Like-Blog
Presenting you the most interesting translation solutions
Why Like-Blog? Now, first of all, this blog is a blog that you should like (and read regularly) – at least, if you are interested in translation. Then, the topic discussed here is one in which the meaningful likeness between a text and its translation in the language pair English-German plays a key role. On this page, I will take a close look at some interesting translation solutions that I have come across in the course of my work as a translator and translation scholar.
A translation solution is only as good as the arguments that support it. This means that any translation criticism, whether positive or negative, needs to be justified. The quality of a translation solution shows only when we compare it to other possible translation solutions in a given translation situation. Therefore, a translation critic should not only say why a translation solution is bad, but also demonstrate what a better solution might look like. I will try to stick to these principles of translation criticism. So if you have any questions regarding my line of argument or if you disagree, please, let me know your opinion by phone at +49 4171 6086525 or by e-mail to bittner@businessenglish-hamburg.de. So much for the introduction. I hope you’ll enjoy reading this blog!
If anything (April 2021)
On 23 June 2009, Time.com published “How to Cut Health-Care Costs: Less Care, More Data” by Michael Grunwald. The following quote is about inefficient health-care spending in the USA: “Patients in higher-spending regions get more tests, more procedures, more referrals to specialists and more time in the hospital and ICU, but the Dartmouth research has found that if anything, their outcomes are slightly worse.”
The German translation is rather inconspicuous at first glance: “Die Patienten aus Regionen mit höheren Ausgaben erhalten mehr Tests, mehr Eingriffe, mehr Überweisungen an Spezialisten und mehr Zeit im Krankenhaus und auf der Intensivstation. Allerdings hat das Dartmouth Institute herausgefunden, dass die Resultate dieser Patienten, wenn überhaupt, dann leicht schlechter sind.” Still, something is wrong, here.
Well disguised as a natural idiomatic expression, “wenn überhaupt” appears to be not at all erroneous. Nevertheless, on close reading it becomes clear that the overall meaning does not fit, because the expression in question refers to the associated predicate in such a way as to exclude alternatives based on the same verb. For instance, the sentence “Ich studiere Englisch, wenn überhaupt” has the same meaning as “Wenn ich überhaupt studiere, dann Englisch” or “Ich studiere Englisch oder nichts”. For the translation, this results in a paraphrase that does not correspond to the meaning of the original, namely: “Allerdings hat das Dartmouth Institute herausgefunden, dass die Resultate dieser Patienten, wenn sie überhaupt schlechter sind, dann nur leicht schlechter sind.” However, since we are dealing here with patients who receive more medical services, i.e., who, by logic, should rather be doing better, a different reference must be created in the translation for the expression “wenn überhaupt”, for example: “Allerdings hat das Dartmouth Institute herausgefunden, dass, wenn es überhaupt einen Unterschied gibt, die Resultate bei diesen Patienten eher etwas schlechter sind.”