FALSE FRIENDS, GOOD AND BAD TRANSLATION
zu 70% falsch übersetzt
„zu“ ist so ein kleines, fieses Wort.
Man nehme zum Beispiel:
Das Unternehmen deckt seit 2006 den Strombedarf zu 70% aus erneuerbaren Quellen.
Etwa 70% übersetzen „zu“ in solchen Fällen mit „up to.“ Was natürlich 100% daneben ist. Leider kommt man hier auf Englisch mit einer Präposition gar nicht weiter. Der Satz muss umgestellt werden.
Eine von vielen Möglichkeiten:
70% of the company’s electricity requirements are met from (oder auch with oder sogar by) renewable energy (sources).
An welcher Stelle im Satz würdest du dann noch das "seit 2006" unterbringen?
Übrigens bin ich froh dass ich zu den anderen 30 % gehöre 😉
The MS spellcheck seems to be having a bee in its bonnet regarding passive constructions. These are shown up by default as errors. Why?
Regards,
Dondu N. Raghavan
This is an awesome blog.
Your spite for shitty translations is great.
I don't know about this post, however.
I think "up to 70%" is fine.
The NYT seems to agree:
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=%22up+to+70%25%22&more=past_365
Or am I missing something here?
In your suggested translation, you also start the sentence with a number, which should generally be avoided in English (or so they say).
Anyway, keep up the (otherwise) awesome posts!
Lucais – danke für die Blumen. I hate to say it but, yes, I think you are missing something – but it is precsiely the trap that most English (or non-German) speakers fall into: "zu" is not "bis zu" and serves a different purpose. Sure, "up to" is correct English, but that is not what "zu" means in THIS context. We do not really have an equivalent preposition, but it serves the following purpose: "in 70% of cases".
Dieser Kommentar wurde vom Autor entfernt.
Ha, Librarian, you've got me there!!! I'd be forced to turn the sentence around, and make an active sentence out of the passive – and say something like: "Since 2006, the company has met…" Which sort of answers dondu's question – most style guides dislike passive constructions. And, yes, on the whole they are right – passive is rarely as elegant as active, but it is sometimes the only way out of a hole. German also seem to use passive a lot more than English, so it is worth being critical on this point