Hallo All
that is a very good translation.
Dora from Berlin
----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [lace-chat] German translation help
Hi Jacquie
[email protected] wrote:
Is there anyone on Arachne Chat who could translate the following German
sentence into a more flowing English equivalent than the one offered.
Apparently
in German there is a play on words with 'time' and 'clock', and this
doesn't
work in English? It is for a Block-a-month quilt square with the overall
theme
of time, and this play on words makes it appropriate for this purpose,
but it
doesn't work (with her translation anyway) in English. Is there anyone
who
can do better?
This is the original German:
Wer nach der Uhr lebt, muss damit rechen, dass ihm sein Leben mit der
Zeit
auf den Wecker geht.
And this is the English translation offered:
Who lives by the clock, has to reckon that by time, his life will drive
him
up the wall.
In my opinion this does not accurately translate the meaning of the German
sentence.
A literal translation is:
(He) who lives by the hour/clock, must reckon that in the course of time
his life will annoy him.
The word play is that the phrase 'ihm auf den Wecker geht' is a colloquial
way to say something annoys him or bugs him, but the literal meaning is to
set an alarm clock.
I'd say it's pretty much equivalent to 'He who lives by the clock will die
by the clock'.
Hope this helps
Steph
At home in Manchester for the weekend but usually in Berlin
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