For shame, Germany

[Cathbad]

How can people say this is fine? "a mask, behind which", "characteristic landed him to study"... not to mention the misplaced definite articles. Do not let Viktor-hate blind you; this is nowhere near passably good English writing.

[Drydic]

I like it because "from" is sort of heavily stressed when placed at the end of a sentence and to me it takes away from the city itself. By saying "of" it lightens the sentence and puts more stress on the city itself.

Or you like being pretentious, which is what the of form is.

[Qwynegold]

Künstlernamen - does that mean like stage name or something?

Yes. The literal meaning is "artist's name".

Aha, then "mask" is as bad a translation as I thought.

[chris_notts]

That German text isn't too bad. I work for a British sub-company of a big German company, and it's quite common for company-wide / official emails to have bad to atrocious English. You would have thought this would be easy to avoid, since there are several thousand native English speaking employees who could be asked to proof-read the official emails before they are sent out...

[spats]

(So-and-so) of (Place) ... is a common convention in print news, especially when talking about individuals who are not well known to the reader. For example, you will often read something like:

"Last night at around 8 PM, Shelly Winters, 26, of Rockingham Park was assaulted on the 1500 block of Norland Street in Winthrop. Police have detained John Jackson, 19, of North Winthrop and two unnamed younger men in connection with the crime, but no charges have yet been filed."

(I just made all that up, of course, so don't try to Google these people.)

It does make sense in this case to use the X of Y construction, since few if any of the readers will be aware of the singer's real identity. On the other hand, if it's not designed to read like a news release, then "from" is probably okay too.

[Viktor77]

(So-and-so) of (Place) ... is a common convention in print news, especially when talking about individuals who are not well known to the reader. For example, you will often read something like:

"Last night at around 8 PM, Shelly Winters, 26, of Rockingham Park was assaulted on the 1500 block of Norland Street in Winthrop. Police have detained John Jackson, 19, of North Winthrop and two unnamed younger men in connection with the crime, but no charges have yet been filed."

(I just made all that up, of course, so don't try to Google these people.)

It does make sense in this case to use the X of Y construction, since few if any of the readers will be aware of the singer's real identity. On the other hand, if it's not designed to read like a news release, then "from" is probably okay too.

True. I just said "of" because I don't like "from" at the end of a sentence, is all.

[Drydic]

True. I just said "of" because I don't like "from" at the end of a sentence, is all being pretentious.

fix'd

[jmcd]

It's admittedly not great, but it's not as abysmal to say "Shame on you, Germany" either. It seems to be what you get with your average School English. My own prose may suffer from translating German literally, too, but still, no way to ask all of Germany to shame itself

Exactly. You could easier expand it to "For shame, Eurovision".

[Yng]

It's admittedly not great, but it's not as abysmal to say "Shame on you, Germany" either. It seems to be what you get with your average School English. My own prose may suffer from translating German literally, too, but still, no way to ask all of Germany to shame itself

Exactly. You could easier expand it to "For shame, Eurovision".

You could easily remove 'for shame' there as I'm pretty sure it's provided by context.

[tatapyranga]

This thread is hilarious - Viktor criticizing nuances of English style - if someone told me of it, I would thought it was a joke.

[Viktor77]

This thread is hilarious - Viktor criticizing nuances of English style - if someone told me of it, I would of thought it was a joke.

There ya' go.

[tatapyranga]

This thread is hilarious - Viktor criticizing nuances of English style - if someone told me of it, I would of thought it was a joke.

There ya' go.

Thanks. It's "I would have" (or "I would've") though.
(What I really meant to write was "I would think", but I mixed tenses in my mind).

[Yng]

Viktor, you never get to criticise anyone's English ever again.

[Viktor77]

Viktor, you never get to criticise anyone's English ever again.

I was joking haha. I used of because he said I can't criticize English.

[spats]

I don't like "from" at the end of a sentence, is all.

Isn't it pretty routine to put prepositions at the end of sentences where you're from?

[Yng]

Viktor, you never get to criticise anyone's English ever again.

I was joking haha. I used of because he said I can't criticize English.

Point still stands.

[Åge Kruger]

How can people say this is fine?

Because native English speakers don't expect perfection from foreigners, and have a huge tolerance of linguistic variation when it comes to non-native speakers.


Of course, is this just the tip of the icemountain. While you may think there is something muffins with this text, I guarantee you that I have read badder. From "gratinated" potatoes to "bobbles" in "mineral water"*, English becomes slaughtered to and with in countries which are having English on a high level.


*By which they mean "Pepsi".

[sirdanilot]

On first reading through, I saw absolutely nothing in that text that stroke me as wrong at all. In my L2 eyes, it is a perfectly grammatical English text. I doubt I could even see whether it was written by a native or not.

If this thread was about 'signs that show that a particular text was written by a L2 English speaker', yes this would have some merit, but there's absolutely no 'shame' in that translation at all.

[Yng]

On first reading through, I saw absolutely nothing in that text that stroke me as wrong at all. In my L2 eyes, it is a perfectly grammatical English text. I doubt I could even see whether it was written by a native or not.

If this thread was about 'signs that show that a particular text was written by a L2 English speaker', yes this would have some merit, but there's absolutely no 'shame' in that translation at all.

Yes because after all the English translation was written for non-natives who aren't good enough at English to spot errors of such magnitude that even Viktor noticed them and thought they were poor English

[Viktor77]

On first reading through, I saw absolutely nothing in that text that stroke me as wrong at all. In my L2 eyes, it is a perfectly grammatical English text. I doubt I could even see whether it was written by a native or not.

If this thread was about 'signs that show that a particular text was written by a L2 English speaker', yes this would have some merit, but there's absolutely no 'shame' in that translation at all.

Yes because after all the English translation was written for non-natives who aren't good enough at English to spot errors of such magnitude that even Viktor noticed them and thought they were poor English

Ok, you had your fun. Now cut it out.

[sirdanilot]

Yes because after all the English translation was written for non-natives who aren't good enough at English to spot errors of such magnitude that even Viktor noticed them and thought they were poor English

Why do you use a discussion with me to express your personal problems with Viktor? I really do not care in the least about them. Go argue with him somewhere else.

The point is that the 'mistakes' in that text are merely stylistic, and can only be noticed by native speakers of English. They are not glaringly obvious at all, which is why I said there's no shame in that text. Most native English speakers will write worse english than that in, for example, YouTube comments.

[Jipí]

lol native engilsh speekers ofn cnt rite english in utub cmts lol cuz their dum or lazy or both lol xd jajajaja

[Viktor77]

Yes because after all the English translation was written for non-natives who aren't good enough at English to spot errors of such magnitude that even Viktor noticed them and thought they were poor English

Why do you use a discussion with me to express your personal problems with Viktor? I really do not care in the least about them. Go argue with him somewhere else.

The point is that the 'mistakes' in that text are merely stylistic, and can only be noticed by native speakers of English. They are not glaringly obvious at all, which is why I said there's no shame in that text. Most native English speakers will write worse english than that in, for example, YouTube comments.

To quote Sal:

Examples:

- "landed him to study" - plain ungrammatical; "landed him a place studying" as is "he landed up studying", but "it landed him to study" just makes no sense.

- "an interest to music" - should be an interest IN music

[Yng]

Why do you use a discussion with me to express your personal problems with Viktor? I really do not care in the least about them. Go argue with him somewhere else.

I wasn't, that was just a snide aside.

The point is that the 'mistakes' in that text are merely stylistic, and can only be noticed by native speakers of English. They are not glaringly obvious at all, which is why I said there's no shame in that text. Most native English speakers will write worse english than that in, for example, YouTube comments.

My point was that if you are not capable of spotting the glaring errors in that text, you are not qualified to decide whether it's shameful or not, and should leave the judging to those better suited to do so than you. It is irrelevant that some native English speakers, writing using semi-phonetic internet shorthand, produce things which are stylistically worse than that on youtube comments, and that you have no personal problem with it, since a) the former is a matter of register and b) you are, as said above, not qualified to judge the quality of the translation.

[Viktor77]

My point was that if you are not capable of spotting the glaring errors in that text, you are not qualified to decide whether it's shameful or not, and should leave the judging to those better suited to do so than you. It is irrelevant that some native English speakers, writing using semi-phonetic internet shorthand, produce things which are stylistically worse than that on youtube comments, and that you have no personal problem with it, since a) the former is a matter of register and b) you are, as said above, not qualified to judge the quality of the translation.

My point as well. While there are obvious stylistic problems, the text also has bits that are completely ungrammatical. If you can't determine what is ungrammatical and what is weird style, then you have no merit to judge this text.