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Re: German Debian (was: Processed: ipv6 release goal)



Am Mittwoch 24 März 2010 19:58:41 schrieb Thomas Weber:
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 04:38:49PM +0100, Hendrik Sattler wrote:
> > Zitat von Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de>:
> >
> > Directly from www.debian.org (english, then German, then translated
> > back): "it comes with over 25000 packages, precompiled software bundled
> > up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine."
> > -> "Es enthält mehr als 25000 Softwarepakete, vorkompilierte Software in
> > einfach zu installierenden Paketen."
> > -> "It contains more than 25000 software packages, precompiled software
> > in easily installable packages."
> >
> > From a good translation, I'd expect that the reverse is the original
> > text in some form.
> 
> That is an unfounded expectation. It's a well known effect that
> translations tend to be more explicit than the original text.

_in_some_form_ -> roughly means the same
which is not the case here. The example above simply is not a good 
translation.

Im selben Satz "Pakete" und "Software" zu wiederholen, klingt auch nicht 
sonderlich gut.

> > Additionally, the translations often sound too formal to a native
> > speaker:
> > "Debian ist ein freies Betriebssystem (OS) für Ihren Rechner."
> > Although "Ihren" is the formal translation of "your" (which has a formal
> > and a non-formal translation in German), capitalizing that word is very
> > formal (e.g. used in directly addressed letters). To avoid that, it is
> > way more common to not address the reader directly.
> 
> $ lynx --dump  http://www.duden.de/firmenloesungen/index.php?nid=15 | grep
>  Ihren

That page adresses companies in a formal matter. The debian front page doesn't 
do that or not in any obvious way.

> For non-german readers: the 'Duden' is usually considered to be *the*
> reference for spelling in Germany.

A reference for spelling, not more.

> But ignoring that, how do you avoid addressing the reader when
> translating the snippet "for your computer" and at the same time keep
> your expectation above that the reverse translation should come really
> close to the original text?

I don't know the english translation for "klingt irgendwie steif".

> If you don't address the reader in the translation, there's no way to
> get the 'addressing' back in the reverse translation, is there?
> 
> And these are exactly the kind of problems translators have.

I know those problems, although not for Debian.

HS


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