German Super Words Have no Literal Translation

German translation is in a world of its own. German as a language is linguistically similar to several other European languages, but seems to be unique in its ability to construct complex words by combining several others together into a ‘super word’. These super words cannot easily be translated literally. In fact, if you have a German dictionary you might not even see some of these words in it unless it is a very comprehensive one. Professional German translators need to have a very extensive vocabulary if it is to include the rich diversity of German super words. Not sure what we are talking about?

Here are some examples below. 

Have you ever eaten ‘comfort food’ if you were bored, lonely, or just stressed out? If you do that on a regular basis, you may just put on a few extra kilos of weight, what is called in German Kummerspeck, literally ‘grief bacon.’

If you do end up with too much Kummerspeck, you will have to fight quite hard against your natural tendency to do nothing about it to shed those kilos. What is called in German Innerer Scheinehund is the tendency in each of us to put off doing now what could be done later, our ‘inner laziness’. In fact, the German term literally means ‘inner pigdog,’ which somehow or other becomes something quite different!

Have you ever thought you really wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere altogether more exotic than the place you are right now? Of course, you have. It’s common in winter, when the skies are grey and drab. Germans feel it a lot and call it Fernweh, or in English literally ‘distance pain’. Perhaps that’s why so many Germans can be found all over the world in exciting locations. They just love to listen to their Fernweh!

Some of us keep working and living the same old life until suddenly we get the feeling that we really should have done something more exciting. Maybe it’s now too late? That funny feeling that we might be missing out on something is what Germans call Torschlusspanik. It literally means ‘closing gate panic’ or in other words a fear that an opportunity is going to disappear!

Have you ever been caught out doing something you shouldn’t and have given some kind of lame excuse? Some of us do it all the time, especially kids! A poor excuse in German is called Erklärungsnot, although the literal explanation is ‘explanation poverty’!

As you can see from just these few examples alone, learning German is actually a lot of fun, so don’t leave it all to the professional German translator. German words might seem like Zugenbrechers, (tongue twisters) but most of them are easier than that and once you’ve mastered a few yourself, you can try them out on your German speaking friends!

Do Your Potential Customers Know You Exist?

  

Perhaps it’s the arrogance of the native English speaker that everyone else in the world should or could understand English well enough to think they don’t need to bother with learning another language themselves. In the business world, this arrogance, or misunderstanding, means that an astonishing number of companies think they can communicate with the rest of the world in English. 

For some businesses, it’s more about a false economy than arrogance or ignorance. The thinking is that all a business has to do is to advertise its products or services on its website and millions of people around the world will be glued to their screens in anticipation.

To be honest, this is a failing of English language based businesses more than any other language. It doesn’t take too much persuasion for a German company, for instance, that is considering expanding its market beyond the borders of Germany and a few other European countries where German is widely spoken. Few people really are able to understand German, so there is an obvious need to include German translators in the budget when it comes to expanding a market, even if it is just having an English, French or Spanish website version available.

Some startling gaps in the business plan of U.S. companies, for instance, illustrate where some businesses are failing to grasp their mistakes. One translation firm did some research into what languages a sample of 160 U.S. based businesses translated their marketing material into. The answer was that nearly half of them did not even bother to translate into Spanish, despite the huge Spanish speaking population in that country and that the same language is spoken throughout Central and South America, which is a key international market target for U.S. businesses.

German companies, by contrast, accustomed to having to communicate in other languages, are at a distinct competitive advantage in having no compunction in hiring German English translation services if they are targeting English language based markets and no doubt finding professional translators to translate their marketing material into other key languages, too. There is an old saying that you get what you pay for and in terms of paying out for translation services, international wannabe businesses that allocate part of their budget wisely will reach the people they intend to reach while others will never be heard.