Language

I tried learning the language. Didn’t have time to go beyond the third lesson is a good excuse. But whatever the real reason be, this means that I will have to remain heavily dependent on the translation services available on the net. But how far they can be considered authentic is debatable. Consider the following examples: (You can try this at home.)

1. While looking for an apartment, I sent some mails, one reply started with the following line:

"Hallo Arnab Dhabal, zur Erinnerung mit wem Sie schon in Kontakt getreten sind, senden wir Ihnen folgende Mail:"

which was translated to English as follows:

"Hello Arnab Dhabal, in memory of with whom you already stepped into contact, send we you the following mail:"

2. Another translation which I couldn’t decipher:

We rates general from Western Union Payments in this connection off.

3.This tops it all. My address in Germany was given as Saupfercheckweg-2, D-69117 Heidelberg. I thought that the large word at the front might mean ‘guest house’ or something. The German to English translator said: "Sow corral hitting a corner way"!!!!!!!

I had to check the English dictionary – Corral means enclosure for cattle !!!! Sow is a female pig !!!!

Raziman who knows German explained that many streets names in Germany are directions in themselves.

Excuse #2:

In Hindi, each noun has a gender and it is derived from the phonetics. As if that is not enough, in addition to this, the German sentence structure varies according to the presence of “weak” German words and “strong” German words (???). Let’s take a small quiz to demonstrate what it means:

Der Mann isst den Kuchen. This means: “The man eats the cake”.

What will “Den Kuchen isst der Mann” mean?

Answer: “The man eats the cake” and not, as one might mistakenly assume "The cake eats the man"

This is when I thought it is better to give up.

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So, all arrangements made, I again decide to start writing. This time I will avail the services of a certain Diptarka Chakravarty as a co-author (or you can say it is the other way round). He is already on his way to Aachen, that’s the name of the city where he will be stationed.