Why do American writers make mistakes with German language in comics?

[stelok]

I have been studying German for more than two years, so I would know enough to notice obvious mistakes with German words in comics especially Marvel Comics.

Fabian Nicieza typed in X-Force volume 01 #8 that Baron Strucker greeted to Cable and his gang, "Guten Tag, mein Freunds". That is wrong. There is no such German word as "Freunds". Nicieza should have typed "Meine Freunde". Obviously he has never studied German once in his life.

Mein Freund- masculine, singular, nominative
Meine Freundin- feminine, nominative

Meine Freunde- plural, for both males and females, nominative
Meine Freundinnen- plural, for females only, nominative

There is another book called "Captain Amerca: Medusa Effect", written by Roy Thomas. In that book, Helmut says "Mein Mutter". He should have typed "Meine Mutter", not "Mein Mutter".

"Mein" is the masculine German article of "my" while "meine" is the feminine German article of "my"

And I also think Bucky is supposed to ask Helmut the informal question "Sprichst du Englisch?" instead of the formal question "Sprechen Sie Englisch?"

Fabian Nicieza also made a typographical mistake with a German word in X-Force's 1999 Annual. The correct German word for "experiment" is Versuch, not Vershuct.

[Gingold]

All the German that I know, I learned from Kurt Wanger. I suspect Nicieza has the same problem.

[stelok]

Ah, Nicieza and Thomas have learned fake German from Nightcrawler!


Take my advice. Don't learn German phrases from Marvel comics. Don't learn them from an English-German dictionary, because just a dictionary is not adequate enough. I know it, because my German teacher noted some German words in all of my English-German dictionaries were not accurate.

Learn them from a German tutorial class instead.

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Nightcrawler

To keep authenticity, the writers - especially Chris Claremont - made Nightcrawler speak German phrases. But due to poor translation, these phrases were often a source of unintended comedy for native German speakers. Notable errors were:
English word-----False translation-----------------------Correct translation
Kitten-----------Katzchen (his pet name for Kitty)-------Kätzchen
Darling----------Leibchen (Shirt)------------------------Liebchen or Liebling
Understood?----Verstehen? (To understand)-------------Verstanden?
What?---------- Vas?----------------------------------Was? (pronounced Vas?)


In addition, the X-Men writers often did not realize that German nouns have three different grammatical genders, causing Nightcrawler to talk with obvious grammatical errors. Also, in German one would mostly say 'wie', meaning 'how', rather than a direct translation of 'what', but 'was' is also used in German. The same rule applies in other languages, such as Spanish, where the replacement of the English query 'what?' would be '¿cómo?' (meaning 'how') instead of '¿qué?' (meaning 'what') - '¿qué?' is also used, but it is considered rude.

[Mormel]

I do not know why this is.

It's obvious that when they're writing the dialogue, they just sit there with an English-to-German dictionary, and they write down the words in German without regarding declensions or conjugation. Also, in your last example there's a distinction between the polite pronoun 'Sie' and the informal 'du'. Both are translated with 'you' in English.

It sometimes makes for hilarious moments ('scheissen' [to sh*t] in stead of 'schiessen' [to shoot]), but mostly it's just annoying.

You'd think that the writer of a comic book would ask German readers to consult them on what German characters would say.
Better yet, they could just ask someone who speaks German in the neighbourhood. Like a German teacher, or something. I think they're just lazy; and the majority of the (American) readers won't know, so they don't care that much.

[Shellhead]

All the German that I know, I learned from Kurt Wanger. I suspect Nicieza has the same problem.

Is Kurt Wanger the guy with the big tail? Heh.

[yo go re]

Why do American writers make mistakes with German language in comics?

Obviously he has never studied German once in his life.

You just answered your own question. American writers usually don't speak whatever foreign language their characters speak, be it German, French or anything else. They do the best they can with what they have.

A writer can't very well post their entire script for an upcoming issue online and ask for translations, and not everyone knows someone who speaks the languages needed. I know people I could ask about Spanish and Portuguese, but if I needed Korean or Swahili, I'd be up the creek...

[Gloria]

You just answered your own question. American writers usually don't speak whatever foreign language their characters speak, be it German, French or anything else. They do the best they can with what they have.

Indeed, the Spanish expressions included in comics are often a source of riotous entertainment to me.

In older times, I would have understood that an author wouldn't have time to check foreign languages, but now, with the www, it's a mather of seconds to get in touch with someone (a teacher, a foreign fan, a foreign friend) who could correct or reassure the author in regard to foreign language sentences, idioms or words being used... What's more Comics by Marvel and DC are published worldwide and they have a wide net of foreign publishers to which they could ask (not to forget a lot of foreign artists, too)

My opinion is that this kind of innacuracy shows laziness on the author's side... but then there's a general laziness about getting the reference minimally right: A recent issue of Wolverine shows him fighting in World War One in 1915 and... there are Tanks! Tanks weren't used in any battlefield until late 1916, and this was just one of the many goofs in a few pages.

[Dizzy D]

You just answered your own question. American writers usually don't speak whatever foreign language their characters speak, be it German, French or anything else. They do the best they can with what they have.

A writer can't very well post their entire script for an upcoming issue online and ask for translations, and not everyone knows someone who speaks the languages needed. I know people I could ask about Spanish and Portuguese, but if I needed Korean or Swahili, I'd be up the creek...

But why not simply use the <>* (*=translated from [insert language]) thing they used to do a lot? Why attempt to write a language you don't speak?

[Omar Karindu]

I have my own theory...

[zuludelta]

But why not simply use the <>* (*=translated from [insert language]) thing they used to do a lot? Why attempt to write a language you don't speak?

I've always preferred that method myself. A relatively recent example of dubious translation was in Kingdom Come. In the scene where the enraged Superman tears the roof off the United Nations building in New York, there's a panicking Asian man in the foreground speaking what reads, at first glance, like Filipino/Tagalog but is actually a bunch of gibberish with some Filipino words thrown in (although enough of it is understandable that the intent is clear... he was saying "here comes the crazy person!"). Now, I'm not sure if the mangled dialogue was intentional (maybe Waid didn't want to use an actual language and wanted to use a "made-up" one) but it was something of a distraction for me, although I imagine most readers hardly gave it a second glance.

[Joey Deadcat]

But why not simply use the <>* (*=translated from [insert language]) thing they used to do a lot? Why attempt to write a language you don't speak?

Or just have 'em speak like Herr Starr.:D

[MartinRedmond]

To give them a break though, most of this was done before the internet so research must not have been that easy. It's daft today they don't ask foreign fans for help on this though.

[The Mirrorball Man]

It's not just German. Whenever American comic book writers write anything in any foreign language, they leave huge and grotesque mistakes. And that's because they're just using foreign languages to add flavor to the dialogue, like an artist drawing Batman with a Hawaiian shirt. And the reason they can get away with it is that very few of their readers notice these things, and those who do don't care. It's the American equivalent of Engrish, actually.

[Lobsterdom]

The same thing can be said about the foreigners depicted in Japanese comics.
It's a trait that can be found everywhere.

The last issue of X-Men had Sunfire speaking total jibberish.
It wasn't even Japanese. This comes from a writer who's also currently writing a comic series based in Japan...:rolleyes:

[suedenim]

With German, I think it's a couple factors. One, most Americans *think* they know some German phrases from World War II movies. "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" is a good example - a widely used "stock phrase" where the idea of different phrasing wouldn't even occur to most people.

The other, related, factor is that German isn't very widely studied in the U.S. I'd imagine Spanish and French come off better, whether by mostly-forgotten residual high-school knowledge or likelihood of an acquaintance who does know the language a little bit.

(Interestingly, I've discovered that my French teachers did a damn good job - my six years of French from 7th-12th grade have actually stuck pretty well.)