german translation

July 13, 2006 8:57 AM

Could some please translate a couple of phrases from German for me?

1 - "Herr Schneider wütet in meinem Laden rum"
2 - Er redet doch allen nach dem Mund.

thank you!

posted by dydecker to writing & language (18 comments total)

1- Mr Schneider raged around (in) my shop

Not sure about no. 2 - 'reden' means 'to speak/pontificate/diatribe (etc) and the Leo online German dictionary gives 'to play to' for 'nach dem Mund reden' but I can't parse the whole thing and put it into English - perhaps someone else can help?

do you know any German at all?
posted by altolinguistic at 9:20 AM on July 13, 2006

n.b., IAAT (I am a translator), but IANYT (I am not your translator) and I don't translate from German. And my usual rate is $0.15/word with a minimum charge of $30... :-)
posted by altolinguistic at 9:22 AM on July 13, 2006

1. Mr. Schneider wreaked havoc in my shop.
2. He tells everybody what they want to hear.
posted by jedicus at 9:23 AM on July 13, 2006

cool, jedicus, that's much better than mine.
posted by altolinguistic at 9:25 AM on July 13, 2006

altolinguistic, i know no German at all except how to say "allo" in that cute German way. Your check is in the post.

What does "Mr. Schneider wreaked havoc in my shop" mean figuratively? He's not talking about a shop literally. Is there an equivalent idiom in English for someone who messes with your business? Does it mean "Mr Schneider is messing with my baby"? he's talking about his music festival.
posted by dydecker at 9:31 AM on July 13, 2006

Not sure ... I can't parse the whole thing and put it into English ... I don't translate from German
Excellent reasons not to post "answers" in this thread.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:32 AM on July 13, 2006

Chide gracefully accepted, Wolfdog. I did want to point out, however, that translation is a professional service (of course I make an exception for my translation from German) and that more context is always helpful - even jedicus' excellent effort benefits further from what dydecker later posted.
posted by altolinguistic at 9:39 AM on July 13, 2006

Well, Laden basically just means 'shop' or 'store.' I guess it could be used in a more abstract sense to mean 'business,' but that's not typical at all. You seem to know a bit more about the source of these phrases than you let on at first. Please share as many details as you have as they're essential for coming up with a sensical translation, especially when dealing with idioms.
posted by jedicus at 9:42 AM on July 13, 2006

altolinguistic, plenty of people post all kinds of questions for which other people will charge money and it's no big deal.

Just because you're a translator doesn't mean other people can't ask for translations for free. I'm not making any money off this.
posted by dydecker at 9:46 AM on July 13, 2006

jedicus, the phrase in question is in the headline of this article
posted by dydecker at 9:51 AM on July 13, 2006

Ahh, okay, looking at the article (and in particular the paragraph in which it appears in the article), I'd say it's something more again to "He's peeing in my Cheerios" or (heheh) "He's raining on my parade."

Do you need the article translated or just those phrases?
posted by jedicus at 9:58 AM on July 13, 2006

ack..."more again" should be "more akin."
posted by jedicus at 9:58 AM on July 13, 2006

thank you, jedius! I'm okay with the rest of the article but cheers for the offer. Best not put the translators of the world out of business ;)
posted by dydecker at 10:08 AM on July 13, 2006

dydecker, no-one's objecting to your posting a couple of sentences, and my original reference to money was part-joke, part my feeling like an under-appreciated translator today (sorry that you had the full force of that).
posted by altolinguistic at 10:13 AM on July 13, 2006

no worries, alto. The irony is I'm a translator too :)
posted by dydecker at 10:22 AM on July 13, 2006

Is that "rum" ending the first sentance an abbreviation for "herum"? I've never seen this word before (auf Deutsch).
posted by Rash at 10:24 AM on July 13, 2006

well, Rum is, as you might guess, the german word for rum, but that's not the meaning here.

I suspect you're right, Rash, though I don't have a dictionary in front of me to browse through for verbs beginning with rum-.
posted by jedicus at 11:14 AM on July 13, 2006

Rash: "rum" is indeed a colloquial abbreviation for "herum". (IANAT but a native speaker.)
posted by andre at 11:22 AM on July 13, 2006