I remember an early 1980s sitcom shown in the UK called Yes, Minister! Written by former insiders experienced in the machinations behind the closed doors of British Government departments, it satirised politics, showing the relationships between politicians and those responsible for pretending to carry out their particular whim of the day. Later events in British politics seem to suggest that it ought better to be viewed as a documentary. An example of the insights from 1980 between a cabinet minister, Hacker, and his chief civil servant, Sir Humphrey:
Author: elisabeth.rettelbach@diction.ch
Das Bundesgericht hat gesprochen: Mit seinem Urteil vom 21. Juni 2016 rügt es das Kantonsgericht von Graubünden wegen mangelnder Transparenz der Rechtsprechung. Hintergrund dieses Urteils war die Recherche einer Journalistin zu einem Unfall im Eiskanal in St. Moritz, bei dem das Opfer einen Fuss verloren hatte. Die Journalistin ersuchte um Einsichtnahme in zwei Urteile des Kantonsgerichts zur strafrechtlichen Verantwortung derjenigen Person, die zur Zeit des Unfalls für den Gesamtbetrieb des Eiskanals zuständig war.
Continue reading “Wie funktioniert eigentlich das Bundesgericht?”
As an English speaker living in Germany, I have often wondered why the German words for different kinds of meat are essentially the same as the names of the animals themselves, whereas the English language (usually) has one name for an animal and another for its meat. For example, in England I would have ordered a fillet of pork or a beef pie, but in Germany I now ask for a pig fillet or a cow pie. So where did this difference come from? And why does English have separate terms for meat and animal?
Continue reading “Cow pies and the Norman Conquest”
Als Grafikerin und Werbetexterin habe ich in meinem Job eine Menge übers Layouten in fremden Sprachen gelernt. Hier einige Tipps fürs perfekte Layout, eine persönliche Top-5-Liste.
Continue reading “Passt alles? Tipps für Layout und DTP in Fremdsprachen”
It’s that time of year again: the sun is shining, temperatures are rising and the thought of spending another sweltering day at your desk feels like torture. It’s time for a well-deserved vacation! Or is it holidays? Well that depends on where you’re from. Americans go “on vacation” or “vacay”, while Brits, Canadians and Australians go “on holiday” or “hols”.
Continue reading “You say vacation, I say tomato”If there is one thing that we translators sometimes enjoy even more than an excellent translation, it is a flawed one. (And, as with any translation, context is key here … bear with me.) Seeing ourselves as bastions of phraseological felicity and fidelity, we dutifully spend our days toiling away on our own flawless translations and eradicating any grammatical, lexical and orthographical irregularities from the texts we read. But we occasionally come across the odd mistranslation that, in spite of its obvious flaws, simply puts a smile on our faces.
Continue reading “Shoes on hands, pears in light fittings and snails without clothes”Although the English language is rich in many ways, it is distinctly lacking in one aspect: diacritical marks. In fact, most of the commonly used words in English that feature accents, cedillas, and tildes are loan words from other European languages – née, façade, jalapeño. When you consider that other languages get to pepper their words with creative letters such as ø, ô, ž, or even ķ, it’s easy to see how an English native speaker could start to get a bit envious.
Cada vez es más frecuente encontrarnos con mensajes tales como Hla! Kmo stas?X aki to bien!!Muxo frio y pco sol!kndo t viens?T exo de mens!Bss o como #MeSientoBienYqueLoSepaTOdoElmUNDO. Hoy en día, es casi inevitable no toparse con estos textos codificados. Es cierto que el mensaje llega así más rápido al receptor, pero la verdad es: el que no se preocupa ni lo más mínimo de escribir bien, le entrará tarde o temprano la duda de si era a ver o haber o quizás haver. Esos mensajitos, posts, tweets, etc., omnipresentes y casi indescifrables, contribuyen a la pérdida de los conocimientos adquiridos de la ortografía española.