Translations ?

[ChrisJ]

Whilst searching through the German militaria auction site I chose to try the english translation button... and got some interesting translations...

One wonders what a "Group fighting" badge is ?

the "Nut/Mother Cross" really got me wondering .... how could I have missed this important piece of historical hardwear...?

But the "Screwing Disc" really got me worried !

[translator]

Chris,

Done by someone who either doesn't understand the material, or perhaps by a "non-English speaker". Being a translator of such things myself, I can relate to the inherent challenges of rendering German into "good" English.

[Rick Research]

One of the German Dealers uses some such Robotic Program rather than a Human Brain, leading to such hilarity as "Third Wealthy Tank Badge" etc etc.

[James Clark]

I've seen some that look like they're done by electronic/on-line translating software. The sort of thing that might give you "vehicular preservative" instead of "traffic jam". My recent favourite was a Tank Badge with the "Fabricator Frank & mature".

However, my all time favourite remains an entire catalogue which referred to "German wealthy" every time "Deutsches Reich " came up.

[translator]

Gents,

I had not considered software as the possible culprit. Had a look at some of those packages years back, and they weren't even capable of producing a reasonaly worded business letter, much less a decent description of an object from military history.

[Mike H.]

I once wrote a letter to an Internet acquantaince, then used an online translator to get it in German before sending. My intent was to make it easier for him to read.

He responded by thanking me for my experiment in the German language - and politely asked that I resend the letter in English....