I use Google Translate in my work, and like to introduce it to advanced English students who need to do translation at work. But you need to study very closely what this great tool does and doesn’t do. Based on the World Wide Web, Google Translate is really quite helpful for suggesting collocations (word partnerships) and colligations (grammar structures following given words), such as, in the example below,
- adverbs after verbs, e.g. “think independently”
- gerunds after prepositions, e.g. “without losing sight” or “dynamic way of doing”
But you naturally need to rearrange and adjust the various parts of speech, since German sentence structure is so different. I’ve highlighted the corresponding sections in the slide you see below. Also, German abstract terms carry meanings not transported in the more common sense English translation, and therefore need to be extended:
- Unternehmer ist er weniger im Sinne … sondern …
- His entrepreneurial qualities lie less in … than …
Note that when you use Google Translate, you can mouse over to view and select additional suggested translations. The more reference material goes in, the better Google Translate gets. So have a look:
German: In Max Mustermann begegnet man dem fast klassisch zu nennenden Vertriebsmann, der ausgeprägte Macherqualitäten besitzt und unabhängig denkt und handelt. Unternehmer ist er weniger im Sinne eines ganzheitlich denkenden und sorgfältig analysierenden Managers, sondern eher in Hinblick auf seine zupackende und dynamische Art, die Dinge anzugehen und umzusetzen, ohne jemals das Ziel und das gewünschte Ergebnis aus den Augen zu verlieren.
Google Translate: In Joe Blow, one encounters the most classic to be mentioned salesman who has distinctive makers qualities and thinks and acts independently. Entrepreneur, he is less in terms of a holistic thinking and carefully analyzed manager, but rather in terms of their purposeful and dynamic way of doing things and implement without ever losing sight of the target and the desired result in mind.
Improved: Joe Blow has many of the distinctive qualities of the classic salesman, a man of action who thinks and acts independently. His entrepreneurial qualities as a manager lie less in holistic thinking and careful analysis than in his purposeful and dynamic way of approaching and implementing things without ever losing sight of the target and the desired result.
