Alex's Journal

I really love the German language. I love it to the point that I use it all the time. I do, however, really just like to use English on occasion without any German. That mood, for lack of a better word, seems to come and go in phases. When I am more inclined to use English, I generally tend to read more books and write more on my blogs than when I am in the mood for German. Although now with my German blog, I have the ability to also write when I am in the mood for German as well.

At the moment, I really just want to speak English. And therefore I have been reading a lot more and writing a lot more blog posts. This phase will probably last a week or two and then I will be back in my German phase. I have no idea why I go back and forth so much, but it seems to happen all the time.

For anyone who is going to be working with the memoirs of Reinhard Gehlen, do not use David Irving’s translation of it, entitled: The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen. For a project I am working on, I have been dealing with both Irving’s translation as well as the original book in German written by Gehlen himself (Der Dienst: Erinnerungen 1942-1971). I read the German version cover to cover for this project and have been attempting to use Irving’s translation as a quick reference to check for facts, however, as I have been using the translation, not only is information missing from the original in his translation (I’ve had to check the original multiple times to verify it was actually there), but there are actually pages and pages of accounts and “memories” that don’t exist anywhere in the original!

The accounts may be true for all I know, but they are presented as though Gehlen told them (though he did not in his memoirs) and there are no references cited. It has been most frustrating and I do intend to report this inaccuracy to the university. Perhaps they will dispose of the book as anyone who is unable to read the German version would have no idea otherwise, possibly leading to inaccuracy.

For those of you who don’t know what the term “Denglisch” is, it’s a term used by the Germans to describe the English that is constantly working its way into their language. It comes from the German words Deutsch+Englisch (German+English).

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I just got through reading an article about Windows 7 in German. The title of the article is “Microsoft pusht Vista-Nachfolger: Windows 7 soll auch auf Netbooks laufen” (Microsoft pushes Vista replacement: Windows 7 should also run on netbooks). Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with the German title? First of all, “pusht” is not German at all. Nor is “Netbooks.” This is a professionally done online magazine article that is riddled with all sorts of Denglisch. While it makes it tremendously easier for me to read being a native English speaker, it’s really quite sad at the same time that they are loosing their language so quickly to these invading anglicisms.

This is an amusing satirical article that was written in German, but it uses so many English words that someone without really any German experience at all could understand most of it. The point of it is to make fun of Denglisch. It was published in an American newspaper.

As part of my on going adventures with the German language, I provide translation services from both German to English and English to German. If you are looking for someone who can translate any length of document for relatively cheap, then look no further!

English is my native language and I have 9 years of experience with the German language. I have lived, worked and studied in Germany. For typewritten or digital documents, websites or anything else digital, I charge US $0.08 or 0.06 euros a word. For handwritten documents, I will need to see the document before I can provide a price as handwritten documents can be far more difficult to decipher.

Please contact me at seifertalex [at] gmail [dot] com. If you would prefer to contact me by phone, please first contact me by e-mail and I will send you my phone number.