The German European Commissioner Günther Oettinger became famous on YouTube for speaking English badly (earlier entry).

His main problem was his ignorance of stress. It’s hard to understand English when unexpected syllables are emphasized.

It’s now reported that Oettinger is trying to improve his English. Südkurier (in German, quoting Hamburger Abendblatt) and other papers report that he is increasing his English vocabulary by ten to twenty words a week.

Über seine Lernmethoden sagt Oettinger: „Abends schaue ich öfter ins Wörterbuch. Wenn es einen englischen Fachbegriff gibt, den ich nicht kenne, dann lerne ich ihn auf diesem Weg. So kommen jede Woche 10 bis 20 neue Wörter hinzu.“ Auch im Urlaub wird nun Englisch gepaukt: „Ich habe mir fest vorgenommen, in meinem Sommerurlaub einen Sprachkurs zu absolvieren.“

He looks in the dictionary every evening and if he finds a technical term he doesn’t know, he learns it. He also intends to take a language course in his summer holiday.

Which dictionary is he using, I wonder? I should think the language course will be more help with his pronunciation.

Heard on radio traffic information:

Vorsicht auf der Autobahn – Pilger unterwegs.
Watch out for pilgrims on the motorway.

A picture of some pilgrims here.

BR online:

Im Landkreis Straubing-Bogen wird der gesamte Innenstadtbereich von Geiselhöring von 14 bis 15 Uhr wegen der Regensburger Diözesanwallfahrt mit cirka 8000 Teilnehmern gesperrt. Zwischen 15 und 17 Uhr ziehen die Pilger weiter nach Mengkofen. Umleitungen sind eingerichtet. (13:19)

Altötting
Pilgrimage on Whit Saturday
Pilgrimage site
Webcam at Altötting

On May 12, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) pronounced judgment in a copyright case involving an unprotected WiFi connection. It held that the owner could be subject to an injunction – an order to cease and desist – but was not liable in damages. However, he would be liable to pay a maximum of 100 euros as compensation for the costs of a lawyer who had to send him a warning (Abmahnkosten).

The owner of the connection had been on holiday when, in breach of copyright, a third party downloaded via his WiFi connection a song which had been made available by a music company. The connection was not password-protected; the owner had left the default settings.

There is a good short summary of the case by Mark Schweizer on IPKAT today. The German American Law Journal reported on May 12. The full judgment is not yet available. The court’s May 12 press release is
here (in German).

This case has been widely misreported in English. The trouble seems to have started with an AP report which described the potential liability for a lawyer’s costs as a fine (AP report (in English):

German court orders wireless passwords for all

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER (AP) – May 12, 2010

BERLIN — Germany’s top criminal court ruled Wednesday that Internet users need to secure their private wireless connections by password to prevent unauthorized people from using their Web access to illegally download data.

Internet users can be fined up to euro100 ($126) if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected WLAN connection to illegally download music or other files, the Karlsruhe-based court said in its verdict.

First of all, the BGH is not Germany’s top criminal court (IPKAT even refers to it as Germany’s Supreme Court). It has twelve civil and five criminal chambers. This decision was made by the First Civil Senate (chamber) in Karlsruhe.

Then, there is no fine, just a limited obligation to compensate a lawyer for costs.

The German American Law Journal blames the BBC for the problem (Amerika lacht über deutsches Recht).

Das BBC berichtete vom Urteil wie von einer Strafsache und ließ einen englischen Strafverteidiger kommentieren.

But the BBC article only appeared on May 14 and the lawyer it consulted was an intellectual property expert.

Let’s hope that when the full judgment appears, the English and American sources will correct their versions. See comments on this blog.

I think that is enough for now, except that I might return to the untranslatable term Störerhaftung that comes up in this case – I have a feeling I ‘translated’ it recently.

Nick Clegg speaking Dutch, about 1 min. 44 into the clip. OK, his mother is Dutch and he was brought up to speak both Dutch and English (as when he refers to a ‘turn-off’). I wouldn’t mind hearing him speak another language.

The Evening Standard looked into Clegg’s family history in 2007.

Lexiophiles has expanded its list of blogs to vote for (Top 100 Language Blogs).

The best place to look is the list of nominated blogs for language professionals, where there is a very brief description of each blog in the Language Professionals category.

Transblawg has come up on their radar (my thanks to the unknown promoter). They have Peter Harvey, but not Kalebeul or fucked translations, nor Patenttranslator – and no fidus interpres. So it’s all a bit touch and go, and in any case they are not looking specifically for translation blogs. There are four categories: Language Technology, Language Learning, Language Professionals and Language Teaching.

To find similar lists for the other three categories, start here.