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Comment by tauchunfall | Hacker News Reader

I tested a douzen sentences (English to German with texts from lesswrong.com) and it is very good, but not very close to perfect; I could spot a minor error in nearly every sentence.

EN: As we wrap up the 2016 survey, I'd like to start by thanking everybody... DE: Als wir die Umfrage 2016 abschließen, möchte ich zunächst allen danken...

EN: This seems consistent with the hypothesis that the LW community hasn't declined in population so much as migrated into different communities. DE: Dies scheint im Einklang mit der Hypothese, dass die LW-Gemeinde nicht in der Bevölkerung sank so viel wie in verschiedene Gemeinden abgewandert.

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Here is a fun one:

"In the medieval time of a roman emperor who had no regard for life and engaged in the most atrocious habits of mass slaughter, babarian footsteps made it all the way to the capitol."

In der mittelalterlichen Zeit eines römischen Kaisers, der keine Rücksicht auf das Leben hatte und sich mit den grauenhaftesten Gewohnheiten der Massenschlachtung beschäftigte, machten babarische Schritte den ganzen Weg bis zum Kapitol.

As a student of the German language, it'd be interesting to know the errors in the sentences.

'Als' Is not used in that way. 'Da / Während / Nun, da ' would be more acceptable, 'So' maybe.

As a student -> Als student OK As I drove -> Als ich fuhr OK past tense As I start -> Da ich anfage, so ich anfage, während ich ...

I think it's more practical for Germans to adopt the English usage then for you to learn this strange exception;)

The first sentence is probably better started with "Zum Abschluss" than "Als wir abschliessen".

The second sentence is not wrong per se, I am having trouble coming up with a better translation. I'd probably use Communities instead of Gemeinden, as Gemeinde is more municipality or parrish, and the original sentence refers to online communities, which for me are not entailed in Gemeinde(in this context at least).

"Als" is not correct here. It should be "Da wir die Umfrage 2016 abschließen ..."

In the second example it should be "... dass die LW-Gemeinde in der Bevölkerung nicht sank sondern eher in verschiedene Gemeinden abgewandert ist." But I'm having a hard time translating "so much as" in this context to German.

"Not X so much as Y" is pretty much always be translated as "Nicht X sondern Y". "Sondern" should be used here.

I'd suggest something like this:

"Zum Abschluss der Umfrage 2016 möchte ich zunächst Ihnen allen danken". Note the "Ihnen", which isn't there in English but required for an idiomatic translation.

"Dies scheint im Einklang mit der Hypothese, dass die LW-Gemeinde nicht in der Bevölkerung abgenommen hat, sondern eher in andere Gemeinden abgewandert ist". Note that the "not so much" qualifier is applied to the first half in English, but the second half in German ("sondern eher" → "but rather").

Why do you think Less Wrong is particularly difficult to translate?

I think stuff like novels or poetry would be way harder.

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