Anglo-Saxon/angelsächsisch

A reference on a translators’ mailing list to Anglo-Saxon accounting conjured up visions of, at best, Fred Flintstone with an abacus. It reminded me of the blurb in Erlangen (in the early 1980s) saying I taught Anglo-Saxon law.

A Google for angelsächsisches does reveal sites relating to Old English, but also the term Angelsächsisches Modell, translated sometimes as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model (i.e. in inverted commas), Continental or Anglo-Saxon, the British and American ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model, or the so-called Anglo-Saxon model, which shows that at least some journalists are aware it isn’t really English.

An Anglo-Saxon model in Ipswich Museum:

It was mooted that the term Anglo-Saxon was first used in French in the late 19th century, actually meaning Jewish (les financiers anglo-saxons). But that seems to be past.

SDI on Youtube

Richard Schneider links to a Youtube videoclip made by students of the SDI in Munich, advertising the school.
The SDI has a Berufsfachschule for secretaries, a Fachakademie (the staff there, unlike in Erlangen, coyly pronounce it F-A-K rather than as a word) for translators and interpreters, and since 2007 a private university for other courses – but the film explains it.

We should have went to Denmark

One of Denmark’s income earners is a weekend package to get married. It’s directed particularly at US soldiers marrying Germans.
Marriage in Denmark/Heiraten in Dänemark (a site in English, German, Spanish and Portuguese)

Heiraten-leicht-gemacht.de wants to help all bi-national couples who have difficulties to get married in Germany or in other European countries. We will show you the way to a fast, legal and unbureaucratic marriage.

Bi-national couples in Germany or in other European countries need to master endless bureaucratic hurdles to get married. The main problem here in Germany seems to be the ‘Ehefähigkeitszeugnis’ (a certificate which formally enables you to marry) from the home country of the non-German partner.

The latter is rather easy and legally possible to avoid when getting married in DENMARK. This is where our concept starts. We would like to show you an easy, unbureaucratic and cheap way to get married in Denmark.

Our special offer is the EXPRESS-WEDDING – you will get married in Denmark within 24 hours.

(Ehefähigkeitszeugnis: certificate of no impediment)

Nelly at Head over Heels is a German about to get married to an American in Germany (We should have went to Denmark and see also Die standesamtliche Hochzeit). She has collected tips and links for other Germans wanting to marry Americans:

This is getting ridiculous. I’ve been looking for a translator and interpreter for hours. You see, we can’t just get the papers translated by any translator and we can’t just hire any interpreter to come with us to the courthouse. I searched on the official associations website for interpreters and translators but ya know what? Most of them don’t translate birth certificates anymore, most of them don’t do the weddings anymore. It’s not good enough for them. They could lose a better job over it and we can’t afford them anyway. That is what I was told a dozens of times.

She’s unhappy at having to pay 100 euros for an interpreter for the registration and another 100 euros for the ceremony. The registration is said to take 30 minutes, but I don’t know what the interpreter’s travel time would be.

These are German translators translating long US birth certificates into German, which is more expensive than German into English (and with luck, the German can buy a multilingual birth certificate from the register office). I am not sure how they say no on the phone, but ‘I might lose a better job’ or ‘You can’t afford me’ don’t seem to be the way to go.

I think it’s true that if I charged the right price for a certified translation of a private document (the price that gives me an hourly rate I can live on), only one in ten potential private clients would not be outraged. I used to charge a lower price and half the clients were also outraged. On top of that, a lot of time can be spent when the customer brings the original documents and collects the translation, and of course one doesn’t charge for that time. It seems to compound the problem common with other customers too that they may think translation is typing in another language.

Before decimal currency – Dickens translation/Probleme vor der Dezimalwährung

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, chapter 12, Mr Micawber:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

Fürther Nachrichten, and possibly the German translation of Dickens – this comment on the financial crisis puzzled me in the daily paper:

Jährliches Einkommen zwanzig Pfund, jährliche Ausgaben neunzehn Pfund und sechs Schillinge, Resultat Glück. Jährliches Einkommen zwanzig Pfund, jährliche Ausgaben zwanzig Pfund und sechs Schillinge, Resultat Elend.

No, Projekt Gutenberg has a better translation – presumably done before 1971 – the foreword is dated March 1909:

Jährliches Einkommen 20 Pfund. Jährliche Ausgabe 19 Pfund 19 Schilling 6 Pence. Fazit: Wohlstand. Jährliches Einkommen 20 Pfund. Jährliche Ausgabe 20 Pfund und 6 Pence. Fazit: Dürftigkeit.

Biting the hand that feeds you/Wenn Übersetzer den Kunden beleidigen

In Neukunden-Magnet, unter der Überschrift Entspammung vor dem Wochenende, beschreibt Thomas Kilian, wie er zweimal von einem Übersetzer angeschrieben wurde und zitiert den heftigen E-Mail-Austausch dazu.

Die Kommentare sind auch lesenswert.

This German blog entry quotes enough emails in English to show a translator’s overreaction after the blog author objected to receiving advertising of the translator’s services twice.

Via Susanne Aldridge

Correction/Korrektur

On August 10, I posted an entry stating that I was suspicious about an article in the Times about EC translators. Today I read on the ITI website – members’ forum – that a member of the ITI Council had spoken to the DG in question and it appeared that either the Times reporter did not understand the discussion or the DG was misquoted. The DG decided not to issue a correction to the article because they did not think it was necessary.

I added a note to the entry, which I sometimes do, but I thought it was worth posting here too.