Fun with Translation
If you spend long enough in a different language, the two begin to blend and mix in different ways in your head. Sure at some point you can switch effortlessly between them and not mix them up, except for the few words where there is no translation. I sometimes find odd connections that come up when trying to understand a new compound-word or phrase in German. Usually if I don’t know a phrase I think about the literal translation in English and often get a laugh. Here are some of my favorites.
- I only understand train station. / Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof. – I don’t understand much. I saw this on a billboard for an English school in a train station.
- Egg-laying wool-milk-pig / Eierlegende Wollmilchsau – This is the fictional animal that can do everything. Closest english meaning I can think of is the goose that lays a golden egg or swiss-army knife.
- Don’t make an elephant from a gnat / Mach kein Elephant von einer Mücke. – The classic making mountains out of molehills with a German flair.
- Jump with naked ass into face. / Spring mit nakten Arsch ins Gesicht. – To get angry.
- Leave the church in the village. / Kirche im Dorf lassen. – Don’t do a lot of work for something that can be simple. This could be wrong, that is how I understand it though.
- Suggestion hammer / Vorschlaghammer – An actual Vorschlaghammer is what we would call a sledgehammer. The thing I like is that Vorschlag is also the word for suggestion. Though using such a hammer, things aren’t really suggestions anymore are they?
- Glow-pear / Gluhbirne – Lightbulb
I have a German friend who came for dinner every few weeks the past summer. We would cook, eat and watch Friends. She spent a year in England and watches a lot of American and British TV series, so her English knowledge is very good. Every so often though watching Friends we came across a cultural reference that went over her head. The words make sense, but the meaning behind it is unclear.
So on the flip side, I get to have the fun of explaining various phrases that are common in English to Germans. It surprises me a bit how much how we say things comes not from the words but from stock phrases that are part of the cultural understanding. Here are a few of the phrases that I have had to explain.
- Like water off a duck’s back.
- Enough rope to hang himself with.
My favorite German/English crossing phrase is one that Germans say in English, but no English native speaker would use. “No risk, no fun.” Now imagine that being said in a German accent with the slightly rolling ‘r’. Ok, it makes sense to me. I get why it is useful, but it isn’t like the words don’t exist in German to say it, they just happen to use English. The explanation that I came up with at one point is that it really isn’t a traditional German value. Risk and Fun are not things that go together. So perhaps in order to get around this culture barrier, the phrase needs to be in English.
Languages are fun to play with. As I spend more time in both languages, my humor evolves to need both to understand things.
July 28, 2011 @ 6:34 pm
Funny article 🙂
I myself once had to translate a few important things for an American friend who wanted to get into the mating and dating business with German girls…
http://drhuch.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/remember-the-times/
Heinrich IX aka Dr. Huch
January 10, 2011 @ 8:36 pm
Again, love this post too! I just heard the Eierlegende Vollmilchsau from my boss today and thought it was hilarious! A waaaay better way to say jack-of-all-trades. When I was learning German, and now that I am teaching English, I feel really lucky that a lot of our little sayings translate exactly to the German equivalent. But some of these, are just plain hilarious!
January 11, 2011 @ 8:35 am
My boss says it just in conversation and every time I just break up laughing. He doesn’t notice it as funny, being just a part of the language, but I just envision this poor furry animal.
January 10, 2011 @ 7:54 pm
I laughed out loud!!!
I really have to compose a post about learning Italian, italian slang and translations… let the research begin!
January 11, 2011 @ 8:30 am
Yes definitely. I want to read that one when you get it done.
January 6, 2011 @ 11:00 am
This made me laugh so hard and I can’t wait to try some of them out! Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof will definitely come in handy!
January 5, 2011 @ 9:28 pm
Haha! This is too funny! Have you gotten to the point where you forget from which language a specific expression or saying is? That happens to me sometimes. I haven’t told anybody here in Texas that all I understand is train station yet, but I’ve gotten close 🙂
On a side note…. “die Kirche im Dorf lassen” is an expression for not exaggerating. For example, you could tell someone “Jetzt lass aber mal die Kirche im Dorf!” meaning “Stop exaggerating!” when they start blowing things out of proportion in an argument.
January 5, 2011 @ 11:49 pm
No. I still remember where most of the phrases come from. Though when speaking English with Germans, I do often forget what things are likely idioms as opposed to just part of the language.
Thanks for the explanation on the Kirche im Dorf thing. My boss uses it when we talk about solving a problem with a fairly complex solution when he expects a simpler one to be enough. So I guess it is a form of exaggeration.
Did you see Jen’s comment above? Where is I only understand train station from?
January 11, 2011 @ 3:34 pm
Ich habe nicht den blassesten Schimmer 😉 No idea!
July 29, 2011 @ 1:34 pm
From Wikipedia:
Die Redewendung „Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof“ besagt heute umgangssprachlich, etwas nicht verstehen zu können. Ursprünglich verwendeten kriegsmüde Soldaten am Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges diese Redewendung, um jedes andere Thema als die ersehnte Heimreise abzuwürgen.
At the end of WW1 all the tired soldiers wanted to hear about was when they would be going home, which at the time normally would mean by rail, hence “Bahnhof”. Every other topic would simply be cut off with “I only understand railway station”.
July 29, 2011 @ 1:37 pm
Oops, no editing of comments here…I forgot to add that a better translation of “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” might be “All i hear is train station”
January 5, 2011 @ 12:40 pm
This post is really amusing and informative. I have a dual heritage and my Dad quite often mixes up his native language with english, its quite amusing! I took him to see an opera recently, sung in his language, and he said the translation on the screen wasn;t actually what the actors where singing because it was so difficult to translate between the two languages!
January 5, 2011 @ 8:51 pm
Yeah, watching translations or subtitles gets into that. The idioms don’t translate, the humor is missed, or the language is just too complex to get onto 2 lines at a speed that matches the actors and reads fast enough.
January 4, 2011 @ 11:13 pm
Great post! I’m just now getting to the point where I’m able to identify things like this in Spanish. English is my partner’s 2nd language and I often find myself explaining cultural references to him when we’re watching TV. It’s like you say, he understands the words but doesn’t quite get the reference or why it’s supposed to be funny.
January 5, 2011 @ 8:50 pm
It really boggled my mind having to explain Friends references. She speaks perfectly fluent language, but I guess that doesn’t get you perfect cultural understanding.
January 3, 2011 @ 9:48 pm
I wish I knew enough of another language to have fun with this. I have enough problems understanding the english of a 2 1/2 year old who sometimes makes up his own language. 🙂
January 5, 2011 @ 8:49 pm
Hah.. I can imagine what the language of kids is like. That can almost be more fun to listen to. Honest mistakes become funny.
January 3, 2011 @ 6:15 pm
Ha! I had to write some of these down. Useful to know!
Ich verstehe nur bahnhof is one of my personal favorites and it makes me laugh. When I’m in the Frankfurt Hbf and the announcements on the loudspeaker are ricocheting all over that huge hall and the only thing I can understand is maybe my train number, I kinda understand this phrase. LOL.
January 5, 2011 @ 8:48 pm
I wonder if that is where the phrase is from? That in a train station the only then you actually can understand of the announcements is the least useful word of “train station.”