MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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A song that fits well into the mood of autumn (but this time I checked carefully: the song does not yet exist here in the topic, or is it ?! 🙂 )
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David, you’re right: there really isn’t that much music on the theme of autumn. And if there is, then it’s rather sad songs. Then just the classics:
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A very nice and for me previously unknown song by Neil Young.
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You have gone your own way, Jacki. That is what is important nothing else matters. Scottish and Irish are very special again. Hats off to you that you can understand and speak these dialects. In northern Germany there are still a few dialects that are related to the English and Dutch languages. What the Scottish or Irish accent is for you, the North German dialect is for me. But I don’t understand these dialects and can’t speak them either.
By the way, Hamburger „schnaken platt“ or love “Klönschnack” (they speak “Low German” or „Plattdeutsch“) and greet you with: Moin, Moin (that means: good morning, good day, good afternoon, good evening, good night. Whatever you want). Just as Mona and Lisa greeted you in their video: Moin, Moin.
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Well, good question David. I had English lessons for about 8 years and I don’t remember the differences ever being explicitly addressed. The teachers probably didn’t know much about the differences themselves. American English was never really an issue, the American accent didn’t play a role in their world view. In the last two years of English, current affairs from daily newspapers and political topics were discussed. Then we also listened to speeches by J.F. Kennedy or M.L. King. Yes, that sounded quite different. In answer to your question: We started with British English and finished with British English (sometimes oxford englisch). The generation of German English teachers I met, enjoyed Shakespeare and other historical writers.
I imagine myself sitting in an English pub and ordering a beer: “Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness”. And if I don’t like the beer, I simply say: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. That’s just as helpful for everyday life as Jakob the cheeky bird.
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Very well explained, David. I will pay close attention next time I go to the dentist.
(I am still relaxed with these two sounds. But when I hear that high penetrating sound from the drill, I always get a bit nervous).
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Yes very funny you two.
Thanks Jung. You are right. My car also sounded like this for a while, but since I got a new starter battery: no problems anymore.
David, waruuuuuuuuum, waruuuuuuuum ?
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A very nice gesture and apparently he wrote it in his own words.
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Hi Tom, French, Spanish and English? Wow, you can communicate almost all over the world with that, great. I would have liked to learn Spanish too. Where did you learn it?
Jurgen is okay. I know the English keyboard doesn’t have umlaute. I think my parents should have given me a name without umlaute. In Asia, an airline almost refused to take me once: JUERGEN was written on the ticket and Jürgen in my passport. They just compared letter for letter and it just didn’t fit. But as you can see, I made it home after all.
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Thanks very much for the translation of the song lyrics and the short interview excerpt with Paul Mc Cartney, David. Very funny. „Jakob war der frecheste Vogel, den ich je gesehen habe” (Jacob was the cheekiest bird I have ever seen). As Paul Mc Cartney rightly said: not really helpful in real life. I think they learned more in that one year in Hamburg than they ever did in their entire school career (But my English lessons during school were sometimes not much better).
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Hi David, thank you for your answer. I think it was a very chaotic time for the Beatles. I was as surprised as you: How can the master tapes of “She loves you” just disappear so soon after the song was produced? And I’m a bit confused: I didn’t really understand the exact story behind the translation of the lyrics. Why was a Luxembourg entertainer commissioned to translate the lyrics into German, who used which synonym and when, and who exactly acquired the copyright to the German lyrics and has been considered a co-author ever since? There’s no business like show business…
I think it’s great that Tom speaks a little German, you speak it well and Jung is going to take a German course soon, then we can discuss the next topics in German. How about: “Does the universe have something like a rudimentary memory“?
Ich freue mir schon jetzt einen Ast in den Bauch (I am so happy, that I joy a branch in my belly / I’m very happy) -
Hallo Tom, vielen lieben Dank für deine Antwort. I am quite touched. I think The Beatles and the German language are like The Beatles and Music. They used both intuitively. Music later, of course, professionally. It was described well in the video: If you translate a song text from one language into another, you have two problems: The new text should convey as much content as possible as the original, and at the same time it has to fit into the original song’s form or rhythm. It’s a balancing act that usually doesn’t work. And if you are not very familiar with a language, it’s better to get professional help. The best example is the German singer Nena, who translated her hit song “99 Luftballons” into English „Red Balloons“ (I hope you know the song, the video has been presented here in the forum several times). In English there was no such word as “Luftballon” (meaning a balloon used at children’s birthday parties or New Year’s Eve parties). So it became Red Balloon. This fits the melody, but not the content: a balloon in German is a tethered balloon, i.e. something invented by the Montgolfier Brothers. But Nena means the “children’s birthday balloon”. This gives the text an ironic touch. The colour of the balloons is actually irrelant. And a lot of beautiful rhymes and language games are also lost in this song. „She loves you“ and „I wonna hold your hand“, were not meant ironically and were written in quite simple English. Nevertheless, even with these two lyrics the content is slightly distorted. But great songs that will always fascinate me.
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Hi Jung, yes the pronunciation of Paul and John is good, with John getting it better in “Komm gib mir deine hand”. They both sing sometimes at a slightly higher pitch than in the original. Paul’s voice sounds very soft, warm and pleasant. There was once a South African singer who sang in German (Howard Carpendale). He was very popular in Germany. When I heard “Sie liebt dich” for the first time, I thought it was Howard Carpendale singing: the same soft, melodious and elegant voice.I can tell you: women’s hearts melt and hardly an eye stays dry. 🙂
Funny fact: just as Germans always have problems pronouncing the English “th” correctly, English people cannot pronounce “ch” as in the word “dich”. “ch” is a soft, rather unvoiced sound. Paul sings it like “k”. The whole thing sounds to me like „Sie liebt Dick” (the nickname of Richard). Translated: „She loves Dick“ Who is this mysterious Dick? Is it Richard Starkey? That would give the whole song a whole new meaning 🙂 And you’re right Jung: translating humour, irony, and puns into another language is sometimes disastrous and doesn’t work (ask me…). I always admire translators who translate entire films or books into another language.
„Leise rieselt der Schnee“ is a beautiful christmas carol and for me connected with many beautiful childhood memories. I am very happy that Mona and Lisa have recorded this song. I only wish they had left the lyrics completely in German (“Leise rieselt der Schnee“).