This is how the Germans think:

[Torsten]

Here is an example that shows the German way of thinking. A rather simple concept has to sound as complicated as possible so it's difficult to read and even more difficult to understand:

In einem Zeitraum von insgesamt drei Monaten sind schwerpunktmäßig die Fertigkeiten und Kenntnisse der Berufsbildpositionen einer der vier Wahlqualifikationseinheiten gemäß § 8 Abs. 2
1. Warenannahme, Warenlagerung,
2. Beratung und Verkauf,
3. Kasse,
4. Marketingmaßnahmen

zu vermitteln.

In find words like "schwerpunktmäßig" awful because they are long, rather meaningless are used too often.

When you translate such as text you have to keep a balance between "localizing" and translating especially if the purpose of the translation is to find business partners for a joint venture in the education and training industry.

TOEIC short conversations: A man books a restaurant table on the phone

[Alan]

Hi Torsten,

It also has its advantages - this longwindedness. In the bad old days of East and West Germany, I used to do talks for the BBC doing my bit for propaganda about 'life in the west'. I would write my script in English and it would be translated into German, which I would then read in German. The point is that the German version was much longer than the English version and as I was paid by the minute, I didn't complain about the extra length!

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Daemon99]

[Molly]

I find that when Germans learn another language, they always search for the most literary, technical, or "obscure" words to express themselves.

[Torsten]

[Daemon99]

It's an Indian language called Manipuri. I saw a couple of Manipuri movies with English subtitles.

The actor would say a line that's almost a minute long and the subtitles would be like, "Have you had your lunch yet?" :lol:
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Non-native speaker of English
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