The Germans have a word for it: fremdschämen

A lot of people see German as an ugly language. It doesn't sound nice - all those throat-clearing 'ch' sounds, for example  "mit Ach und Krach" (by the skin of one's teeth). There's a video on YouTube on the various European words for "butterfly", which are all supposed to sound pretty until you come to the German word for it: "Schmetterling". 

How to pronounce butterfly in five languages

However, German has one major advantage and that is you can slam two words together to make a new one. And it can encapsulate in that one single word a concept that would take several words to explain in English. One of the most famous examples of this is "Schadenfreude" (literally "damage delight"). If you look it up, you'll find a definition along the lines of "taking a malicious delight in the misfortunes of others".

In this little series entitled "The Germans have a word for it", I'd like to share a few German words that I've collected over the years and for which the English-speaking world has no word.

The first in the series is "fremdschämen", a verb. It's relatively recent, having made it into Duden, the famous German dictionary, in 2009. It means that you yourself feel embarrassed on behalf of another person who is behaving in such a way that should make them feel embarrassed - but they're not. One possible translation is "vicarious embarrassment". LEO - an excellent online dictionary, one I often consult on a daily basis - suggests that "zum Fremdschämen" could be translated as "cringeworthy".

                    Die Rede des Politikers war so schlecht und peinlich, dass der gesamte Auftritt zum Fremdschämen war.

                    The politician's speech was so bad and awkward, that the entire performance was cringeworthy.

Back from 17 minutes in New Zealand

 And how did I manage to spend a mere 17 minutes in New Zealand this morning? Well, it's all thanks to the gym - and the cross-trainer that has a special screen which allows you to select various options to keep you occupied while trudging hard and going nowhere.

Only, today, I did go somewhere. I recently found out that one of the things you could choose from were walks from all around the world - Alaska, north-west USA, Hawaii - and New Zealand. So I chose New Zealand and did three trails before getting too bored. 

It was lovely - the greenery, the geology and the little bits of information that popped up as I went along the trails. 

I look forward to walking in Hawaii next. A mini-holiday without the need to pack and get on a plane.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the end of the second trail (or as they say in New Zealand 'tramp'):

Why?

Why is it that, when I have a day off, I wake up at 4.30 a.m. and can't get to sleep again, no matter how I try, so I get up and do stuff, but when I have to do work, I sleep until 6 a.m. and am then so groggy that I can't get myself into gear [mich aufraffen]? I then lie in bed for an hour or so, semi-comatose, unable to move, incapable of even opening my eyes - despite the fact that work awaits me.

It's so unfair.

The morbid nature of the Germans

 Last Friday, I did a short 11 km walk which nearly killed me, so hilly it was. Since I had about 40 minutes to kill before the train came, I rewarded myself with a nice cup of tea in a newly opened cafe. At least...I thought it was going to be a pleasant sit-down in the place.

Unfortunately, I can understand German perfectly and there was a 74-year-old man, talking to a 42-year-old women (so detailed were they that I got all this information within a minute or two) about ill health, strokes, and "Scheintod", or "apparent death". 

He went on about how people have been buried alive and that was only discovered when they had to open the casket or coffin again long after the burial. The people who opened the coffin found scratch marks on the inside. Ugh!

Could I ignore the morbid nature of the talk? Could I heck. They were the only two other guests in the smallish place. After a few minutes and a couple of glares in their direction, I picked up my stuff and the tea cup and moved outside. 

Oh, what a difference. Sunshine. Peace. And pleasantness restored.

The actual cafe: Café Alma am Mariendom in Neviges.

I feel bereft

 Yes, bereft [beraubt] is how I feel.

A couple of weeks ago, I wondered why I hadn't had any articles on the subject of stationery [Schreibwaren] to translate for a while and looked up "Insights-X", the name of the stationery trade fair [Messe] organised by the people in Nuremberg. I discovered that, after 8 years, it had been discontinued. How sad.

I mentioned this to the agency that had given me the articles to translate and got another piece of bad news. The organisers of one of the largest trade fairs in Germany - the Spielwarenmesse or International Toy Fair - had decided to use artificial intelligence, AI, to translate all the articles in the future. The trade fair company offered the agency the chance to "tidy up" the translations, which they refused. 

So now, I feel bereft. No longer will I learn about the innovations in the world of model railways. Never again will I be in the know when it comes to the latest board games, new toys for toddlers, smart building blocks, creative games, learning games and the like. And I shall never hear of the latest trends in stationery either: scrap-booking, calligraphy, marker pens and diaries... 

One thing I like about translation is that you're never quite sure what you are going to get from one day to the next. One minute, you're translating something relating to the environment or economics and the next text to come along is all about glitter pens or jigsaw puzzles.

Life has become just a little bit more boring and flat.

TV series recommendation: The Other Bennet Sister

The BBC has come up with a little gem: an eight-part series based on a book by Janice Hadlow called The Other Bennet Sister. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the works of Jane Austen will instantly recall that the Bennet family crops up in her novel Pride and Prejudice, and, indeed, this story is a continuation of that book.

The first two half-hour episodes basically recap [zusammenfassen] the tale that Jane Austen wrote. It's as of episode three that the story gets really interesting and answers the question of what happened to the unmarried, plain Jane [Mauerblümchen] sister called Mary. Bookish, a bit gawky, not at all girly, she doesn't fit in with her sisters, and doesn't sparkle like they do - much to the despair of her mother, brilliantly played by Ruth Jones.

The actors in each role are credible, just right for their roles, the costumes are wonderful and the sets have been dressed to perfection. You can almost imagine that it was filmed on site in the past. Almost. Two things didn't seem quite in keeping with the rest. One was the scene at a gathering in a private house when everone chants "Sing, sing" over and over again. I didn't think people would do that in those days. Secondly, we sometimes see the London street she ends up living in: it's too clean. In those days, it would have been filfthy, what with all the horses for one thing. As it is, there's not a speck of dirt or a scrap of waste. Too unbelievable. But those are minor faults and, overall, the effect is pleasing.

But it's the blossoming of the little "ugly duckling" that is so wonderful. From an awkward and gauche young woman lacking any kind of confidence, unaware that people are actually on her side or interested in her, we see that she finally grows comfortable in her own skin and realises that she is likeable and welcome and even lovable. That sounds very serious, but, believe me, there are plenty of laughs along the way.

What makes me so fascinated by the story is that I can identify with the main character so well myself: nose in a book all the time, socially awkward, believing no-one could put up with her and with an overbearing [herrisch] mother who never failed to indicate when she was disappointed in her daughter.

This is why I cheer Mary on, why I want her to come out on top in the end. I want her to have a happy ending, and, without wishing to give anything away, a happy ending is what she gets. Hurray! At least there's some good news on the small screen these days.

Is it any wonder that I'm watching it for the third time already?

Guess which one of them is Mary?

But can the actress playing the role - Ella Bruccoleri - really be called plain?

A welcome pain in the neck - for once

This year has been a very slow year workwise. If I've not been twiddling my thumbs, I've been crocheting hats and scarves and sewing and stuffing small teddy bears for a children's charity headquartered in Berlin. And doing a bit of studying. I've even re-joined my old gym and attempt (note the word) to go there two or three times a week.

All that, however, really fails to fill in all my waking hours and I have found myself simply bored out of my skull for most of the time.

Fortunately, things changed drastically on Monday, when a colleague in Cologne e-mailed me to ask whether I fancied taking some work off her hands. Did I? Of course, I did! So 25 pages about alarm systems winged their way over to me across the ether. Along with files and files of reference material and glossaries. Wonderful.

Two and a half hours later, I read another e-mail offering me 66 pages of translation, which I also accepted.

As they say, "feast or famine" - literally "Festessen oder Hungernot". Or as one German phrase would have it "Sekt oder Selters".

And what has this got to do with my neck? Well, I'll tell you. When I start on these huge texts, I sort of "batten down the hatches" (sich auf etwas gefasst machen) and I sit, in one position, scarcely breathing, forgetting to drink anything, not moving a millimetre - and I do this for hours and hours at a time. I feel that I have to "break the back" of the large text and won't relax until I sense that I have got the text in my grip. 

What this means is that my muscles get stiff, especially those in my neck and shoulders, so much so that by the next day, I had developed a painful neck and something that felt like but wasn't actually a headache. This lasted 48 hours, until I felt I could relax and start moving again.

But did I complain about the pain my neck? Not likely. Not when it's because I finally get to do what I enjoy, namely translating. It's a bit like the Holy Trinity or the Kinder Surprise eggs in that it's like a three-in-one thing:

1. It's a mental challenge: I get to engage my brain cells and drag out all the knowledge I've accumulated over the years. And it's even better when there's a tight deadline. Without a deadline looming, my brain doesn't wake up.

2. It satisfies my creative streak: I might not be able to write an original book, but I still get to 'create' a sentence by choosing the grammar, the vocabulary and the word order. Even in a legal text.

3. And it pays the bills - but I get to earn money by doing something that is very satisfying for me. At the end of the day, there's a text. Much more satisfying than working in an office, pushing papers around all day or wasting time with other people's egos in meetings. 

I've had experience of working in offices in Wales, London, a place on Mallorca and here in Germany and I still count myself lucky that I can sit in my nice big office, all alone, with the radio on in the background and as much tea and coffee I can handle and no-one looking over my shoulder.

For that, I'll happily accept a pain in the neck every now and then.