Phewww. I just finished translating this 104-word sentence from the 1959 documenta II catalog (p 13). Would you like to give it a go? The only thing that kept me sane was remembering my slightly wacky, ex-CIA-officer translation instructor reassuring us that it's ok to break up a big sentence into smaller sentences. Especially clunkers like this:
Weil diese Bilder aber aus der Mitte des zeitgenössischen Welt- und Daseinserlebnisses stiegen, weil sie in eigentümlicher Spiegelung den unanschaulichen Entwürfen der Wissenschaft und den Tatsachen des modernen Lebens mit ihren verborgenen Wirkkräften in Welle, Kraftfeld, Umlauf und Geschwindigkeit und den neuen Erlebnis- und Erkenntnistatsachen von Raumgestalt und Kosmos und der Strukturen, die den Stoff begründen und zusammenhalten, antwortende und anschaubare Vorstellungsbilder entgegenhielten, die das alles in dichterischer Verwandlung in sich enthielten, deshalb konnte die sie ershaffende Kunst im letzten Jahrzehnt zu dem bestimmenden Stilausdruck unserer Zeit werden und diese große Faszination in die zeitgenössische Gesellschaft hinein und insbesondere auf die jungen Generationen ausüben.
Bitte bitte, Herr Haftmann, sprechen Sie sich ruhig aus. I've got all day.
[ps: does anyone have a good equivalent for "unanschaulich?"]
Posted by Heather at June 24, 2005 09:50 AM
Comments
No wonder you have Hemmungen!
What a bastardos of a satz that is. I have just finished for the night running up a bit of translation myself and its time for bed.
My tip is cheat and first stop babelfish:
Because these pictures rose however from the center of the contemporary world and existence experience, because they held out answering and look atable mental images, which contained all this in dichterischer conversion in itself to the unanschaulichen drafts of the science and the facts of the modern life with their hidden effect forces in wave, field, circulation and speed and the new experience and realization facts of space shape and cosmos and the structures, which justify and hold the material together, in peculiar reflection, therefore those could become them ershaffende art in the last decade the determining style expression of our time and exercise this large fascination in particular into the contemporary society inside and on the recent generations.
Unbelievable. You give the thing a letter written by a two year old and it goes pear shaped. Give it some crazy artist babble and it loves it. Just leaves a few bits out.
So dichterisch will mean poetic, ershaffend created and unanschaulich I guess means something like undepicted or unseen or unviewed. Leo doesnt like the German word but dictionary.com accepts undepicted. Then its fit it all in together and time for a beer before bed.
OK I am sure your proper translation is a bit grade A compared to my weak Zeugnis 5- but its late and I really need beauty sleep... might have time for that 1 last beer though.
Posted by: Doughnut Boy Andy at June 24, 2005 06:25 PM
Oh and I just feel the need to add that any employers of translators from german to english who read my last comment (if I pass the bad boy test) and then feel that they will just babelfish and cheat their subject matter in future rather than contracting wonderful people like myself and Heather.. to these people I say be warned. There is no substitute sadly to us and there hopefully will not be before I become a pensioner. If you use Babelfish for translation you will look like an idiot.
Doughnut Boy
(This is an inofficial union disclaimer)
Posted by: Doughnut Boy Andy at June 24, 2005 06:34 PM
Sorry to hog your comments but half way through my cheap 30 cents Sternburg it all became clear....
unanschaulich means unbeheld I think as in anschauen to behold something.
Right now it really is time for bed....
Doughnut Boy
Posted by: Doughnut Boy Andy at June 24, 2005 06:46 PM
Ooo! 'Unbeheld' is good. I like that. It's kind of rich for the rest of his vocabulary, but it's a great word. I might try to wrench that into place. Thanks for the tip and for working on this in what must have been at least the beginning of the wee hours...
Posted by: Heather at June 24, 2005 09:09 PM
I think 'unanschaulich' is more like murky, obscure, unclear.
I'll trade you my bloody insurance translations for something with at least some connection to human creativity any day.
Posted by: Michael at June 28, 2005 10:44 PM
Hmm. "Murky" is probably the best choice. Funny how that seems totally obvious to me now, but at the time now dictionary, thesaurus, or general brainstorming would have led me to it. Thanks...
Posted by: Heather![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hemmungen.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 29, 2005 07:24 AM
Na ja. Im vergleich mit Englisch sind Deutsche satze langer aber das ist zu lang! Of course german sentences are longer if compared to english but this is a way too long!
Posted by: Helen at November 21, 2005 02:54 PM