Per Döhler’s Artikel zu Umsatzsteuer für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher ist auf den Stand 2004.

Per Döhler’s article (in German) on VAT for translators and interpreters is up to date for 2004. It’s useful because tax offices and tax advisers are often ignorant about how to categorize translation and interpreting work.

Further to the entry on washing instructions: I discovered the company producing them is Tom Bihn. Pedantry was sceptical but is now convinced, via Silt, that it’s legitimate – see this Tom Bihn page, where they have now put the words on a T-shirt too.

It looks as if the big one-volume Collins dictionaries for Spanish, French, Italian and German are online at wordreference.com, as is the Collins English dictionary (my favourite one-volume British English dictionary at the moment).

(thanks to Betina Frisone on FLEFO)

Das zweisprachige Handbuch für Deutschland, das neulich für uns Migranten veröffentlicht wurde, enthält einen Auszug aus Goethes “Osterspaziergang”, allerdings nicht ins Englische übersetzt, was auch sehr schwer wäre.

The other word of the day, or word of yesterday, is Osterspaziergang: Easter walk. The Manual for Germany mentioned in an earlier entry quotes fourteen lines from Goethe’s ‘Osterspaziergang’, which is actually from Faust I. The text of the book online is much shorter and does not include the poem.

The two-language copy I received does not attempt to translate the piece into English, perhaps fortunately (I have had to accept that the English is rocky in parts). It does entitle the passage ‘Easter Stroll’, although a moment later it has ‘Easter-Day Walk’.

The text is available online in English and German (translation into English by Edgar Alfred Bowring). The English is not good. Perhaps the contents sound a bit pedestrian, but the German has a bouncy rhythm (and the text must be seen as part of a play, not a free-standing poem).

The description in the manual of Easter is a bit shaky. ‘Ancient Germanic custom states [sic] that the egg is the origin of life. … Easter Eggs, chocolate bunnies and other sweets are hidden in the garden or in the apartment by parents on Easter Sunday for the children to hunt and find.’ (We don’t actually hunt eggs, do we?) ‘Sometimes Straw puppets are burned to symbolise the end of winter.’ Eggs and Straw with capitals. Is this Jack Straw, following in the tradition of Guy Fawkes? And ‘puppets’ – are they glove puppets, marionettes, or what? – I don’t like to be so negative, but the list of country and capitals is also odd (p. 11). I know that towns are often left in their original spelling, but what is this: Ucrain Ukraine, Slowakia Slowakei, Icland Island. Belarus or Belorussia etc. has been omitted altogether.

However, the attempt to communicate in icons on the cover is still more mystifying:

What does the symbol on the left mean – it suggests ‘Is this the men’s or the women’s lavatory?’ And then there is the empty third square.

Read on for the German Goethe text and the translation: Continue reading →

Das Wort Teilstrich scheint in Österreich statt Spiegelstrich benutzt zu sein, aber vielleicht sind die zwei Wörter Synonyme? Im Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetz wird es auch benutzt, laut Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Justiz: § 32 Abs. 1 Nr. 3 erster Teilstrich StUG . Hier § 32 bis zum zweiten Teilstrich:

bq. (1) Für die Forschung zum Zwecke der politischen und historischen Aufarbeitung der Tätigkeit des Staatssicherheitsdienstes sowie für Zwecke der politischen Bildung stellt der Bundesbeauftragte folgende Unterlagen zur Verfügung:
1. Unterlagen, die keine personenbezogenen Informationen enthalten,2. Duplikate von Unterlagen, in denen die personenbezogenen Informationen anonymisiert worden sind, es sei denn, die Informationen sind offenkundig,3. Unterlagen mit personenbezogenen Informationen über – Mitarbeiter des Staatssicherheitsdienstes, soweit es sich nicht um Tätigkeiten für den Staatssicherheitsdienst vor Vollendung des 18. Lebensjahres gehandelt hat, oder – Begünstigte des Staatssicherheitsdienstes,

The word Teilstrich seems to be used in Austria instead of the German Spiegelstrich, but it can’t be, because Google with site:at indicates both are used in Austria too. Are they alternatives? The usual EU English term is indent, rather than bullet point, although when I looked up a German statute (see above), one site had bullet points and the other little dashes.

Gail (openbrackets) zitierte Martin Luthers Sendbrief zum Dolmetschen. Deutscher Text hier.

Ein Zitat aus eben diesem Text zierte ein Jubiläumskaffeepott des Instituts für Fremdsprachen in Erlangen.

Gail at openbrackets printed a large section of Martin Luther’s open letter on translation. His subject there is writing the German used by the ordinary people.

I seem to have missed that it was written in Nuremberg.

The Institut für Fremdsprachen in Erlangen (irritating splash screen), where I used to teach, had two jubilee mugs, one with a Goethe quote (Goethe at his worst) and one with a Luther quote from this very text:

bq. Und ist uns sehr oft begegnet, daß wir vierzehn Tage, drei, vier Wochen haben ein einziges Wort gesucht und gefragt …

(omitting the end: ‘haben’s dennoch zuweilen nicht gefunden.’!)

In Gary Mann’s translation:

bq. It has happened that I have sometimes searched and inquired about a single word for three or four weeks… (It goes on, ‘Sometimes I have not found it even then.’!)

(click to enlarge)

Dieses Bild zeigt den Tintenklecks, der angeblich entstand, als Luther beim Übersetzen den Tintenfass nach dem Teufel warf (DDR-Plakat, erworben als ich verschiedenen Broschüren über die Wartburg übersetzte).

This picture shows the ink blot on the wall of Luther’s study at the Wartburg, where he translated the Bible. He is said to have thrown his inkpot at the Devil. I suppose I would have to throw the mouse. Or a copy of von Beseler-Jacobs-Wüstefeld’s law dictionary might be effective.