Archives for July 2008

actually

Teilweise ist so eine Übersetzung nur mit viel Logik zu meistern, denn gerade auch das Wort “actually” hat viele verschiedene Möglichkeiten zum übersetzen.

  • eigentlich bin ich schon ziemlich müde und möchte in mein Bett. I’m actually quite tired and would like to go to bed.
  • sogar die Milch war schon ausverkauft. The milk was actually sold out.
  • tatsächlich mag er keine Gurken. He actually doesn’t like cucumber.
  • überhaupt sehe ich gar nicht ein zu kommen. Actually, I don’t see why I should come.
  • es ist wirklich ziemlich schwer zu lernen. It’s actually quite difficult to learn.

Viele Ausländer vom englischen Standpunkt aus gesehen benutzen das Wort actually falsch, zum Beispiel: Actually I’m needing this right now. Der Fehler in diesem Satz besteht darin, dass actually am Anfang steht und die Endung “ing” bei “need”. Richtig und höflich würde der Satz lauten: Well, actually, I need it straight away.

Das Problem bei mir ist oder war bei diesem Wort, dass es nichts mit “aktuell” oder ähnliches zu tun hat wie man es vielleicht vermuten könnte. Im deutschen kann ein Satz schon mit Aktuell oder den anderen Wörtern beginnen (eigentlich, sogar, tatsächlich, überhaupt, wirklich).

Das Standesamt

Das Standesamt is an office, usually located in the town hall, where births, marriages and deaths are registered.  The office also issues the relevant certificates for these occasions.

The civil part of the marriage ceremony takes place at the Standesamt itself, often in a room specially decorated and set aside for this purpose.

Some towns have rooms, dedicated as a Standesamt in other buildings, such as the Kaiser-Friedrich-Bad in Bad Homburg or the Brauhaus in Oberursel.

If either the wife or husband is not a German national, or if one of the parents are not German, then the application to marry or to register the name of a child can get very complicated.  The non-German half may be required to sign away their right to use their national laws, eg. in naming their child, in order to simplify the situation.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download a transcript

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Smuggling the Amazon

If I was to write about smuggling something out of Bolivia, you would probably expect me to write about problems with illegal drugs leaving the country.  Of course, I could also write about more trivial things that, although not illegal in Bolivia, would be considered “smuggled” when the arrive in other countries – such as coca leaves.

But instead I want to link to an item that I read this evening about a different type of smuggling: timber!

Yes, it seems that away from the places usually associated with smuggling, such as ports and airports, smuggling of a different kind is taking place.  Trees in the Amazon rainforest are being cut down and taken down the Amazon river to Peru and Brazil.

I have to ask the question: why?

I thought, that those countries had enough of the Amazon rainforest for themselves.  In fact, most of the criticism that I read about cutting down the rainforest is aimed at Brazil.

Have the loggers there given up and are fetching their timber from across the border instead?  I wonder just how effective the border patrols will be…

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