Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:14:58 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Andi Scharfstein <nullpointer@myrealbox.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: grammar Message-ID: <20030531101458.U33085@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <15697888640.20030531014208@myrealbox.com>; from calvin8@t-online.de on Sat, May 31, 2003 at 01:42:08AM %2B0200 References: <3ECD3A8C.1040506@potentialtech.com> <00ae01c32668$2ff5ad70$2441d5cc@nitanjared> <20030531072026.O33085@welearn.com.au> <20030530213625.GA41089@wopr.caltech.edu> <20030531080645.Q33085@welearn.com.au> <15697888640.20030531014208@myrealbox.com>
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On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 01:42:08AM +0200, Andi Scharfstein wrote:
> Hi,
>
> >> > Recently I provided some IT staff with the documentation for a
> >> > new piece of software. Many times it said things like "In case
> >> > Foo, do Bar". The users (correctly in my view) read that as
> >> > advice of a precaution worth taking, and took it.
> >>
> >> Could this be a .us-vs-.au issue?
>
> > Possibly. If so, I wonder which way the rest of the world goes.
>
> Given this particular instruction, I would have done Bar only if Foo
> had occurred... but then again, I'm from Germany, and the terms "if"
> and "in case" translate to "falls" and "Im Falle" or "für den Fall,
> daß". I think you can easily see the linguistic relatedness.
If I can remember some tourist Deutsch from decades ago,
we might have soemthing like this:
English German
in the case of im Falle
in case foo happens ???
when foo happens (wenn?)
if foo happens wenn
I don't know if that's right, but if it is, perhaps to a German
speaker "if" has too many connotations of "when", so they feel
that using "in case" would make it clearer (but it confuses me).
But I suspect that it is English speakers who get confused over
wenn (myself particularly), not the reverse.
How would you handle, in German, "in case" as a precaution, e.g.
In case you break a fan belt, take a spare.
Would that also use "im Falle"? If so, that might point to
the overlapping concepts that cause some of the confusion
in translation.
Let's take that a bit further.
In case you break a fan belt, take a spare.
If you break a fan belt, you will have a big problem.
When you break a fan belt, replace it with the spare.
In the case of breaking a fan belt, you would be pleased have a spare.
Does German differentiate between these sentences, using different words?
When Grog wakes up he might have a strong opinion on this.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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