Three little words in English often become two (little bigger) words in Danish. Thankfully, “I love you” is still “Jeg elsker dig”.

A wonderful thing about Danish language is how we make two words that belong together into one word. Some times we don’t even hesitate to smoosh three of them together.

That means that three-word constructions which can seem ambigous in English, are not at all ambigous in Danish – assuming, that is, that it’s the correct two words that are paired together! 🙂

So, for example, a “Mobile Snow Plow” should become the equivalent of “Mobile SnowPlow” in Danish. Obviously, a “MobileSnow Plow” is the incorrect and quirky cousin of that.

Here are some of such wrongful two-out-of-three word-pairings that came across my desk in recent weeks:

Recurring Payment Profile ==> was translated as if the “Recurring” was referring to the “Profile” and not the “Payment”. I corrected in Danish to “Profile for Recurring Payments”. So: (wrong) Tibagevendende betalingsprofil ==> (correct) Profil for tilbagevendende betalinger, or (also correct, but clunky) Tilbagevendendebetalingsprofil.

“Pending Payment Balance ” was translated as if Pending was referring to Balance and not Payment: (wrong) Afventende betalingssaldo ==> (correct) Saldo for afventende betalinger.

“Mobile Shopping Cart Payment Received” was translated as if the Payment was the one being mobile and not the Shopping Cart: (wrong) Mobil indkøbskurvsbetaling modtaget ==> (correct) Mobil-indkøbskurvsbetaling modtaget, or (better) Betaling for mobil indkøbskurv er modtaget.

“Redemption Code Reversal” was mistranslated as if Redemption was synonymous with Reversal: (wrong) Tilbageførsel af tilbagekøbskode ==> (correct) Tilbageførsel af indløsningskode.

“Canceled Sales Report” was translated as if the Report was cancelled, rather than as “a report about canceled sales”: (wrong) Annuleret salgsrapport ==> (correct) Rapport over annulerede salg.

Did I mention that Google Translate gets many of these 3-word puzzles wrong?

The meaning of life?… no deal. But a great deal of Saxons and Normans. Deal with it.

“Are you looking for a great deal?”, (i.e. “Are you looking for a bargain”), was translated as “Leder du efter en hel del?” which means “are you looking for a lot (of things)?”, which turns a simple sentence about a possible bargain to an almost profound-sounding quest for the meaning of a life.  [Should have been translated as: Leder du efter et godt tilbud?].
In this context it is interesting how “deal” in English can both mean “an amount” and “a bargain” leaving “a great deal” utterly ambigous, unless put in context. I have a theory about how this came about!
Most of us have seen Robin Hood in one incarnation or another on a TV or a movie screen. What is not clear from pretty much all adaption of the tale is that the Normans and the Saxons, the two parties to the pivotal 13th century conflict at the center of Robin Hood’s saga, did NOT both speak the same language, English, as the movies will have us believe. The conquering Normans, in fact, spoke French!
England remained a bi-lingual place for centuries thereafter with the commoners speaking Anglo-Saxon and the ruling classes Norman-French. The great impact of this, which we still carry with us in English to this day, is that in legal English we have the tradition of carrying both the Saxon and and the Norman words. Things like “Cease and desist”, “Null and void”, “Devise and bequeath”, “Last will and testament” are actually nothing else than repetitions of the same meaning, two synonyms, with two different words: one Saxon word (closest to German today), and one Norman word (closest to French today).
“And how does this relate to the two meanings of  the word “deal”, then?”, you might ask. Well, here’s my theory: another effect of the Saxon-Norman duality is that two entirely different-meaning, but similar-sounding, words from the two origins have become the same word (with dual meanings) in modern English. I think that “deal”, when meaning “amount, part”, is the English-spelled version of the modern German word “Teil”, meaning “Part, divide”. This meaning of “Deal” is also present in the verb “to deal” when it refers to cards in  a poker game. On the other hand, “deal”, when it means “trade, commerce”, comes from the French “commerce de détail”, which also has been twisted into “retail” in English. This meaning of deal is present in the verb “to deal (with it)” when it refers to a setback in life, i.e. try to make commerce out of something bad.
Now, wasn’t that interesting? Suddenly lingustics is like historical detective work…. 🙂

To have and have not. What’s that got to do with a garden?

Of course Danish and English language share similar roots, not the least because around the year 500 the British Isles were occupied by the Vikings. The fact that, since then, the two languages have taken different paths, means that some times words seem the same or similar in both languages and yet the meanings are different.
I am often reminded of this when I see a mention of “Tivoli Garden” in Copenhagen. When Danes use the word “Garden” it does not mean the same as in English. In Danish “Tivoli Garden” is the marching band of guards  which entertains the park guests. “Tivoli Garden” is called in Danish “Tivoli Haven”.

Here’s some quirky words that are the same yet different in the two languages:

Danish==>English:

at hæve ==> to withdraw, to raise
at have ==> to have
en have ==> a garden
garden ==> the guard squadron
en garder ==> a (single) guard
en gartner ==> a gardener
“en garde!”==> French. Used to warn a fencer to assume the preparatory position for a match.

To withdraw and to lift. In Danish it’s the same word

In an earlier posting I wrote about how the verb “Charge” in English is synonymous with “adding to” when we are talking about a car battery, but means the opposite, “taking from”, when we are talking about a credit card. Danish has its own quirky word with two similarly polar opposite meanings, depending on context. The word is “at hæve”.

When talking about a bank account, “hæve” means “to withdraw”:

“I withdrew $200 from my checking account” ==> “Jeg hævede 200 USD fra min checkkonto”.

But when talking about a limit or limitation, “hæve” means “to raise” or “to lift”:

“We must raise the minimum wage by $2/hour” ==> “Vi bør hæve minimumslønnen med 2 USD per time”

So, then of course it gets very tricky if the English sentence at hand involves BOTH a bank account and a limitation:

“Your account has a negative balance. Raise your account balance (to zero or any positive amount)” . If translated as “Din konto har en negativ saldo. Hæv din saldo (til nul eller et positivt beløb)” it could be misunderstood in Danish (particularly without the words in parenthesis) as leading to the illogical conclusion that you should withdraw more money from your account, which is already overdrawn.

Probably better to translate into Danish with one of the unambigous synonyms for “increase:” (“øg” or “løft”), such as: ” Din konto har en negativ saldo. Øg din saldo (til nul eller et positivt beløb)”.

And this idea of “withdrawing money to raise money” reminds me of the following bar trick (it helps if some alcohol has been consumed):
“Hey, may I borrow two dollars from you?”, “Sure!”, “Great, but I only need one right now. I may need the second one later, OK?”, “OK”
Little later…
“Hey can I have the dollar back that I lent you?”, “What are you talking about?”, “The dollar that you borrowed from me…”, “Oh that one… Listen, remember I wanted to borrow TWO dollars from you?”, “Yeah…”, “So, you only gave me one, so I owe you one, and you still owe me one, right?”, “Yeah, I guess…, “So, if I owe you one and you owe me one, we are even, right?!” , “I guess…”, “Now buy me a drink!…” 🙂

Google Translate for Danish <-> English has an Easter Egg

An “Easter Egg” in the digital world is a quirky, hidden behavior hidden inside an application or a website, which can be brought to life when some secret  key sequence or mouse movement is entered. The clever programmers at Google have created so many of them that a whole WikiPedia page is dedicated to them. I found one in Google Translate. Chosing the English-Danish translation one gets:  swipe a credit card ==> knalde et kreditkort. And even the reverse works too (knalde et kreditkort ==> Swipe a credit card). The problem is that “knalde” has absolutely nothing to do with swiping in Danish. It means something like “smash” and is more generally used as the common description of what people do when they make children…

“Close, but no cigar” in Danish?

The word “Close” is hard to translate without context.
In English it can mean both to shut something down, be near something or someone, or to successfully finish a sales negotiation. Of course this opens up a plethora of pitfalls for the diligent linguist/translator, even in-context:

“Close the deal!” was translated as “Luk handlen!”, which can be understood as “Shut down the business!”. 🙂 It should have been something like “Få Ordren!” or “Luk salget!” (i.e. “Get the Order!”).

“As close as you can” was translated as “luk det så godt som du kan” (“close it as well as possible”). The correct translation would be “så tæt på som muligt”.

“It is close to my heart” ==> “det er mit hjerte nær”. Interestingly when we go “poetic” in Danish we like to reverse the word sequence. Saying “det er nær mit hjerte” would be a geographic description of something located near my heart, with no emotional content.

Close, but no cigar!
And what about “Close, but no cigar!”: what would be a good translation of this Idiom into Danish? Maybe “Lige ved og næsten slår ingen mand af hesten”? (“Close-to and almost does not knock any man off his horse”).
Erik Moldrup has compiled a very impressive list of English-to-Danish idiom translations at: http://lakjer.dk/erik/engelsk/enidiomstb.html . But “Close, but no cigar” is not amongst them. Ahem… close, but no cigar…  🙂 I will ask him for advice.
There’s also an impressive list of Danish proverbs with explanations (in Danish) at: http://da.wikiquote.org/wiki/Danske_ordsprog
and a corresponding one of English proverbs in English: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/English_proverbs

Rabat is a town in Morocco

The Danish word for “rebate” is “rabat”, which happens to also be the name of the capital of Morocco. So the English sentence “you can get 20% in rebates…” should not be translated as “du kan få op til 20 % i rabat…”, because it can be understood as implying that you must be in the Moroccan town to receive it. A better translation is the omission of “in”:  “du kan få op til 20 % rabat…”.

Vatican bank holiday, Pope’s holiday, Madonna’s “Holiday” and Pope’s holy day. All these holidays…I need a vacation from my vocation…

In English the word “Holiday” can refer both to a vacation one takes personally at some convenient time, as well as a Public Holiday, where banks and shops close, aka. Bank Holiday. A “public holiday” is not the same as a “personal holiday”, but of course they are used interchangeably in everyday English. In Danish we have two different words for those: “ferie” is what I do when I need a vacation and “helligdag” is when the banks close.

So, when things get mixed up we get these funny translations:

Send money as a holiday gift ==> Send penge som en feriegave  [Meaning: Send money as a vacation present. Should be: Send penge some en helligdagsgave, lejlighedsgave]

(Bank) Payment Holidays ==> Betalt Ferie [Meaning: paid vacations! 🙂 Should be: Bankhelligdage]

….And speaking of Holiday and cultural and linguistic adaptations….
These were the US promotional pictures for Madonna’s 1991 single “Holiday”:

 And these were the ones used in UK and France…:
Vive la difference! 🙂

Linguistics is an experiential journey

Sometimes the issue is with words which are “oh, so correct” but therefore also rarely used, obscure and largely unknown. Case in point:

“Gift certificates for services (including but not limited to experiential and entertainment certificates) are subject to the terms and conditions of the vendor providing the services”

“Experiential” anyone? Experiential, in this context, means something that lets you experience something. In other words: an Activity.
When the sentence was translated originally the translator mistook “experiential” for the more common: “experimental”, which created the funny idea in Danish of “experimental gift certificates”. 🙂

Gavecertifikater til tjenester (herunder, men ikke begrænset til eksperimentelle certifikater og underholdningscertifikater) er underlagt vilkår og betingelser fra den leverandør, der leverer disse tjenester.

The correct translation could be:

Gavecertifikater til tjenester (herunder, men ikke begrænset til aktivitetscertifikater og underholdningscertifikater) er underlagt vilkår og betingelser fra den leverandør, der leverer disse tjenester.

English==> Danish:
Experience ==> Oplevelse, Erfaring, Aktivitet
Experiment ==> Eksperiment, Forsøg
Experiential ==> Oplevelsesmæssig, Erfaringsmæssig, Hands-on, Aktiv
Experimental ==> Eksperimentel

Now, now… you can relax, but not now

If the Danish prince Hamlet gave the English language the immortal sentence: “To be or not to be?”, so does modern-day English give us the wonder of “Now, know that first now is not the same as the last now, you know?”. Behold now, honored reader:

In the English sentence “Now, follow these steps to confirm your bank account” the word “now” actually does not mean “now” as in “this very instance”. It’s a filler-word more meant as a gentle nudge, or pause in speech, and synonymous (in this context only) with words as “next” or “please”. Or, another way to look at the uniqueness of this “now” is to realize that while the sentence above sounds pleasant and non-alarming, removing the comma and moving the “now” couple of places to the right results in the sentence “Follow these steps now to confirm your bank account”, which obviously expresses more of an urgency and somewhat of an alarm. And, interestingly enough, placing the “now” at the very end of the sentence further enhances the sense of urgency: “Follow these steps to confirm your bank account, now”.

And, of course, we have to note then in this context that in Danish, “now” does not have a double-life as as a filler-word. For Danes “now” means -ahem- now. Starting a sentence with “now” causes a sense of urgency in a Danish reader, so a direct translation of the original sentence with a leading “now”, would convey in this case the meaning but not exactly the spirit of it. In Danish, we have two words at our disposal: “Nu” means “now” (as in “this moment in time”). “Nuvel” is the Danish word we use, when we need a filler-word to let our mouth continue, while our brain pauses. It more or less is equivalent to the English “well, now..”.

And a propos, there was a very famous Danish radio- and tv-personality who so abused the word “now” in his live radio transmissions starting with the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and all the way through 40s, 50, 60s, 70 and 80s, that the Danish word for “now” (Nu) was forever ‘added’ to his name as little gentle mockery and a Danish sign of respect (Danes, being generally reserved and easygoing people, are not very good at direct praise 🙂 ). Gunnar “Nu” Hansen (1905-1993).
And since he could talk and talk (which of course you had to be able to do as a sportsradio reporter) also a line of licorice flavored throat lozenges was named in his honor: Nu Sportspastiller. His picture was on the outside and a collectable picture of a Danish soccer-star was always inside. The line of lozenges was discontinued in 1977.