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Questions tagged [german-to-english]

Übersetzungen vom Deutschen ins Englische – Questions on translations from German to English

You should use this tag if you are asking for a translation from German to English.

Please note that your question should be sufficiently scoped, i.e., about a single word or phrase, and that it requires expertise in German, not just in English. For more information, see this Meta post: Does my translation request belong here and if not, where and how shall I ask it? Also check if English Language Learners or English Language & Usage is a better fit for your question.

If your text is in English and you are looking for a German translation, please use instead.

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How to translate "schön blöd" in English?

What does "schön blöd" mean? Is it offending, but meant as a joke? Or does it mean someone is awfully stupid? In which situation would/could Germans use it?
Hauser
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What is the default meaning of a German Präsens tense setence in the absence of time indicators

Background German language textbooks teach that the German language does not have a tense with a progressive or continuous aspect which would indicate that an action is happening right now and will continue to happen. In English, this tense and…
BeginnerStudent
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Meaning of this street sign

A couple of years ago, a few friends and myself went on a trip from the UK to Bremen. A great time was had by all, even though none of us speak much German, beyond a few words learned many years before in school. Walking around Bremen, we…
KenD
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What does »fürs schwarz-schwarze Glücksprotokoll: "Die Freude unterstreiche ich."« mean?

The two short paragraphs below come from the article “Merkel, Seehofer und ihr Wahlprogramm. Das Traumpaar.” in Der Spiegel: Oh, wie schön ist die Programmarbeit. Wenn man so ein Wahlprogramm aufschreibe, sagt die Kanzlerin, dann könne man noch…
Eugene Str.
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What does ‘Am Nackten sieht man die Nudel’ mean?

This weird sentence comes from a Süddeutsche Zeitung article “Wie Sie im Akkord Vokabeln lernen können”. The article talks about association techniques in memorizing foreign words. The sentence in question was meant to help German learners of…
Eugene Str.
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One translation uses "were used" while the other uses "could be used"

Edward L. Homze's Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (1967) is written in English and contains the following sentence: In addition, nearly 300,000 Polish prisoners of war were used in the harvest of the 1939-1940 crop. The source seems to come from…
A Dark Divided Gem
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What swear word is gek*****?

Came across the following social media post and wondering what is the gek** * word being censored? And overall context translated to English, given that translators don't translate asterisked words. Gestern Mittag hat unsere jüngste den kompletten…
user610620
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I'm translating a play and in the midst of it there is a German sentence I cannot understand

I don't know German and here is the sentence. "Wunderbar! Peter look! Wie die geht! Wie die aussieht, die ist genau meine Kragenweite!" (Arnold Wesker, Kitchen) I used google translate but couldn't understand what he means. Previously he was…
minoosalesi
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German to English dictionary for reading "ancient" work of german mathematicians

I want to purchase a good dictionary which will include also words that aren't used in nowadays German language. I presume I need something that will include words from the last 200-500 years. I looked at Amazon's website, the first page offers a…
Alan
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What is "kulturelle Energetik"?

In the book "Scientific Babel" by Michael D. Gordon, Wilhelm Ostwald is quoted as saying Interessen immer weiter von der Chemie fortwandern. Internationalismus, Pacifismus und kulturelle Energetik sind jetzt meine Probleme. which the author has…
Golden Cuy
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What does ‘Älteren’ mean in this sentence?

I am currently reading taz.de article "Tagebücher des Sowjet-Politikers Maiski. Versprechen und manipulieren". The article begins with the following two sentences: Fragen wir heute nach den Namen der wichtigsten Diplomaten der Sowjetunion, fragen…
Eugene Str.
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How to translate "nichts auf die Reihe kriegen/bekommen"

According to PONS it means "to get one's knickers in a twist (get confused)". So for a sentence like "Ich kriege mein Leben nicht auf die Reihe", how would that translate? The translation given by PONS sounds odd because nobody in the USA says…
riqitang
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How would you translate "Indianer macht nichts an"?

I am having trouble translating the phrase "macht nichts an". I am listening to "Indianer", the second track of the Nena Band's first album. (When it was released in 1983 the term "Indian/Indianer" was still commonly used.) There are several…
Marilynnnn
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What does "auf dem Zettel" mean in this sentence?

I was listening to a podcast and the host said: "Wir haben so viele Themen auf dem Zettel" I looked it up and note doesn't seem like a proper translation, can someone help me with the exact meaning of this?
Sir. Aans
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What does "meint" mean here

It looks like in the sentence: "Meine Schwester meint, diese Show wird sich nicht lange halten". The right English translation for meint is "say": a) Is that correct? b) If so would you provide another example where "meinen" means "say" and not…
TNM
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