Oolite Bulletins

Yeah, maybe I should start playing Oolite in german for the cool words...

wackyman465 wrote:

Yeah, maybe I should start playing Oolite in german for the cool words...

Now thats funny! I am german and I prefer the english version, as usual. I hate german translations, and for tech stuff german words often appear very funny or strange to me. For games I bought and which came in german only, I quite often did download the english original and used the german CD only for the copy protection/serial number. Sometimes even scientists make things wrong, for example the book "design patterns" also had all those code parts and names for the patterns translated into german, which says clearly that those "professionals" who translated it never understood the book. As you might guess, I went for the english version.

On the other hand, this seems to be some sort of international "problem", that words from other languages appear to be more "cool". Sometimes this leads to really funny things: mixing words of two languages into a new word is the most common (example: gedownloadet instead of download(ed) or heruntergeladen). Shortly after 9/11 there was a stupid supermarket who wanted to sell backpacks (rucksack in german, the same word also being used in english, as I understand). They did want to make it more interesting than a common german rucksack, failed to select the proper word and advertised "body bags" (yes, I do like black humour).

Screet

"body bags"? Might be useful how...?

It might get annoying after a while if I actually knew much german, but I would far rather have a Kaiserkurier than an Imperial Courier (This might be wrong/offensive, blame my translation software...).

re: "body bags"

LOL

Hi all,
I only know one word in german and it sounds like "Acht Tuoone" As far as i know it means "Excuse me sir, I do believe your musical insturment needs tuning" Quite clever they germans, a whole sentence in one word.

I loved the ruck sack-body bag. laughed a lot at that.

Danka for your attention

Alex wrote:

Hi all,
I only know one word in german and it sounds like "Acht Tuoone" As far as i know it means "Excuse me sir, I do believe your musical insturment needs tuning" Quite clever they germans, a whole sentence in one word.

Oh, you've seen nothing yet. There is even another one that translates into "I don't want to be overly rude, sir, but your knowledge of our beautiful German mother tongue really sucks."

Nah. Just kidding.

Wouldn't it be father tongue, if we're talking about german? or is that just the fatherland...

wackyman465 wrote:

or is that just the fatherland...

No ... that is back in history and better stays there

aye!

Lestradae wrote:

wackyman465 wrote:

or is that just the fatherland...

No ... that is back in history and better stays there

Oh, indeed!
The Germans, bless 'em, have tried very hard to put that insanity behind them. They're not happy with being reminded of it.

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Lestradae wrote:

wackyman465 wrote:

or is that just the fatherland...

No ... that is back in history and better stays there

Oh, indeed!
The Germans, bless 'em, have tried very hard to put that insanity behind them. They're not happy with being reminded of it.

<off-topic>
I do believe it's somewhat illegal to display swastikas and/or use Nazi slogans in Germany now. Anyway 'nuff said on that, really.
</off-topic>

Captain Hesperus

Screet wrote:

wackyman465 wrote:

Yeah, maybe I should start playing Oolite in german for the cool words...

Now thats funny! I am german and I prefer the english version, as usual. I hate german translations, and for tech stuff german words often appear very funny or strange to me.
(...)
On the other hand, this seems to be some sort of international "problem", that words from other languages appear to be more "cool".

Speaking from a Dutch perspective, when it comes to technical translations I often prefer the German ones over the English ones even though my German is far worse then my English (fortunately it is just a dialect of Dutch )
Even "Datei speichern auf ihre Festplatte" somehow seems cooler then saving data on your harddisk

(although I have the impression that the more people talk about something, the more they are inclined to use their own language. Ten years ago, here it would be "Data naar je harddisk saven", but now our locals are fast reverting to "Bestanden op je harde schijf opslaan". I find that amusing)

Funny, that. My mother tongue is german, and I prefer the english version, because it sounds cooler to me

Correct me if i'm wrong, but at one point, wasn't it illegal to even make jokes about nazis?

Captain Hesperus wrote:

<off-topic>
I do believe it's somewhat illegal to display swastikas and/or use Nazi slogans in Germany now. Anyway 'nuff said on that, really.
</off-topic>

Not 'somewhat'. The use of Nazi symbols is a criminal offense in Germany, as is denying the holocaust, by the way. Which is why German neo-nazis have come up with symbols that bear a striking resemblance to nazi symbols (everybody gets the message at once) without being actual nazi symbols, so it's legally safe for them.

wackyman465 wrote:

Correct me if i'm wrong, but at one point, wasn't it illegal to even make jokes about nazis?

Guess I'll have to correct you here. Making jokes about nazis was certainly never illegal (except if you mean between 1933 and 1945, of course; where it would equal certain death). Which doesn't mean that there couldn't have been lawsuits about any particular joke. I could imagine that German prosecutors would get interested if lets say a neo-nazi group would start using jokes as camouflage for transporting actual nazi ideology. Thank heavens most neo-nazis would be too dumb for that anyway, though. ('Subtlety' is not what one would particularly attribute to nazism in general.)