4 ms·

Are there any English words that capture an abstract concept with great precision, and do not exist in the German language?

• WalterBright 11y ago
  Let's see, schadenfreude, oops. Try again: zeitgeist, drat. I'm coming up kaput. Mox nix anyway.
• darklajid 11y ago
  I wouldn't know any, at 1:30am in the morning. I do know that lots of things become a mess if you try to translate them to German (with my background, on this board: You certainly don't want to learn about German words for mother/main board, stack or similar things. Or - let's do one: "Stack" was taught as "Kellerspeicher" for a while, which is the combination of "Keller"/basement and "Speicher"/memory). Back to the original question: Aren't the general concepts the same, can't you capture the same stuff in exactly the same precision in English? Are we just talking about the way ~some~ concepts can be compressed into a single noun quite well vs. a succinct sentence?
  • detaro 11y ago
    Oh, yeah, German CS books can be annoying, especially older ones where every author had their own way of translating things. stack = "Kellerspeicher" = "Keller" = "Stapel" (literal translation of "stack") = "Stapelspeicher". That said, PC components mostly are very direct translations that IMHO work well. main board = "Hauptplatine", hard disk = "Festplatte" (which apparently in the beginning led to confusion to why the IT departments are ordering such expensive catering, but nowadays is established), ... are all easy to map.
• vacri 11y ago
  I wonder what the German equivalent of "boffin" is?
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • detaro 11y ago
    That's a good example. The closest I can think of is "Tüftler", but that really doesn't capture the science-y aspect and is more hands-on. More the guy building a fusion reactor in his garage, less the group designing a radar device in some government lab.