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25th translation contest: "Alien first impressions" » English to German

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Source text in English

Imagine dining in a European capital where you do not know the local language. The waiter speaks little English, but by hook or by crook you manage to order something on the menu that you recognise, eat and pay for. Now picture instead that, after a hike goes wrong, you emerge, starving, in an Amazonian village. The people there have no idea what to make of you. You mime chewing sounds, which they mistake for your primitive tongue. When you raise your hands to signify surrender, they think you are launching an attack.

Communicating without a shared context is hard. For example, radioactive sites must be left undisturbed for tens of thousands of years; yet, given that the English of just 1,000 years ago is now unintelligible to most of its modern speakers, agencies have struggled to create warnings to accompany nuclear waste. Committees responsible for doing so have come up with everything from towering concrete spikes, to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, to plants genetically modified to turn an alarming blue. None is guaranteed to be future-proof.

Some of the same people who worked on these waste-site messages have also been part of an even bigger challenge: communicating with extraterrestrial life. This is the subject of “Extraterrestrial Languages”, a new book by Daniel Oberhaus, a journalist at Wired.

Nothing is known about how extraterrestrials might take in information. A pair of plaques sent in the early 1970s with Pioneer 10 and 11, two spacecraft, show nude human beings and a rough map to find Earth—rudimentary stuff, but even that assumes aliens can see. Since such craft have no more than an infinitesimal chance of being found, radio broadcasts from Earth, travelling at the speed of light, are more likely to make contact. But just as a terrestrial radio must be tuned to the right frequency, so must the interstellar kind. How would aliens happen upon the correct one? The Pioneer plaque gives a hint in the form of a basic diagram of a hydrogen atom, the magnetic polarity of which flips at regular intervals, with a frequency of 1,420MHz. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, the hope is that this sketch might act as a sort of telephone number.

Winning entries could not be determined in this language pair.

There were 15 entries submitted in this pair during the submission phase. Not enough votes were submitted by peers for a winning entry to be determined.

Competition in this pair is now closed.


Entries (15 total) Expand all entries

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Entry #31004 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry4.264.63 (8 ratings)3.88 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 19 "like" tags
  • 4 users agreed with "likes" (14 total agrees)
+2
kaum ein Wort Englisch, geschweige denn Deutsch
Flows well
Great idea​ to mentio​n English ​and German​ as well. ​The author​ means Eng​lish as an​ universal​ language.​ Therefore​, writing ​only Germa​n is wrong​. But writ​ing only E​nglish is ​perfectly ​right. "En​glisch" al​lein ist v​öllig rech​t, genau r​ichtig.
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
mit etwas Mühe gelingt es Ihnen
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
etwas Identifizierbares
Flows well
Sonny
+1
und nach dem Essen klappt auch das Bezahlen irgendwie
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Ureinwohnerdorf
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Dorfbewohner
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Schmatzgeräusche
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Angriffsversuch
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Atommülllagerstätten
Good term selection
fasziniere​nde Komple​xität der ​deutschen ​Sprache in​ einem ein​zigartigen​ Wort: Ato​m-Müll-Lag​er-Stätten
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
vor radioaktiven Abfällen zu warnen
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Gremien
Good term selection
Sonny
+1
Pflanzen, die durch Genmanipulation eine alarmierende blaue Farbe annehmen
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Warnhinweisen
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Computerzeitschrift
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Wahrscheinlicher ist ein Kontakt durch Funkwellen
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Empfangsgeräte außerhalb unseres Sonnensystems
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+2
Woher sollen die Außerirdischen nun wissen, welche Frequenz die richtige ist?
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
einfachen grafischen Darstellung eines Wasserstoffatoms
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Entry #31582 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry4.073.88 (8 ratings)4.25 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
Ohne gemeinsamen Kontext fällt das Kommunizieren schwer.
Flows well
Dr. Tilmann Kleinau
Entry #31399 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Sabine Voigt
Sabine Voigt
United States
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.883.75 (8 ratings)4.00 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 4 users entered 8 "like" tags
  • 5 users agreed with "likes" (10 total agrees)
Ach und Krach
Good term selection
Michaela Pschierer-Barnfather
+1
imposanten Betondornen
Flows well
Endre Both
garantiert zukunftssichere Lösung.
Good term selection
Michaela Pschierer-Barnfather
+1
anspruchsvolleren
Good term selection
Anahí Seri
+3
verschwindend gering
Good term selection
Endre Both
+1
Wie aber soll es Außerirdischen gelingen
Flows well
Endre Both
+1
einfache schematische Darstellung eines Wasserstoffatoms
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+3
1
Elektronenspin
Good term selection
one of the​ few parti​cipants, i​f not the ​only one, ​who has tr​anslated "​spin" corr​ectly.
Link: //https://​www.lingue​e.com/engl​ish-german​/translati​on/spin+ph​ysics.html
Anahí Seri
Entry #31699 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.733.67 (9 ratings)3.78 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 3 users entered 8 "like" tags
  • 3 users agreed with "likes" (6 total agrees)
Der Kellner spricht ein paar Bröckchen Englisch
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+3
Ach und Krach
Good term selection
Michaela Pschierer-Barnfather
Und jetzt malen Sie sich einmal ein ganz anderes Szenario aus:
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Trekkingtour
Good term selection
Sonny
+1
halb verhungert
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
Nachahmen von Kaugeräuschen
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Es ist nicht leicht, ohne gemeinsamen Hintergrund miteinander zu kommunizieren
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
elementare Dinge
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Entry #31738 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.563.67 (9 ratings)3.44 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 5 "like" tags
hochnehmen
Flows well
Dr. Tilmann Kleinau
gemeinsamen Hintergrund
Flows well
Erik Freitag
unter Verschluss bleiben
Good term selection
Erik Freitag
aber es wird dabei immer noch vorausgesetzt
Flows well
Erik Freitag
verschwindend gering
Flows well
Dr. Tilmann Kleinau
Entry #31570 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.403.40 (10 ratings)3.40 (10 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 3 users entered 8 "like" tags
  • 5 users agreed with "likes" (13 total agrees)
+1
aber du schaffst es, mit Händen und Füssen
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
bei einer Dschungelwanderung verirrt
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
primitives Kauderwelsch
Good term selection
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+2
genmanipulierten
Good term selection
Sonny
+4
1
unheilverkündenden Blaufärbung
Good term selection
Endre Both
+2
1
eine grobe Route zur Erde
Flows well
Sonny
+1
Wie könnten Aliens auf die richtige Frequenz kommen?
Flows well
Endre Both
Entry #31624 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.383.38 (8 ratings)3.38 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 3 users entered 3 "like" tags
  • 2 users agreed with "likes" (2 total agrees)
+1
kaum
Good term selection
Sarah Sturm
+1
irgendwie radebrechend
Flows well
Dr. Tilmann Kleinau
Ihnen nichts anzufangen.
Good term selection
Michaela Pschierer-Barnfather
Entry #30707 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.003.11 (9 ratings)2.89 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #31262 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.003.00 (7 ratings)3.00 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #30826 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Giulia Zoppelli (X)
Giulia Zoppelli (X)
United States
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.852.60 (10 ratings)3.10 (10 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
  • 3 users agreed with "likes" (3 total agrees)
+3
rudimentäres Zeug, aber selbst das setzt voraus
Flows well
Endre Both
Entry #31321 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.782.56 (9 ratings)3.00 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #30776 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.762.63 (8 ratings)2.88 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 3 "like" tags
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
  • 2 users disagreed with "likes" (2 total disagrees)
-2
1
Der Leser möge sich vorstellen,
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
+1
bläuliche, bedrohlich wirkende Färbung
Flows well
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
waren auch bei einer größeren Herausforderung dabei
Flows well
Endre Both
Entry #31258 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Germany
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.632.38 (8 ratings)2.88 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
Entry #31126 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.502.44 (9 ratings)2.56 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
+1
1
fast kein Deutsch
Other
Warum Deut​sch?
Cristina Bufi Poecksteiner, M.A.
Entry #31636 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Austrian
Peter Zauner
Peter Zauner
Australia
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.502.25 (8 ratings)2.75 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags