Glossary
- decimals
- In contrast to German, English decimal numbers are separated by a point rather than a comma (e.g. 0,56 mm in German compared to 0.56 mm in English).
- billion
- German Billionen translates to English trillion; English billion translates to German Milliarden, see also Long and short scales
- Summaries of TV series
- Summaries of series don't seem to be a thing in the English Wiki; there's a section about the premise instead.
- Marking published articles/drafts as translations
- Use the template translated pages to mark your article/draft as a translation
- Names of laws / legislation
- Names of laws like Ladenschlussgesetz are best left alone and not translated. Instead, quickly explain the purpose or effect of the law, for example using prentheses in a relative clause
Ladenschlussgesetz (shop closing law)
or
Ladenschlussgesetz, the law that dictates during what hours shops are allowed to open each day.
or
Ladenschlussgesetz (shop closing law), the law that dictates during what hours shops are allowed to open each day.
- Das Pflichtexemplarrecht
- German Pflichtexemplarrecht translates to English the legal deposit. We can also write a brief explanation. However, the German definition matches the definition in the English article, so we can just leave the link.
Bestand der Bibliothek
Library collection is better than library stock or holdings
Struggles we came across
- When translating “Frau (Anrede)” from German: Ms. or Mrs.
- Whether or not to translate names that are play on words (example: Herr Taschenbier)
- How to translate rhymes?
Tips and Tricks
- If you don't know the translation of a particular place /artwork / person, etc, try finding the Wikipedia article and click on the English equivalent. This is often a better resource than simple, i.e. word-to-word, online dictionaries. And you can link your term to the article on English Wikipedia.
- helpful link for translations of existing Wikipedia articles (suggested by asilverling): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Translation