]" in German?
In my current project I want to translate the phrase "a large number of tents are set up." This is part of the text of a video game, specifically the narration. But looking at dict.cc, I see ...
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Is it considered bad stylistically to end a German sentence with a clause without a verb?
In my current translation project I have several sentences which end with a clause without a verb. I would like to do this in the corresponding German as a way to be concise and avoid putting too many ...
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Difference between gänzlich and unbedingt?
Like the title says: are these synonyms? I got totally as the translation of gänzlich, and absolutely, definitely for unbedingt.
Although, maybe I am using totally too "valleygirlishly"? And ...
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When is it stylistically appropriate to use the Passive Voice in German?
I have been told that using the passive voice is generally considered bad style in German, possibly even more so than in English. Because of this, when I find English phrases in the passive voice in ...
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How to say "a man needs..." referring to what people in general need?
In my current translation project I have a line as follows:
Sorry, sirrah, but a man needs something to buy food with.
This is said by a beggar and thief who is apologizing for robbing the hero, ...
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How can I say "lying in a heap" in German?
In my current translation project I have the phrase "there appears to be something lying in a heap," referring to a rope ladder which is sitting on the ground at a certain point in an ...
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How can I say "I'll show you [adjective]" in German?
In English there is an idiom "I'll show you X," for example:
A: I think you're crazy.
B: Crazy? I'll show you crazy!
By this B means that he will give a demonstration of how crazy he is, ...
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Is it proper grammar to use a single adjective to refer to two nouns of different genders?
If I have two nouns, one feminine and one neuter, can I describe them with the same adjective, inflected to fit with the first of the two?
In my current translation project I have this clause:
The ...
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How do I translate "take them down with me" into German?
In English there is an expression: to "take someone down with you." For example if a gangster is fleeing from the police and is expecting a shootout, he might say,
I'm taking two of them ...
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for singular nouns which refer to groups of people, should the corresponding verbs and pronouns in a following sentence be singular or plural?
In my current translation project I have a few lines where I would use a singular noun to refer to a group of people. For example,
But be careful around the Fair Folk. They can be fickle, and you do ...
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How can I translate the English phrase "you need all the X you can get" into German
In English, there is a common expression: to "need all the [noun] you can get," which implies that someone is in a bad situation. For example:
But I lost another $10,000, and now the bank ...
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What is the meaning of "Da ist Liebe"?
I saw someone get a tattoo saying
Da ist Liebe.
But when I did a Google search, there were no results as to what it means. I know that "ist Liebe" translates as "is love" – but ...
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When to use the present participle (-nd) in German vs gerund (-ing) in English
I am translating a video game into German and I have many lines which in English use the gerund (-ing form) of a verb. If I understand correctly, in German the present participle (-nd form of a verb) ...
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Übersetzung für “badger cull”
Der “badger cull” oder auch “- culling” beschreibt die systematische Jagd auf Dachse, um deren Population drastisch zu minimieren (siehe Link für weitere Details). Ich habe allerdings Schwierigkeiten, ...
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How to translate a sentence that contains is/are being +pp [closed]
Ich lerne Deutsch und meine aktuelles Kenntnisniveau ist B1.
Ich möchte bitte wissen, wie man kann die folgenden Sätze übersetzt.
Ukrain is being fought against by the Russian soldiers.
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What is this German nickname?
I am looking for someone to help me translate an old term we used to lovingly call my great-grandfather whose parents emigrated from Austria.
When I was a child, I only knew him as Great-Grandpa ...
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Why do translations of German books read so differently from other books?
I'm unsure whether my question is on-topic here, but it's about the German language, so I've decided to try.
I am an undergraduate student from Japan who learns foreign languages and loves reading ...
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6
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Transkription russischer Namen. Für Чебышёв, welche Norm sollte benutzt werden?
Ich bin dabei ein mathematisches Werk zu verfassen, in dem der Mathematiker Pafnuty Tschebyschov (russ. Чебышёв) zitiert wird. Nun ist mir nicht klar (und auch unserem Lektorat nicht) wie man diesen ...
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Ka-Binen Sänger - Joke?
Is anyone able to explain the punchline in this anecdote for me please?
Ein Bassist war einmal gemeinsam mit M. in Ostende, und beide
benutzten zum Baden eine gemeinsame Kabine. In dieser Kabine ...
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How to translate "ernsten Oper" in Nietzsche
— Sehr verschieden steht es mit der ernsten Oper:
'Serious opera' or 'dramatic opera'? Or opera seria? Or 'tragic opera'?
He mentions Rossini, whose operas date from the early 19th century.
Here ...
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Der/die/das as pronoun?
And was it easier for those from the Indian School?
(Attempted translation: Und war es einfacher fuer die aus der Indische Schule?
This is the translation which came to me. Is it correct? If so, how ...
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„Ein bisschen Kleber und das wird schon“
I am told that this translates as, “A little glue and it’ll be fine.” I know „schon“ can function both as an adverb meaning “already” and as a modal particle meaning “indeed” in the context of ...
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