stuart@bcsaic.UUCP (stuart gove) (09/21/85)
The following is taken from the _Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage_: The sentence, "He updated the file," translates into German as "Er hat die Datei upgedated" with the "a" in "upgedated" pronounced long. Also, the German phrase for "software" is "immaterielle Ware". ----- Stuart Gove Boeing Computer Services "I was a narrator for bad mimes." -- Steven Wright
tmb@talcott.UUCP (Thomas M. Breuel) (09/24/85)
In article <312@bcsaic.UUCP>, stuart@bcsaic.UUCP (stuart gove) writes: > The following is taken from the _Harper Dictionary of Contemporary > Usage_: > The sentence, "He updated the file," translates into German as > "Er hat die Datei upgedated" > with the "a" in "upgedated" pronounced long. > Also, the German phrase for "software" is > "immaterielle Ware". Well, then the dictionary is wrong. Those two translations are the most ridiculous ones I have ever heard. Correct translations are: "He updated the file": "Er hat die Datei auf den neusten Stand gebracht." "Er hat die Datei geschrieben." "Software": "Software" (pronounced as in English, a loanword) "Programme" The German language, like the Japanese and French languages, borrow many technical terms from the English language. The reason is not that the languages themselves would be inadequate to express the same concept (in fact, in German there is a German term for practically any English technical term), but that most research articles nowadays are written in English and that the English terms are therefore used much more frequently. Sorry for being so sensitive about this, but please realise that it is the dictionary that is funny, not the language. There are indeed people who speak like your dictionary, but such people are usually not taken seriously. The first translation you gave sounds like a barbaric neologism, the second translation like a sales representative who doesn't know what he is talking about. Thomas.