Language rigidity -- part 2

Question

I keep encountering incidents that feel to me like unwarranted insistence by German speakers to limit the flexibility of the language. I can imagine these questions may be annoying to some native German speakers, and I apologize in advance for that. But here is another example that I encountered recently.

I was attempting to translate:

You say he’s gone wrong. Do you know how he’s gone wrong? No! Do you know what shape this wrongness takes? No!

Du erklärst, dass er schief gegangen ist. Weißt du, wie er schief gegangen ist? Nein! Weißt du, welche Form das Schiefgegangene nimmt? Nein!

and I was told that the use of nehmen in this context is unquestionably wrong and was corrected with:

Du erklärst, dass er schief gegangen ist. Weißt du, wie er schief gegangen ist? Nein! Weißt du, welche Form das Schiefgegangene annimmt? Nein!

Now, I concede that all the examples I could find in DWDS associate Form with annehmen and not nehmen. So, I concede that conventional German requires annehmen and not nehmen here. But is this use of nehmen actually wrong, or simply unconventional?

If you look carefully at DWDS's entry for nehmen these examples can be noticed:

etw. verwenden, aufbringen etw. beanspruchen Beispiele: umgangssprachlichsich [Dativ] frei nehmen gespreizter nahm Gelegenheit, seinen Vorschlag anzubringen

It seems like taking the opportunity to do something, is similar in action to taking the form of something.

The DWDS entry includes this section that is even headed by annehmen:

etw. annehmen Beispiele: nehmen Sie meinen allerherzlichsten Dank! sie wollte keinen Dank nehmen von jmdm. Rat nehmen er nahm, was sich ihm bot

Finally, under section 18: etw. nach einem Original aufnehmen, festhalten

Beim Nehmen der Formen von der natürlichen Vorlage [zum Herstellen eines Gipsabgusses] [ Urania1959]

So, why would these 2 native German speakers be so adamant that nehmen was wrong in this context? Or is this just showing very little tolerance for the unconventional?

"Form annehmen" means something specific and "Form nehmen" means something specific. "Form nehmen" is never used for your first example. It's two different expressions. — EagleFliesBanana, May 31 '23 at 21:02
How correct would "Do you know what shape this wrongness takes up?" sound to you in English? — Raketenolli, May 31 '23 at 21:31
Your quoted example from DWDS and most others under 18. sound quite unusual to my ears and would employ a different verb in modern German: "Musik aufnehmen", "ein Motiv auf Farbfilm aufnehmen", "einen Abdruck abnehmen", "beim Abnehmen der Formen von der Vorlage". Taken literally, "eine Form nehmen" means "to take a mould" (as in "to pick up a cookie mould" or "to steal a sand mould from another child"). It does not mean "to take shape" as in your example. — Raketenolli, May 31 '23 at 21:36
"limit the flexibility of the language" - what is "flexibility" of a language to you? Is it to be able to express a single idea in ten different ways? Or is it to be able to express and distinguish ten different ideas by only slightly altering a single sentence? — O. R. Mapper, May 31 '23 at 21:54
By the way, it is noteworthy how in your previous question related to "languaeg rigidity", we were dealing with a sentence that was incomprehensible the way it was written in German. This time, in contrast, the German sentence is perfectly comprehensible, I'd say, it's just not correct - the same way the meaning of "I go cinema." is perfectly clear, even though, if I asked you to make the sentence better English, you would probably not leave it as it is. — O. R. Mapper, May 31 '23 at 21:59
Yes, I recognize that the 2 questions may seem unrelated based upon the German referenced. By 'limit the flexibility', I am thinking of situations in which an idea is expressed in a way that is comprehensible to the author but may be original to the usage of the language. — user44591, May 31 '23 at 23:42
You have to live with the fact that English condenses far more meanings into homonyms than German does. Translating from English means expanding those homonyms with the help of a dictionary. That's tiresome. Learn the German collocations instead. — Janka, Jun 01 '23 at 03:11
I get the impression that the rigid thing here is not the German language but the desire to be able to translate word for word without context and assuming that expressions do have exact 1:1 translations including all connotations — planetmaker, Jun 01 '23 at 06:00
@user44591 "I am thinking of situations in which an idea is expressed in a way that is comprehensible to the author." Writing and speaking is not about being comprehensible to the author, but comprehensible to the reader/listener. Some expressions are correct and understandable, some are wrong but still understandable, and some are wrong and not understandable, or have a different meaning than intended. It may help you to take some wrong English sentences and imagine the speaker complaining about the rigidity of the English language. — RalfFriedl, Jun 01 '23 at 10:44
@RalfFriedl: By what you say, a German sentence is either correct or wrong. I can tell you as a native English speaker, English has many more gradations of correctness. So many, in fact, that in English every effort is made to imagine what the author could mean, whatever the form of the expression may be. Certainly, this can only be done with context, in the most difficult of cases. But this idea that the meaning can only be correct or wrong is foreign to most English speakers. Perhaps we must pay for this with more misunderstandings. — user44591, Jun 01 '23 at 18:33
@Janka: I do think you have hit upon a useful insight for me, that German and English differ substantially with respect to homonyms. I am just beginning to appreciate this point and its significant importance to transitioning from English to German. Thank you. — user44591, Jun 01 '23 at 18:35
@user44591 I don't read RalfFriedl as that. The point is, that both, proper grammar and use of the words weigh their different meanings make nice and understandable language. You can deviate from the 'main stream', but only so much before you either become incomprehensible or even say something different than intended. That is the same in all languages. The difference is how far you can bend specific grammar and/our meaning of words before the border is reached our breached. Knowing that requires knowledge of the language. First learn the rules, then break the rules, then forget the rules. — planetmaker, Jun 01 '23 at 22:05
@user44591: "in English every effort is made to imagine what the author could mean" - I think this part is exactly the same as in German. But if the way the author puts an expression is too far off any expected way of speaking, the author will simply remain incomprehensible. Now, if the author so utterly fails at using language for communication, what is the issue with classifying the author's expression as "wrong"? Looking at some of your previous questions on this site, you appear to run into the very same situation in English: You were unable to figure out the meaning of ... — O. R. Mapper, Jun 02 '23 at 00:05
... "stellte den Verbrecher", of a straightforward use of "demnach", and of a phrase like "und sich" (which does not even contain any special words), among others. All of these examples are perfectly clear to native German speakers, but a word-by-word translation to English left you wondering what was the intended meaning. Does that mean that you are not making enough of an effort, or that you are not sufficiently "creative" about ... — O. R. Mapper, Jun 02 '23 at 00:05
... language? I wouldn't say so - I'd rather say your emerging German skills still lack some essential parts of the knowledge required to fully understand German. Now, if you do not understand certain expressions, you cannot accurately estimate how a native speaker of German would interpret those, or similar, expressions. But this latter part is, IMHO, pretty much a precondition for being creative with a language, in German and in English. — O. R. Mapper, Jun 02 '23 at 00:05

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered May 31 '23 at 21:57

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I'm not going to try to get into the specifics, but if you're just learning then "unconventional" probably means wrong. If you're an experienced jazz musician you can get away with using blue notes because you know when it sounds natural to include them. If you learning the piano and play the wrong note it just sounds wrong, and arguing that you were being "unconventional" is not going to convince anyone. It's the same for language learners; you need to be a native speaker or a achieve a very high level of fluency to use unusual phrasing and still sound natural. It can be frustrating because it's usually not a matter of being able to state the problem in terms of dictionary meanings and grammar rules; you just have to develop an "ear" for what sounds correct.

An example in music that springs to mind is a "melody" that's just a single note played over and over. When you or I do it it sounds silly, at best an imitation of Morse code. When Antônio Jobim does it (Samba de uma Nota Só aka One Note Samba) it's music.

answered May 31 '23 at 21:57

RDBury

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I must say, I find this point of view very judgmental -- a point that is repeatedly emphasized by reference to the "naturalness", or lack thereof, of the speech. I think it is possible to give a beginner the same latitude to experiment as a recognized authority. One may not like what the beginner produces as often, but the creative process does not need to be restricted by anyone's prejudices. – user44591 May 31 '23 at 23:55
The question, in this case, is whether the bad translation has produced a wrong translation or an unconventional one. What I hear you saying is that it depends upon who is doing the translating, which is what I have heard from other Germans. My impression is that this point of view is much more common among Germans than English speakers, at least where I am. Someone learning a language will take much longer to achieve a level that sounds "natural" than a level that he/she can be understood. Positive feedback is essential at both levels. – user44591 May 31 '23 at 23:57
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@user44591: "What I hear you saying is that it depends upon who is doing the translating" - that is not at all what I read in this answer. As is explained, 'you just have to develop an "ear" for what sounds correct'. A beginner typically has not mastered this yet. They have the very same "right" to be creative with a language as someone who has lots of experience with the same language, but the beginner is exceedingly likely to end up with something that is unidiomatic or even incomprehensible, when the experienced person would find a creative yet suitable way to put it. – O. R. Mapper Jun 01 '23 at 07:51

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 01 '23 at 00:42

You say he’s gone wrong. Do you know how he’s gone wrong? No! Do you know what shape this wrongness takes? No!

First off, "gone wrong" is idiomatic. It doesn't mean "walking in the wrong direction", but rather "having an untrue or wrong opinion or conviction" or somply "failed". If an experiment "goes wrong" it has an unexpected and undesired outcome. Therefore "schiefgehen" (it is "schiefgehen" [to fail], not "schief gehen" [walking lopsided]) is a fitting translation for an experiment but not a person.

A possible translation would be "schiefgelegen haben", but that is very informal. "Unrecht haben" or maybe "im Unrecht sein" is perhaps the best (and most neutral) translation.

Another point of objection is this translation of "(this) wrongness":

das Schiefgegangene

But you are not talking about a (material or immaterial) thing, but a process (of being wrong). Therefore the translation should be "das Schiefgehen" (the act of being wrong) instead of "das Schiefgegangene". If you accept my translation of "Unrecht haben" it would be: "das Unrechthaben" instead of (analogous to your construction) "das Unrecht".

Finally "nehmen" vs. "annehmen". In this context "(eine Form) annehmen" means to turn into (a certain form), to transform (into sth.) or to morph. This is a valid translation. "Nehmen", on the other hand, means "to take" and is simply wrong. But maybe you want to express how this going wrong becomes apparent? For this, I would rather use "sich äußern".

Here is an attempt at a translation putting these pieces together:

Du sagst (erklärst?), er wäre im Unrecht. Weißt du, auf welche Weise er im Unrecht ist? (Weißt du, warum er im Unrecht sein sollte?) Nein! Weißt du, auf welche Weise sich dieses Im-Unrecht-sein äußert? Nein!

Language rigidity -- part 2

2 Answers2