Posted on: December 4, 2017 by admin
If you are looking for someone to translate your documents from German to English or English to German, you might want to make sure that your German translator is a native speaker, and preferably a NAATI certified German translator, as learning the German language was never an easy task and a non-native speaker might always miss those German rules, where every noun has a gender. A German translator who is not a native speaker could never get a full grip on it, especially if you are looking for a German interpreter in a sensitive situation, for instance in a court or a financial decision.
Too many rules that could have some exceptions, and this is why at Speak Your Language, our German translators are native speakers and are also NAATI-certified. Let us tell you some fun facts about the German language, which is considered one of the world’s most confusing languages.
While Mandarin is the most widely spoken language, German is the 11th according to Wikipedia. About 1.4% of the world’s population speak German.
While English & German could have a lot of words in common, you might need to be cautious. While we all love ‘gifts’, and wish we have lovely ‘gifts’, the German word ‘gift’ means poison, so you wouldn’t really still love it.
We might say ‘that’s not my cup of tea’, Germans would say ‘that’s not your beer’, which wouldn’t mean that’s not your favorite thing or not your taste, but would rather mean ‘that’s none of your business’.
Simply, all nouns in German are written with capital letters, so it would actually look confusing to your eyes reading German newspapers.
Germans have those ultra-specific words that are so perfect to express a specific thing, but sad enough, English don’t have a word for it. What’s the single word in English to describe your fear from time or age, creating a sense of urgency to achieve or do something before it’s too late? Well, I don’t think we have one, but Germans do: it’s ‘Torschlusspanik’.
Don’t get scared of those long German words, they probably get broken into smaller nouns, Germans simply tend to build a compound noun.
You’ll find different accents for the German language, as it’s not only the official language in Germany, but also for Austria and Liechtenstein, as well as being one of the official languages in Switzerland and Luxembourg, so German is actually the most spoken native language in the European Union.
The Bavarian accent and dialect for example, has even been joked about as the ‘German that even Germany doesn’t understand’.
For the German language, there is a gender for each noun, either masculine, feminine or neutral, and it’s purely grammatical, not logical: a young lady has no sex, but a turnip does.
The longest word in the world is in German: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. How easy was that to read (not that you have tried!).
Those fun facts can simply deliver the message. Only a German translator should translate your German document. Ready to order your translation online? Contact Speak Your Language today.
