Discussion:
Need help with translation
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Oscar
2006-04-04 20:01:56 UTC
Permalink
Hi everybody,

I have to translate a phrase to English and German.
The original language is Polish.

In Polish there is a term "drogowe obiekty inzynierskie",
that means everything that you may find along a road
and what was built and desingned by road or civil engineering.
I mean bridges, flyovers, drains, roadside, even road signs and pavements.
Direct translation of the term is "road engineering objects".
Does it make sense in English?
How to translate it to German?

I need a term, or a word or phrase to precisely describe (name) that stuff
in English and German.

Thanks for help.
--
Oscar
Miss Elaine Eos
2006-04-05 05:43:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Oscar
Direct translation of the term is "road engineering objects".
Does it make sense in English?
How to translate it to German?
I need a term, or a word or phrase to precisely describe (name) that stuff
in English and German.
Possibly civil-engineering. "Highway engineering objects" makes sense,
but might be awkward, depending on the context. Can you give a sentence
or paragraph?
--
Please take off your shoes before arriving at my in-box.
I will not, no matter how "good" the deal, patronise any business which sends
unsolicited commercial e-mail or that advertises in discussion newsgroups.
Arno Schuh
2006-04-07 16:25:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by Oscar
Direct translation of the term is "road engineering objects".
How to translate it to German?
Possibly Straßenbau(projekte) or Tiefbau(projekte).

Schöne Grüße

Arno
Chris Croughton
2006-04-08 15:07:17 UTC
Permalink
On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 22:01:56 +0200, Oscar
Post by Oscar
I have to translate a phrase to English and German.
The original language is Polish.
In Polish there is a term "drogowe obiekty inzynierskie",
that means everything that you may find along a road
and what was built and desingned by road or civil engineering.
I mean bridges, flyovers, drains, roadside, even road signs and pavements.
Direct translation of the term is "road engineering objects".
"Road engineering objects" makes perfect sense to me, but it isn't a
common way of saying it in English. Fascinating, I think you have found
a phrase for which there is no simple English equivalent (there are
many, but that's one I haven't encountered before). This is now going
to keep me awake at night wondering how we ever managed without such a
useful phrase...
Post by Oscar
Does it make sense in English?
How to translate it to German?
Strassenbau ("road built-things")? I'm not sure whether that applies to
road signs as well, though.
Post by Oscar
I need a term, or a word or phrase to precisely describe (name) that stuff
in English and German.
I'm going to think about that...

Chris C
Oscar
2006-04-09 20:39:20 UTC
Permalink
Hi,
thanks for your opinion.
Post by Chris Croughton
"Road engineering objects" makes perfect sense to me, but it isn't a
common way of saying it in English. Fascinating, I think you have found
a phrase for which there is no simple English equivalent (there are
many, but that's one I haven't encountered before). This is now going
to keep me awake at night wondering how we ever managed without such a
useful phrase...
Yes, I haven't found this phrase either. I've seen through many
professional papers and the phrase, intuitively just the right one to me -
never occured.
Post by Chris Croughton
Strassenbau ("road built-things")? I'm not sure whether that applies to
road signs as well, though.
I'm going to think about that...
Chris C
I hope, you'll find something.

My last version is:
eng.: civil engineering objects within roads
ger.: Ingenieurbau Obiekte im Strassen Bereich

What do you think about it?
--
Oscar
Chris Croughton
2006-04-10 20:58:44 UTC
Permalink
On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 22:39:20 +0200, Oscar
Post by Oscar
Yes, I haven't found this phrase either. I've seen through many
professional papers and the phrase, intuitively just the right one to me -
never occured.
I'm told that "civil engineering" covers built things on roads, but not
the roadsigns (which are in the UK put up by the local government people
not by civil engineers).
Post by Oscar
eng.: civil engineering objects within roads
ger.: Ingenieurbau Obiekte im Strassen Bereich
What do you think about it?
Someone else said that Strassenbau Objekte covers it. I think that
English is lacking a word <g>...

Chris C
Oscar
2006-04-10 21:19:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Croughton
On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 22:39:20 +0200, Oscar
I'm told that "civil engineering" covers built things on roads, but not
the roadsigns (which are in the UK put up by the local government people
not by civil engineers).
Thank you.
But what about "traffic engineers"?
It is their job to say, where to put and what - a roadsign.
Can't we, with tongue in cheek, include them?
Post by Chris Croughton
Someone else said that Strassenbau Objekte covers it. I think that
English is lacking a word <g>...
Is is possible? ;-)
--
Oscar
Miss Elaine Eos
2006-04-11 02:09:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Croughton
Post by Oscar
eng.: civil engineering objects within roads
ger.: Ingenieurbau Obiekte im Strassen Bereich
What do you think about it?
Someone else said that Strassenbau Objekte covers it. I think that
English is lacking a word <g>...
But not "...within roads", though -- your English phrase sounds "close
enough", except that I'd change it to "...objects on roads."
Intrestingly enough, "on" doesn't refer to actually *ON* the road (as in
"standing in the middle of"), but includes along the side of, over, and
generally everything that "goes with" the road, but isn't the road,
itself. For example, one might say "there's a nice diner on highway 17"
-- but it's not *ON* 17, it's just ...uh... DOWN 17 a ways, on the side
of it :)

Hope that's not TOO confusing...
--
Please take off your shoes before arriving at my in-box.
I will not, no matter how "good" the deal, patronise any business which sends
unsolicited commercial e-mail or that advertises in discussion newsgroups.
Chris Croughton
2006-04-11 07:52:24 UTC
Permalink
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:09:34 GMT, Miss Elaine Eos
Post by Miss Elaine Eos
Post by Chris Croughton
Post by Oscar
eng.: civil engineering objects within roads
ger.: Ingenieurbau Obiekte im Strassen Bereich
What do you think about it?
Someone else said that Strassenbau Objekte covers it. I think that
English is lacking a word <g>...
But not "...within roads", though -- your English phrase sounds "close
enough", except that I'd change it to "...objects on roads."
The problem is that the roadsigns aren't "civil engineering", at least
in BrEnglish, and so aren't included. Which is rather annoying.
Post by Miss Elaine Eos
Intrestingly enough, "on" doesn't refer to actually *ON* the road (as in
"standing in the middle of"), but includes along the side of, over, and
generally everything that "goes with" the road, but isn't the road,
itself. For example, one might say "there's a nice diner on highway 17"
-- but it's not *ON* 17, it's just ...uh... DOWN 17 a ways, on the side
of it :)
The same is true in British English, yes. "In the road" means "on the
part on which one drives", whereas "on the road" means that /and/ the
surroundings (but "there are many cars on the road" -- not in!). I
suspect that it comes from an Anglicisation of the French "en route",
which sounds like "on route". meaning "on the way (to somewhere), so the
diner was "en route" when using road number 17, rather than "on Route
17".

(Note that BrEnglish pronounces "route" in the French way, 'root',
rather than the common USEnglish pronunciation rhyming with 'out'.)
Post by Miss Elaine Eos
Hope that's not TOO confusing...
English is confusing -- especially as there are several different
languages all called 'English' <g>.

Chris C
Oscar
2006-04-11 20:50:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Croughton
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:09:34 GMT, Miss Elaine Eos
Post by Miss Elaine Eos
Intrestingly enough, "on" doesn't refer to actually *ON* the road (as in
"standing in the middle of"), but includes along the side of, over, and
generally everything that "goes with" the road, but isn't the road,
itself. For example, one might say "there's a nice diner on highway 17"
-- but it's not *ON* 17, it's just ...uh... DOWN 17 a ways, on the side
of it :)
The same is true in British English, yes. "In the road" means "on the
part on which one drives", whereas "on the road" means that /and/ the
surroundings (but "there are many cars on the road" -- not in!). I
suspect that it comes from an Anglicisation of the French "en route",
which sounds like "on route". meaning "on the way (to somewhere), so the
diner was "en route" when using road number 17, rather than "on Route
17".
Yes, I agree with both of you, Chris and Miss (;-))
But the idea to use 'within' instead of 'on' came to me
as the solution to include roadsigns... Maybe, I was wrong.

By the way, I've asked an US architect about it.
I'm looking forward to his answer.
Maybe he will find a panacea for that problem.
--
Oscar
Stephan Mann
2006-04-10 10:29:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Croughton
Post by Oscar
How to translate it to German?
Strassenbau ("road built-things")? I'm not sure whether that applies to
road signs as well, though.
Straßenbau(-Objekte)! And yes, it does.

stephan
Chris Croughton
2006-04-10 21:02:09 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:29:05 +0200, Stephan Mann
Post by Stephan Mann
Post by Chris Croughton
Post by Oscar
How to translate it to German?
Strassenbau ("road built-things")? I'm not sure whether that applies to
road signs as well, though.
Straßenbau(-Objekte)! And yes, it does.
I can't do the sharp-S character on this terminal. I had the impression
that the character is now being dropped in favour of the 'ss' form since
the recent reforms?

I think I'm going to start using Strasssenbauobjekte in English, since
we don't have a word for it (English doesn't so much borrow words from
other languages, it chases them down alleys and mugs them for the
words!) <g>.

Chris C
Stephan Mann
2006-04-11 19:27:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Croughton
On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:29:05 +0200, Stephan Mann
Post by Stephan Mann
Straßenbau(-Objekte)!
I can't do the sharp-S character on this terminal.
If you are using an appropriate charset (e.g. Extended ASCII), this should
be Sign 225. On Windows, this works by holding ALT pressed and enter 225
on the keypad.

If this doesn't work, you could use 'sz' since this is another name for
this letter. It's not very common, but german-speaking people should get
it, if they think about it.

On the other hand, it's not very uncommon to use 'ss' for 'ß' in _all_
cases, especially in Usenet or mails. But strictly speaking, it's
incorrect.
Post by Chris Croughton
I had the impression
that the character is now being dropped in favour of the 'ss' form since
the recent reforms?
They attempted to do so -- and failed miserably. It's a huge chaos and
nobody knows how to write correctly anymore. Not even the newspapers or
the so-called experts. One of the few things which has not been changed
until now is that in names and after long vowels there (still) needs to be
a 'ß'. But the reform is not finished yet ;)
Post by Chris Croughton
I think I'm going to start using Strasssenbauobjekte in English, since
we don't have a word for it (English doesn't so much borrow words from
other languages, it chases them down alleys and mugs them for the
words!) <g>.
Since german uses so many english words, you may have a few back in return
;)

stephan


PS: I've just realized that I'm very uncomfortable with writing in
english. I'm looking forward to practice this here.
Chris Croughton
2006-04-12 07:38:05 UTC
Permalink
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:27:40 +0200, Stephan Mann
Post by Stephan Mann
Post by Chris Croughton
On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:29:05 +0200, Stephan Mann
Post by Stephan Mann
Straßenbau(-Objekte)!
I can't do the sharp-S character on this terminal.
If you are using an appropriate charset (e.g. Extended ASCII), this should
be Sign 225. On Windows, this works by holding ALT pressed and enter 225
on the keypad.
When I said "on this terminal" I wrote accurately, I run in text mode
and that terminal (running over ssh to my home machine) does not accept
non-ASCII characters. But I would also have to choose an appropriate
charset and force the mail client to MIME encode it.

Character 225 here is an a-acute á...
Post by Stephan Mann
If this doesn't work, you could use 'sz' since this is another name for
this letter. It's not very common, but german-speaking people should get
it, if they think about it.
I've never seen that one in German.
Post by Stephan Mann
On the other hand, it's not very uncommon to use 'ss' for 'ß' in _all_
cases, especially in Usenet or mails. But strictly speaking, it's
incorrect.
As I heard it, it is the correct form and the esset is an abbreviation
(like the umlaut, which came in with printing to save space and ink, the
'e' first appeared over the vowel and then degenerated into the dots).
Post by Stephan Mann
Post by Chris Croughton
I had the impression
that the character is now being dropped in favour of the 'ss' form since
the recent reforms?
They attempted to do so -- and failed miserably. It's a huge chaos and
nobody knows how to write correctly anymore. Not even the newspapers or
the so-called experts. One of the few things which has not been changed
until now is that in names and after long vowels there (still) needs to be
a 'ß'. But the reform is not finished yet ;)
I gathered that it was a mess and unpopular. One of the advantages of a
totalitarian government is that one can change things like spelling on
command, as the Russians did with Cyrillic <g>...
Post by Stephan Mann
Post by Chris Croughton
I think I'm going to start using Strasssenbauobjekte in English, since
we don't have a word for it (English doesn't so much borrow words from
other languages, it chases them down alleys and mugs them for the
words!) <g>.
Since german uses so many english words, you may have a few back in return
;)
<g> At least German isn't full of the "purity of the language" stuff
that French gets. And in German there is the very useful way of forming
new words by combining existing ones (my invented "Luftdruekerzeug" (I
didn't know the word for 'fan') hasn't caught on yet, but I'm sure it
will <g>).

But you can keep the cases and weird gender assignments <g>...

Chris C
Bob Cunningham
2006-04-12 00:02:56 UTC
Permalink
On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 22:01:56 +0200, "Oscar"
Post by Oscar
Hi everybody,
I have to translate a phrase to English and German.
The original language is Polish.
In Polish there is a term "drogowe obiekty inzynierskie",
that means everything that you may find along a road
and what was built and desingned by road or civil engineering.
I mean bridges, flyovers, drains, roadside, even road signs and pavements.
Direct translation of the term is "road engineering objects".
Does it make sense in English?
How to translate it to German?
I need a term, or a word or phrase to precisely describe (name) that stuff
in English and German.
Thanks for help.
"highway infrastructure" ?

I don't know from German.
Oscar
2006-04-12 20:03:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bob Cunningham
On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 22:01:56 +0200, "Oscar"
"highway infrastructure" ?
I don't know from German.
I thought about it, but I'm afraid it makes
one think of the road map rather than about
bridges and road signs.
In Polish there is a separate branch of engineering
called road engineering or traffic engineering,
which deals with problems of where to build roads,
highways, bridges, etc., to make traffic more efficient
and fluent.
--
Oscar
Gary
2006-04-24 00:18:37 UTC
Permalink
INFRASTRUCTURE HAS GOT TO DO WITH <<CIVIL ENGINEERING>>.
AMERICAN-ENGLISH & GERMAN DO CARRY AND USE THIS TERM
<<INFRASTRUCTURE>> =
IN THEIR EVERY DAY TECHNICAL [CIVIL ENGINEERING] LANGUAGE.
REGARDS
GARY
***@sti.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~
Post by Bob Cunningham
On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 22:01:56 +0200, "Oscar"
Post by Oscar
Hi everybody,
I have to translate a phrase to English and German.
The original language is Polish.
In Polish there is a term "drogowe obiekty inzynierskie",
that means everything that you may find along a road
and what was built and desingned by road or civil engineering.
I mean bridges, flyovers, drains, roadside, even road signs and pavements.
Direct translation of the term is "road engineering objects".
Does it make sense in English?
How to translate it to German?
I need a term, or a word or phrase to precisely describe (name) that stuff
in English and German.
Thanks for help.
"highway infrastructure" ?
I don't know from German.
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