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DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

This page displays a translation of a portion of a newspaper article entitled "Rebellion im Klassenzimmer" from the German newspaper Die Zeit. The orginal German article can be found at http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/schule/2013-01/schulrebellen-sachsen-mittelschule-oberlausitz. The article discusses the issue of closing schools without enough students in a town in the German state of Saxony and touches upon issues in the states formed from the former GDR. The portion presented here is from the heading entitled, Bußgeldbescheid von 500 Euro.

 The picture above shows the school which is being threatened to be closed (from: http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/schule/2013-01/schulrebellen-sachsen-mittelschule-oberlausitz)

 

Meeting the Learning Goals:

 

I improved my German language skills when I:

 

  • Looked up many German words, and occasionally looking for definations of English words, I improved my vocabulary in both languages.

  • Learned to deconstruct German sentences, i.e. what is the subject, direct object, etc I improved my ability to comprehend German.

I improved my translation skills when I:

 

  • Kept in mind the audience of the article, I was able to better understand how language function, its purpose, and why one uses the vocabulary and syntax that one does.

  • Built familiarity with research tools by researching the Saxon school system through their website as well as further researching geographical concerns such as where and what is Butzen?

 

During class, and then on my own, I began to understand the translation process by learning to re read my English translations "cold" and by asking another native speaker of English (who does not speak German) to read my translation. Sometimes German has influenced my English syntax in a way that does not make sense to someone who is monolingual in English. For example, I kept wanting to add "also" to the end of sentences because in my head that made sense. I also began to understand the importance of not getting caught up in fidelity all the time and asking myself, does this really flow in English?

 

Specific Challenge:

 

The hardest challenge for me to translate in this excerpt was, "für den Weiterbetrieb ausreichen." The first challenge for me was that Weiterbetrieb is not in any dictionary I found, including German-German dictionaries. The other challenge was that the translation for "ausreichen" that I found, although correct, did not sound right to my English speaking ears. The translation I found for "last out" which just does not sound right. To solve these problems, I first split apart "Weiterbetrieb" and looked up each part individually, then came up with "further operating cost." While I am still not sure if this is entirely correct, I think the idea is that the further operating costs are worth it, because they will be useful for the students, i.e. the gains outweigh the costs. I ended up sticking with last out after looking it up in an English-English dictionary. In this way, the translation did improve my German and English vocabulary.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.