People seem to like Chinglish – this is an example of Cheutsch.
Grause Glucke/Cheutsch
Reply
Grant and Cutler dictionaries/Rechtswörterbücher
I recently received an indirect query from someone studying legal translation in the UK who wants to buy a German-English law dictionary. There was a list of the dictionaries currently available at Foyles, into which Grant & Cutler has now been integrated (I remember Grant & Cutler near Embankment Station, before it moved closer to Oxford Street and now to Foyles). Here’s the link, but it may change in time.
Title: Author: Description:
Recht Fachwörterbuch Kompakt. Law concise dictionary.: German<>English Bugg, S. G. & Simon, H. Approx. 28.000 terms and more than 50.000 translations. With short German and English introductions to the German, British and American legal system.Rechtsenglisch: Deutsch<>Englisches Rechtswörterbuch für jedermann Köbler, G. approx. 25.000 entries, 485 pages.
Dictionaries: Specialist & Technical: Legal. Published 2007. Price: £19.95Wörterbuch Arbeit, Recht, Wirtschaft. Dictionary of Labour, Law and Business terms. Horstenkamp, C. Approx. 5,000 terms.
Dictionaries: Specialist & Technical: Legal. Published 2006. Price: £25.95Wörterbuch Recht German<>English Bachem, W. & Hamblock, D. Approx. 56,000 terms.
Dictionaries: Specialist & Technical: Legal. Published 2008. Price: £42.99
If you click on the first entry, it says the book and CD ROM are temporarily out of print but cost £52. The paperback (I didn’t know about this) is available and costs £30.
In response, I was taken aback at the absence of Romain and Dietl, but on reflection think they may be unavailable and about to be published in new editions.
I’ve written about small law dictionaries before (here and here). I understand why the publishers like them: because they can sell them to German law students. But they are just not big enough to be much use. If the budget doesn’t run to more, I would advise against the Köbler, although I don’t know its latest edition. The editions I have seen have all been based on a standard and peculiar shortish word list, originally created in German and put into English or whatever other language is involved. Of the others, I slightly prefer the Bachem and I don’t find the extra material in the Langenscheidt much use, but if possible you should compare the two yourself.
The Horstenkamp was unknown to me so I bought a copy. It is out of print but can be got second-hand. I actually got a new copy, but I don’t think it’s that easy to find. This dictionary of labour, law and business terms was done by a colleague. It is actually a set of seven glossaries EN>DE and seven glossaries DE>EN. This disqualifies it for me even if it were bigger, as I don’t want to spend so much time leafing through it. True, there are two global indexes in the back, which somewhat helps. The areas are:
Labour – Arbeit
Business – Wirtschaft
Education/Training – Bildung/Ausbildung
European Union – Europäische Union
Law – Recht
Politics – Politik
Health and Safety – Arbeitssicherheit
The labour part looks OK, but in particular the EU and law sections are very small and it looks more like an interpreter’s private glossary. It also has things like
sich schuldig bekennen – plead guilty (looks like a reverse of an EN>DE entry)
vorsätzlich – wilful; premeditated (Vorsatz is intention, not premeditation)
Pflichtverteidiger – duty solicitor (again, was this generated from EN>DE?)
Gewohnheitsrecht – common law (should be custom)
Last days of the City Center/Fürth City Center fast geschlossen
The City Center, the hardest-to-renovate shopping centre in Germany, with 351 owners (not a joke), was supposed to have closed on 13 January, and most of it did. A few shops turn out to have longer leases. What’s more, it seems the final agreement of the investor has not been obtained.
Schweitzer International Bookstore
Have I recommended the Schweitzer legal bookshop in Munich before? I’ve only been once and they had an eclectic selection of law books in English in the basement. Don’t know if that’s still the case. More interesting was a list of books, for example German law in English, which I got hold of years ago. What I didn’t realize is that its successor and various materials are now available online.
If you click on International Bookstore, you will find a number of links to newsletters, including special editions of newsletters, in the form of PDFs with details on relevant literature:
Spezial-Ausgaben des ILFB-Newsletters /
Newsletter – special edition
ILFB Spezial: Arbitration
ILFB Spezial: Germany
ILFB-Spezial: Contracts – Forms – Drafting
ILFB-Spezial: Insolvency
Sonderheft: International Corporate Reporting
ILFB-Spezial: Intellectual Property
ILFB-Spezial: Securities Law & Regulations
ILFB-Spezial: Joint Ventures & Strategic Alliances
ILFB-Spezial: Estate Planning – Trusts
ILFB-Spezial: Private Equity
ILFB-Spezial: Islamic Business & Finance
ILFB-Spezial: Business Crime
ILFB-Spezial: Company Law Reform Act
The newsletters relate to books on law, economics and tax, and you can subscribe to them.
From the special newsletter on Germany (August 2011), here is a typical book description from page 37 (I have this book by Singh and it looks very good – English texts on administrative law are not so easy to get – but I haven’t got round to mentioning it yet).
German Administrative Law in Common
Law Perspective
Singh, Mahendra P., 2nd edition 2001
ISBN 3540423656, 377 p.
(Springer Verlag)
Hardback,€ 85,55
A thoroughly revised edition of the author’s book on German Administrative Law, first published in 1985. From the perspective of a common law jurisdiction the author presents the basic framework of German administrative law, along the lines administrative law is understood in the English speaking world. It covers all the essential elements of German administrative law. It is updated to include the latest developments and the impact of EC law in different spheres.
Contents:
Nature, Scope, Growth of German Administrative Law. Legislative Powers of the Administration: Delegated Legislation. Administrative Powers: Administrative Act. Administrative Powers: Contracts, Private-Law Acts, Real Acts, and Planning. General Principles of Judicial Review. Judicial Review of Discretionary Powers. Administrative Courts. Judicial Remedies & Procedure. Liability of the Public Authorities. The Basic Law Grundgesetz). Law on Administrative Proceedings of 25 May 1976 (VwVfG). Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO). An Illustrative Judgment.
Great work by Bettina Kube.
There’s a bookshop from the same chain in Nuremberg, but it doesn’t have a brilliant selection on international law. Maybe others do.
Interpreter’s oath/Dolmetschereid
Here’s a curious question from an ITI member. This is the interpreter’s oath, which is taken by all interpreters in courts in England:
I swear by Almighty God that I will well and faithfully interpret and make true explanation of all such matters and things as shall be required of me according to the best of my skill and understanding.
Gosh – haven’t they modernized that one?
The colleague thinks that ‘to the best of my skill’ is wrong and should be ‘to the best of my skills’, because ‘best’ is a superlative adjective and it implies comparison between at least two objects (actually, as a superlative, it would have to be three, because ‘better’ applies to two). He wants it changed.
I can’t see this at all. I am familiar with the legalese expression ‘to the best of my knowledge’ and ‘to the best of my ability’. These are uncountables, as are ‘skill’ and ‘understanding’ in the oath. ‘Skill’ can be countable too – a good source for information on countable and uncountable meanings is the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, which is now online. Now if ‘skill’ should be plural, then ‘understanding’ must be wrong too – which it isn’t! I think both ‘to the best of my skill’ and ‘to the best of my skills’ are correct English. However, although I find 27,000 ghits for the plural, I only find seven of them on UK sites. So if you are in Canada or India or the USA, ‘skills’ is OK here.
Most interpreters in Germany swear an oath, a sort of permanent oath, when they are appointed, so they don’t have to swear in court. I did manage to affirm when I became a court-certified translator, although the courts seem fairly unfamiliar with that procedure here.
In an article on ProZ, Marta Stelmaszak, a Polish-to-English interpreter, also gives the affirmation.
The Interpreter’s Oath
“I swear by Allah/Almighty God, etc. that I will well and faithfully interpret and true explanation make of all such matters and things as shall be required of me according to my best of my skill and understanding”The Interpreter’s Affirmation
“I do solemnly declare that I will well and faithfully interpret and true explanation make of all such matters and things as shall be required of me according to my best of my skill and understanding”
(That should be ‘the best’, not ‘my best’ – but ‘and true explanation make’ is apparently the recommended word order).
LATER NOTE: A commenter would have added the following affirmation as used in Oxford magistrates’ courts:
I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will well and faithfully interpret and true explanation make of all such matters and things as shall be required of me according to the best of my skill and understanding.
I imagine there is a lot of variation over the country, or should I say over England and Wales. Apparently Scots are permitted to raise a hand when swearing.
Disparaging the German Federal President/Verunglimpfung des Bundespräsidenten
There’s a kind of defamation you can commit in Germany called Verunglimpfung des Bundespräsidenten. The old StGB translation called it Disparagement of the Federal President, the new one (by Bohlander) calls it Defamation of the Federal President. It’s like defamation in that, in Germany, it’s a criminal offence that can only be prosecuted on the application of the person who claims to have been defamed. There’s a discussion with Udo Vetter here on the risks of going to prison for making a joke about Wulff.
There was in fact a case coming up in Dresden in which someone was on trial for making a joke about Wulff and his wife, but I don’t need to go into that now because this evening it seems the President has had the proceedings dropped (Wulff will keinen Prozess mehr).
See section 90 here:
It comes under the category of offences endangering the democratic state under the rule of law.
Section 90
Defamation of the President of the Federation
(1) Whosoever publicly defames the President of the Federation, in a meeting or through the dissemination of written material (section 11 (3)) shall be liable to imprisonment from three months to five years.
(2) In less serious cases the court in its discretion may mitigate the sentence (section 49 (2)) unless the conditions of section 188 are met.
(3) The penalty shall be imprisonment from six months to five years if the act constitutes an intentional defamation (section 187) or if the offender by the act intentionally supports efforts against the continued existence of the Federal
Republic of Germany or against its constitutional principles.
(4) The offence may only be prosecuted upon the authorisation of the President of the Federation.
Verunglimpfen is a nice word. Unglimpf means insult or defamation. Glimpflich is a better-known word. There was a MHG verb gilimpfan: to behoove. As in: it behooved him to drop the proceedings before he risked further ridicule.