Lost in Translation? We are here to help...

Original post by NatDurham22

Hi, could someone please translate this sentence into german please:
'If i had more time, i would have gone hiking in the mountains, because hiking pleases me'
thankyou :smile:

Its your lucky day today, because German is my native language!

'Wenn Ich mehr Zeit hätte, hätte ich eine Wanderung durch die Berge unternommen, weil die Wanderung mir gefällt".

But this expression with the verb 'unternommen' (with the meaning of doing something in this context) seems to be awkward for foreigners, especially it sounds not so good. Here is a (better) alternative:

"Ich würde durch die Berge wandern, wenn ich mehr Zeit hätte, da die Wanderung mir gefällt"

This sounds better by far, but in the other hand its not the literal translation. 'Would have' is translated to 'hätte' in German as a rule, but in the alternative sentence, its 'würde', just because it has a better sound, plus the alternative sentence has a better structure.

Reply 8362

Original post by Kallisto

Its your lucky day today, because German is my native language!

'Wenn Ich mehr Zeit hätte, hätte ich eine Wanderung durch die Berge unternommen, weil die Wanderung mir gefällt".

But this expression with the verb 'unternommen' (with the meaning of doing something in this context) seems to be awkward for foreigners, especially it sounds not so good. Here is a (better) alternative:

"Ich würde durch die Berge wandern, wenn ich mehr Zeit hätte, da die Wanderung mir gefällt"

This sounds better by far, but in the other hand its not the literal translation. 'Would have' is translated to 'hätte' in German as a rule, but in the alternative sentence, its 'würde', just because it has a better sound, plus the alternative sentence has a better structure.

i guess it is! thankyou very much :smile:

Reply 8363

Original post by NatDurham22

i guess it is! thankyou very much :smile:

You are welcome, but maybe I should tell you that the tense in the German sentences is not the same one as in the English given. It has a simple reason: it is not possible to form a good structure by observing the tense.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 8364

Colonel Sanders

Anyone doing french, please help.
I have finished my coursework and all i need to do is cut it down to 300 words, which is my word limit.
Now i dont know what parts to take out, but i was thinking of taking out the low level stuff. However, i dont know what the low level stuff is. Shall i take out the qualifiers or some justifications?

I'm not sure what to do, but if anyone could assist me it would be absolutely amazing!

i posted a thread on it early, if anyone wants to take a look:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3352715

Reply 8365

Im having a little trouble translating this sentence to german:
'Also the facilities were very poor so i had to take a cold shower every day'
if you can help i would be thankful :smile:

Reply 8366

Chriswuk

5

Original post by NatDurham22

Im having a little trouble translating this sentence to german:
'Also the facilities were very poor so i had to take a cold shower every day'
if you can help i would be thankful :smile:

Die Einrichtungen waren auch sehr schlecht also muesste ich mich jeden Tag kalt duschen.

(Not a native, but should be right)

Reply 8367

Original post by Chriswuk

Die Einrichtungen waren auch sehr schlecht also muesste ich mich jeden Tag kalt duschen.

(Not a native, but should be right)

thankyou

Reply 8368

Original post by Chriswuk

Die Einrichtungen waren auch sehr schlecht also musste ich mich jeden Tag kalt duschen.

(Not a native, but should be right)

Almost right, but its not an umlaut! Very well! :smile:

instead of 'also', you can substitute it with 'so dass' to introduce a consecutive clause like in this way:

Die Einrichtungen waren auch sehr schlecht, so dass ich jeden Tag kalt duschen musste.

Don't forget the comma! :wink:

Reply 8369

Chriswuk

5

Original post by Kallisto

Almost right, but its not an umlaut! Very well! :smile:

Stimmt

So ein dummer Fehler!

Reply 8370

Original post by Chriswuk

Stimmt

So ein dummer Fehler!

Never mind! its not a shame for a non-native-German-speaker to make such a mistake.

Reply 8371

The Warsmith

18

Have any of yous done German at Cambridge or Oxford? I wonder what the course really consists of.

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Reply 8372

Could someone please translate this sentence for me into german?

'however the room was very expensive and very small, si the question is, was it worth the money?'
Hopefully someone could help because its for my german speaking next week! :smile:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 8373

RCous

Original post by NatDurham22

Could someone please translate this sentence for me into german?

'however the room was very expensive and very small, si the question is, was it worth the money?'
Hopefully someone could help because its for my german speaking next week! :smile:

I'm not native German, but I'm pretty confident that this is right:

'Jedoch war das Zimmer sehr teuer und sehr klein. Also lässt es sich fragen, ob es preiswürdig war.'

I think you can also say ',ob es das Geld wert war' for the last bit, but I'm not sure which one would sound better to a German..

Hope this helps! ☺️

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Reply 8374

Thankyou very much this helps alot! :smile:

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Reply 8375

Original post by RCous

I'm not native German, but I'm pretty confident that this is right:

'Jedoch war das Zimmer sehr teuer und sehr klein. Also lässt es sich fragen, ob es preiswürdig war.'

I think you can also say ',ob es das Geld wert war' for the last bit, but I'm not sure which one would sound better to a German..

Hope this helps! ☺️

In this context that is the better expression, as it is more precisely.

(...)Also lässt es sich fragen(...)

Nah, that sounds toooo...akwardly! yeah, that is the word which puts it in the nut shell! with the expression in bold print, there are clearer and more fluent word orders:

...Die Frage ist,...
...Da stellt sich die Frage,...
...Da fragt man sich, ob es das Geld wert war.

The first word order is closer to the translation.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 8376

naomi2121

7

anyone here who can help me with a fairly short French question translation? :smile:

Reply 8377

naomi2121

7

Original post by Duck and Cover

Go on, I'll be willing to help with French and German - especially if its something nice and poetic and flowerly lol!

Hello! Please could you help me with a translation? :biggrin:

Reply 8378

naomi2121

7

FRENCH HELP :
Hi so the question is ' do you think it is better to spend your free time with your parents or your friends?'I need quite a sophisticated answer along the lines of ' ils peuvent partager leurs rêves et leurs secrets. Toutefois la sagesse des aînes nous apporte du réconfort et on droit essayer de s'en accomenter'But not that exactly because my teacher wrote that for someone else so i need something on the same lines as that

which basically says ' as a whole, young people prefer to be around people their own age because they can relate to eachother more and share their dreams. Also, they prefere to have independance and create their own identity. However i think that the experience that adults have can be used by teens to gain a different perspective of the world.'

Or something along the lines of that, it doesn't have to follow it exactly but something like that if anyone could help me? :smile:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 8379

ich<3languages