Unfortunately though the English language doesn't make things easy for us; no such word which encapsulates everything that sympathisch means currently exists. Duden dictionary defines the term as reinforcing a statement and confirming one's previous actions. Further proof that the English language simply does not have a one-word translation for the expression, according to online dictionary dict.
And it's not just limited to social situations - another definition of the word refers to the comfort of a prosperous, middle-class life. One translation offered by dict. But no, that's just not the case. Use of the succinct term depends heavily on context. That's because German speakers use it to contradict a negative question or statement. To round off this list, here's a word that's very specific to German culture; in English it really can only be explained in a few sentences.
Langenscheidt gives one definition for Kehrwoche: The word is also used in a broader sense to convey, for example, a returning week of responsibility for some communal task like cleaning a kitchen. Leave it to the Germans to be so efficient, they even have a word like Kehrwoche which exemplifies their structured behaviour and efficiency.
Iceland may have a population of just over , people all with equally unpronounceable names but that doesn't stop it churning out a stream of globally-renowned people.
QUIZ: Which influential Icelander are you?
Take our quiz to discover your Icelandic spirit animal. Search Germany's news in English. News categories Berlin Munich Hamburg More…. Membership My account Gift voucher Corporate Help center. Jobs in Germany Browse jobs Post a vacancy. Email newsletters Newsletter sign-up Edit my subscriptions. Other pages Apartment rentals Noticeboard Discussion forum. For some, Heimat means feeling connected to familiar landscapes or surroundings. Some words in the German language are so culturally specific, they just don't exist in English.
Heimat Sure, online translators will tell you that Heimat means home, homeland, or heritage in English, but the German word is so much more complex than the meaning attached to each of these words. DPA For instance, by saying you find someone sympathisch jemanden sympathisch finden , you could mean that you feel close to a person in the sense that you trust them or you have a good gut feeling about them.
This four-letter German word may be short but it packs a punch and here's why. Kehrwoche To round off this list, here's a word that's very specific to German culture; in English it really can only be explained in a few sentences. DPA Langenscheidt gives one definition for Kehrwoche: Sign up for our free Today in Germany newsletter. Get notified about breaking news on The Local. Popular articles Your essential guide for doing Christmas just like a German German railway reaches pay deal with main union German football captain's father dies after win Germany to tighten rules on foreign takeovers: From our sponsors QUIZ: Which influential Icelander are you?
This small Mediterranean capital is the perfect winter city break. Latest headlines AfD fails in court bid against Merkel's refugee policy. Your essential guide for doing Christmas just like a German. German word of the day: How Berlin's crime clans are targeting refugees: What you need to know about Germany's plans for a no-deal. Tip of the week: Your guide to visiting German Christmas markets. Germany agrees compensation for Kindertransport refugees.
- The Book of Psalms: Volume 5 (The Bible in Outline Form).
- kukai no ango to anji (Japanese Edition);
- Zeit (song).
More news German word of the day: Interestingly Tupaya functioned as interpreter and intermediary on New Zealand, far from his homeland Tahiti. This can be in part explained by his knowledge of the language of the natives of New Zealand the suggestion is that he is more fluent than the Europeans, because it resembles his native language.
Tupaya helped Cook on his visit to New Zealand during his first expedition to bridge the hermeneutic gap between native New-Zealanders and Europeans because he is closer to their culture and able to communicate with both parties. Cook and his men mount an expedition; Cook explicitly requests that Johann Forster join them because of his language skills this is an exceptional situation — did he not trust Mahine who appears to have functioned as the main interpreter?
Through Mahine they learn however that the real purpose of the expedition is to isolate the Europeans from their ship and rob them of their possessions? Everything ends without bloodshed. Translating the Pacific 9 Women do not seem to function as intermediaries of interpreters.
Her exact position on board is unclear — does it include sexual favors? Occasionally it apparently happened that Europeans functioned as intermediaries and translators. This may explain why preferably native men are used in this position. Native women might get pregnant, and European men might go native. The Politics of Translation Forster himself produced English and German versions of the report of his travels with Captain Cook on his second expedition initially a French edition was planned as well, but support for that edition fell through [see IV , ].
Furthermore, Cook himself published a book on basis of this expedition as well. Do they construct diverging versions of the Pacific with different audiences in mind?
German proverbs - Wikiquote
And do his texts make the case that there is some merit to his status as a German; that his perspective on the events he reports is in some way shaped by the fact that he is Forster and his father were trained within a German intellectual tradition? To start with that last question first, Russell A. This last point can be nuanced easily. If the Europeans were to lose their American colonies, he sees it as a logical step that they would look for alternatives in the Pacific: Significantly, Forster does not distinguish between his German and English audiences here; he does not see the relation of Germans to European colonialism as different from that of the English.
If anything his statement concerns the English more than the Germans: Does the text claim that Germans have a privileged knowledge that allows them to understand and translate non-European cultures better than other European nations? Dieser Mann ist den Lesern von Hawkesworths Geschichte der engl. See-Reisen, unter dem Namen Tupia bekannt. One can however be assured that his name here, like many other words from the South-Sea languages, is spelled more accurately than in the preceding work, because the author of the current text is a German, who in general not only have more of a talent to learn foreign languages, but also in pronunciation and orthography of these tend to be far more precise than the English and French etc.
What is Forster thinking of here? Is he an unreflected cultural chauvinist, intuitively assuming that his own language is the more precise one? Or does Forster have the German Umlaut-system in mind that allows for a more precise phonological description of non-German language systems, because it offers more options when transcribing the vowels of the other language?
The idea that the German language is particularly suited to understand and mediate between other languages can also be found in Goethe. Interestingly, Forster saved the polemical parts — the botched attempt to come to a report assembled collaboratively by Cook and Forster sr. What is remarkable about this is that Forster does not seem to tailor his message with the different national audiences of his books in mind.
The person he refers to here is John Hawkesworth ? But the statement is also part of a more subtle argument against translation that can be found throughout these texts. Forster is acutely aware of the act of naming as a form of territorial appropriation. Take for instance the naming of the islands they encounter: The island named Isle de St.
Such acts of making a claim on a territory by naming it are well documented throughout the history of Western imperialism. The reason not to make use of this right is a pragmatic one: While one probably should not over-interpret such a deliberation, it does manifest a fundamental doubt not only about the possibility of translation, but also about its merit.
The point that Forster makes here by including these quotes without translation is that it is very well possible to live in a multi-lingual community without an immediate need for translation, that Europeans in fact have done so for a very long time. His model is that of the multi-lingual European Gelehrtenrepublik.
Interesting too in this context is a lengthy footnote quoting Mandeville in old English meant to illustrate an inclination towards an overabundant material lifestyle among the Oriental upper class. The German edition quotes a short section of the original text in old English and then provides a translation of the entire section II , while the English edition quotes the entire passage in old English I The decision to include part of the original text in the German edition shows that Forster believes there is some merit in dealing with the original text, not merely with a translation.
The climatological model is attractive for Forster because it is emancipatory in that it seeks to rationalize biological and cultural differences. It is a response to the realization that non-European parts of the world are not populated by freaks and monsters, but by humans and animals who are fundamentally quite similar to those that could be found in Europe. It established temporal hierarchies between advanced and primitive societies. A Voyage round the World and Reise um die Welt describe translation as a phenomenon of the border zone.
This is one indication that the role of the translator is seen as purely instrumental. If Europeans happened to function as translators, this was a source of anxiety: This is maybe clearest in the domain of sexuality.
Christiane Lind
Forster is an astute observer of the sexual customs of the societies he visits and also of the interactions between his fellow Europeans and the native women they encounter. At no point in his texts, however, is his own sexuality at stake — not, I would argue because he is an uptight European with a protestant background under what was without a doubt the close supervision by his father , but rather because such sexual experiments are simply not part of his scientific mission, or worse: Translation was part of the process of transculturation between non- European parts of the world and metropolitan Europe.
And in order to truly harvest the rewards of the expedition in which both Forsters participated, he had to translate his English- language account into other European languagesxxxiii — one needs to keep in mind here that in eighteenth-century Europe English was by no meant the scientific lingua franca it is today.
Unfortunately for Forster, plans for a French-language version of his text fell through. It must be said that Forster does a good job at translating and mediating his knowledge about the Pacific.
8 German words that are impossible to translate into English
As objectifying and in spite of all good intentions nevertheless Eurocentric as his perspective on the non-Western other may be, he is not without empathy for the people he encounters. To some extent this also means accepting the limits of translation — the idea that communication without translation is possible. For a moment language does not seem to matter, hierarchies do not seem to exist, and a fully equalitarian and symmetrical relationship between Europeans and their others appears within grasp. Of course all of that is an illusion, but it is an illusion in which Forster very much wanted to believe — desperately.
Vico, Hamann, Herder, ed. Princeton University Press, Georg Forster im Kontext der physichen Anthropologiedes Niemeyer, , Imprimerie royale, Duke UP, Winter, 2 vols. See also my discussion of this text in Zwischen Naturgeschichte und Anthropologie. Michel Bideaux and Sonia Faessel Paris: The English edition to which Forster refers was published in How Anthropology makes its Object [New York: Columbia UP, ], for instance The Question of the Other New York: Chicago UP, ff. James Williams, , , , and ; see also vol. Some confusion has existed regarding the authorship of the texts, in part caused by its German title: