Working from German into English presents the translator with a number of interesting challenges, some of which I discuss in the following paragraphs. Whilst it is not my intention to present a comprehensive overview of every type of issue involved, I do hope that the following discussion will demonstrate that I take my subject seriously and that I take all necessary steps to ensure the best possible rendering into English of any German text I am commissioned to translate. As will become evident, there are many cases in which several translation options are available to the translator in which case it is my policy to discuss these with my client before proceeding.

Translation Loss
There are many difficulties involved in translating from German to English. Translation loss at one level or another is almost inevitable in all but the simplest of texts. Translation loss can be caused by many things such as a change of register between the source and target texts; an aspect of culture that needs no comment in the source language but would seem exotic to the readers of the translation; the introduction or the removal of ambiguity through the choice of words for the translation; the direct translation of puns or their omission from the target text; the use of dialect; the use of words that have no direct translation, and many other things. In a nutshell translation loss is anything that means the experience of the target readership of the translated text is different to what was envisaged by the author for his original target readership. The following short paragraphs deal with some of the pitfalls mentioned above although the list is by no means comprehensive:

Register
Register is probably one of the easiest things to get wrong between a source and target text especially when the mechanisms do not exist in the target language to render the specific nuances of the source text. An example could be a conversation between an employee and an employer in an early 21st century setting. Whereas as the Germans would mark the formal setting by the use of Sie instead of du and the use of titles such as Herr, Frau, Herr Doktor etc., this would seem very out of place in an English setting because in a business environment in England first names are used by everybody to everybody regardless of relative status in the firm. In an example like this, the translation loss is virtually built into the differences between the target and source languages and is very hard to avoid without creating something that sounds artificial in the target text. The problem is, where do you get the first names from if they are not included in the source text? If someone is Herr Schmidt in the source text then he can only be Mr Schmidt in the target text.

Culture
The Germans simply do different things than the English. For example when a meeting in the work place breaks up, all the delegates rap on the table with their knuckles by way of applause. In England the end of a meeting is not marked by any ceremony whatsoever. So to translate something like: “Georg stand auf, klopfte auf den Tisch, und verließ das Zimmer...” with “Georg (or George – another question altogether) got up, rapped on the table and left the room...” whilst accurate, introduces a question in the mind of the English readership (what the heck did he rap on the table for?), which the author did not intend to evoke in his original target audience. So what was intended as an everyday occurrence has been rendered in translation as something exotic – an example of translation loss.

Ambiguity
The German words: “Sowohl Städte als auch Länder ...” are unambiguous as are some of the possible English translations such as: “In towns and countries ...” or “In towns as well as in countries ...”. Another English translation could be: “In both towns and countries”. Read one way this means the same as the preceding translations but it could also refer to two specific towns and cities that have been mentioned elsewhere in the text, for example Rome and Italy versus Athens and Greece. This translation introduces a level of ambiguity that was not intended in the original text. Similarly the removal of an ambiguity, although it may represent an objective improvement on the original text, is still a kind of translation loss because it takes the target text further away from the source text. A German text might say: “Allein … das konnte ich nicht ...”, which might mean: “Only … I couldn't do it ...” or (less likely but possible), “Alone ... I couldn't do it ...” [think of a context like: “Ich habe es versucht; ganz allein. Allein … das konnte ich nicht”. The translator has to make a choice and whichever choice he makes will remove the ambiguity of the sentence thereby creating a difference between the source and target texts, i.e. translation loss.

Puns
Puns rarely work in two languages no matter how closely related. This presents a major problem for translators to which there are three basic solutions all involving a certain amount of translation loss. Either translate the pun literally knowing full well that it will make no sense in the target language, perhaps using a translator's note to explain the situation; replace the pun at that point in the text with an alternative pun or a similar witticism in the target language – after all, the author intended a smirk or a groan at that point in the text and if the reader of the target text smirks or groans on cue then the objective has been achieved; or one could skip the sentence altogether, which may be possible in some instances but of course, not in texts which hinge around the pun and have no other purpose than to lead up to it. I once read an awful translation about an amazing coincidence which involved two people rescuing each other under similar circumstances on two separate occasions several years apart whereby their roles were swapped in the second emergency, i.e. the victim was now the rescuer. The source text was English. In both cases the situation involved severe bleeding which could only be stilled by the application of a tourniquet – or Aderpresse in German – literally arterial press. As the two people discussed the nature of the coincidence that had, against huge odds, brought them together twice under similar circumstances, one of them quipped, “Ah well; I suppose one good tourniquet deserves another” creating a pun on the common English expression “one good turn deserves another” - in German something like: “ein Gefallen verdient einen gegenseitigen” - clumsy for sure, but not as outrageously wrong as “eine gute Aderpresse verdient eine andere”, (one good arterial press deserves another), which is what the translator had written missing the pun and the meaning altogether. In this case the pun was a 'nice to have' rather than a requirement of the anecdote and could easily have been left out.

Dialect
If a dialect or pseudo dialect is used simply to show a difference between say a sophisticated city dweller and an otherwise incidental peasant then it should not present much of a problem to employ a similar mechanism in the target language. The situation is entirely different however when the dialect is used to firmly place the character in a specific locality such as Bavaria or Berlin. In this example it would not do to replace Bavarian with Scottish dialect or Berliner dialect with Cockney. One strategy might be to write normally but to add explanatory notes like “... he said in his strong Bavarian accent”. This gets the point across but might represent translation loss on various levels: on the one hand the author certainly did not insert such an explanation, as it would have been clear to the original target readership that the character in question had spoken in dialect. On the other hand there may have been a comical element in the use of dialect, which is not adequately compensated for by the insertion of an explanation such as that suggested above.

Words with no translation
Some German words simply cannot be adequately translated into English either because of differences between the two countries' social systems or because they refer to something that does not exist in England. Geheimrat is a good example of the former. It literally means “privy councillor” but for the past two centuries at least it has been used purely as an honorific title with no English equivalent. The best strategy for dealing with such a case depends upon the importance of the word in the original text. If the character just happens to be a Geheimrat but the fact is entirely incidental to the story, it might be possible to replace it with an English honorific like “his Grace”, “his honour” etc. or something more specific like “his Lordship”. If however the character in question is doing something because he is a Geheimrat then it may be necessary to explain exactly what the word means, using a translator's note, and then to continue to use the German word throughout the remainder of the text. But again this is adding an amount of exoticism not originally found in the source text and therefore represents an amount of translation loss. A similar situation may arise when describing military ranks, which differ quite markedly between the German and Anglo-American military organisations. With any luck though the author might have used English for English ranks, which would seem exotic to his original readers so that the translator could continue to use English and German terminology for the different armies thereby keeping the aspect of exoticism but transferring it from the English soldiers to the Germans.

Du & Sie etc.
Probably the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to translating German literature is the use of different words for 'you'. The most common forms of 'you' encountered in modern texts are du and Sie but also ihr as a plural of du. In older texts one also encounters Ihr as a singular pronoun meaning 'you' as well as the third person singular – er or sie – also meaning 'you'. Clearly all of these denote or identify the social standing of various characters in relation to others. A cleric may well ask of a peasant: “und … was will Er?” = “and … what do you want”, whereby the response might be: “nichts als Euch gefallen Hochwürden” =”nothing but to please you, your Reverence”. A child might say du to its parents and Sie to its teacher or a neighbour.

One strategy to deal with this would be to use “thou” for du and “you” for Sie. It is doubtful whether this reflects a linguistic situation that ever existed in England but it might be acceptable in historical texts dating to say the Medieval period. Even if a suitable German text were to be translated in this way it is not obvious that the majority of English readers would understand the significance in terms of the social status of the speakers involved unless they happen to be acquainted with another European language. This lack of understanding would represent a type of translation loss and the fact that this mechanism was only used in English (if ever) for a very short time and in a very limited geographical area, represents another kind of translation loss. This usage would look exotic or old fashioned to the English reader whereas the author's intention was not to create an exotic setting, but rather to use everyday language in the way all his original target readership would have understood without question.

Another strategy would be to use “you” or even “thou” for every occurrence of anything meaning “you” in the source text. This is a reasonable strategy but it naturally entails translation loss through the lack of any further distinction.

Often, especially in more modern texts, there comes a point when two or more characters decide to say du instead of the more formal Sie. This presents a problem for the translator, which needs to be considered right from the start of the translation. Usually the transition from du to Sie is marked by some sort of ceremony or is at least commented upon e.g.: “Plötzlich ist mir aufgefallen, dass wir uns seit einer Stunde geduzt hatten”=”Suddenly I noticed that we'd been using thou for the past hour”. That makes no sense in English so how does one deal with the transition? One strategy would be to miss out the sentence altogether. You might do that in say an extremely modern novel in which it is irrelevant that the characters are German. To fit with current English practice one could have the characters calling each other by their first names right from the start. An alternative strategy would be to have a transition between “Mr so and so” and “hey … call me James” or from “James” to “My friends call me Jim...”. Other similar strategies would be the transition from “Yes Sir” to “Mr Smith will do” or “Call me James”.

Traditional Verbrüderungs ceremonies - such as the characters in question filling two Champagne or Sekt glasses, linking arms and announcing their first names to each other (whether they already know them or not) before sipping from their glasses, and either shaking hands or giving each other a peck on the cheek, after which they would say du instead of Sie - can be difficult to work into a translation that is intended to be culturally neutral. One way might be to have one of the characters say something like: “hey, let's knock off the Mr this Mr that stuff. We're not so very different. My names Bob and I'll call you Marty. Let's shake on it”. In certain contexts that would work well but good judgement would need to be exercised.

The likelihood is that each translation will require a different strategy or combination of strategies and this is a problem that is unlikely to go away in the near future.

The thing is, is that …
… some authors and/or are not well educated. Sorry to be blunt but there it is. What do you do when something like “the thing is, is that …” has gone unchallenged in the source text? Probably the best strategy would be to think of it correctly as “the thing is that ...” and then translate that. This is an improvement of the text but still represents a kind of translation loss. Certainly the author would come across as being more intelligent in the target language than in the source language.