Bettina Winterfeld, an English-German translator in Heidelberg, has now found a co-blogger for her Nicht-alle-Tage-Buch. He is Kai Becker, an English-German technical translator in Berlin who also teaches at the Humboldt University.

These names are sometimes needed in other languages. There was a German blackmailer called Arno Funke active a few years ago who called himself (or was known as?) Dagobert (Uncle Scrooge) (interview in German). Not that one should translate the name, and the translation would have made the whole thing senseless anyway. But it’s always worth knowing if a name refers to a Disney or other character, and sometimes you need to tell the English speaker what the equivalent name is in English.

Anyway, Wikipedia has a list (thanks to Bob Creutz for this).

LATER NOTE: Bob says some of the Danish ones are wrong, and Bettina says:

bq. Many more characters (some of them also in other languages) can be found at
http://dlpfan.org/de/lex/showlex.htm
I suppose I should go and correct the Wikipedia, but it seems like a lot of typing.

The town of Homberg in North Hesse is having to pulp 7500 copies of a brochure in ‘English’ that was full of errors, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau (there is a second similar report). (Thanks to Ilse Fallas for the information)

First, the town (15,000 inhabitants) asked a number of English teachers to translate the brochure, but none of them had time. To save the cost of a professional translation, which would have cost several thousand euros, the town then relied on a computer program. Freizeitwert (roughly, value in terms of leisure activities) became casual value, and Freibad (open-air swimming pool) became free bath.

It cost the town 3538 euros to print the brochure.

This is so familiar.
How much time did the town allow for translation?
Were the schoolteachers native speakers of English?
Whether they were native speakers of English or not, how much experience did they have in translation – translation not just for understanding, but for publication, translation that read well?
How much time was the author given?
How much was the author paid?
Who decided the brochure was no good? Not that I don’t believe it, but where in the whole process was anyone with an understanding of English fit for publication? The report says that no-one checked the computer translation, but a machine translation usually takes longer to correct than a new translation from scratch.
(MT can be used to get the gist of a text, but that’s not what was wanted here).

The Amtsgericht (local court of first instance) in Naumburg has passed the first sentences in the case of the stolen Sky Disc of Nebra.
The two treasure hunters who dug up the disc, inexpertly, causing severe damage to one side, were given sentence suspended on probation. One of them was sentence to four months’ imprisonment on probation for embezzlement and has to do 250 hours community service. The other was sentenced to nine months on probation for handling stolen goods, and a fine of 2000 euros.

bq. Einer der Angeklagten wurde wegen Unterschlagung zu vier Monaten auf Bewährung verurteilt. Außerdem muss er 250 Stunden gemeinnützige Arbeit leisten. Sein Komplize wurde wegen Hehlerei zu neun Monaten auf Bewährung verurteilt. Er muss zudem eine Geldstrafe in Höhe von 2000 Euro zahlen. Gegen einen weiteren Mann und eine Frau wird noch verhandelt.

The recent confession made by both was a mitigating circumstance, and it was important to the archaeologists that the men confessed, because the were then able to answer questions about where and in what condition they found the disc. However, they then sold it for about 32,000 euros. They knew the disc was valuable, but not how important it was – one of them thought it was a bucket lid.

The disc is about 3600 years old and is the oldest precise depicture of the stars. It was found in 1999. See earlier entry.

Yesterday, the Guardian had an article by Ben Aris entitled War of Words about the growth of Denglish in Germany and the complaints about it.

bq. Fed up with the language of Goethe being corrupted with additions such as “die kiddies” and “der call centre”, Germany’s politicians are proposing to ban civil servants from using “Denglish” – German mixed with English – in the workplace.

I’m not sure exactly who is behind this proposal. It seems to refer to the same story as an Ananova report of September 2nd.

The Word Spy defines Denglish. The Verein Deutsche Sprache (German) has carried out tests in various industries and for example has a table of office furniture manufacturers and their slogans in descending order of loyalty to German.

I picked this Guardian article up last night, but I have since seen it’s been blogged by PapaScott (an American in Hamburg) and others.

According to a Reuters report:

bq. A pirate version of the latest Harry Potter blockbuster has hit the streets of Venezuela but the illegal book lacks the magic of the original and the translator apologizes on virtually every page.

He makes remarks like, ‘I didn’t really understand this, so I paraphrased’. The authorized translation into Spanish is not due for several months. (Thanks, Derek!)