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Need a translation from German...

UnknownSaintUnknownSaint KasynRegistered User regular
edited November 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
This should be pretty quick. Babelfish gives me gibberish. It's not super critical, just curious.

Leben hab ich gelernt, fristet mir Götter die Zeit.

Thanks!

UnknownSaint on

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    Dark MoonDark Moon Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I learned to live as gods graced me with the time.

    I added the "as" so it would sound better, but the actual German reads like a verse out of a poem.

    A more direct translation would be "Living I did learn, gods graced me with the time."

    Dark Moon on
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    UnknownSaintUnknownSaint Kasyn Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Well it IS a verse from a poem, so that makes sense. Thanks DM!

    UnknownSaint on
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    GrobianGrobian What's on sale? Pliers!Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Could you maybe give some context? Because I would translate it as "Living I learned, now, gods, give me the time!"

    Ok, it's Goethe and there's not really context as it's from a collection of short verses. Still, I'm going with my translation instead of Dark Moon's. "fristet" is an imperative.

    Grobian on
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    evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    i'm with grobian on this one.

    the "fristet" seems to imply a command as the speaker hasn't received the time.
    had it been "fristen" then it would indicate that the gods had given him time.

    the first sentence would seem to mess the former interpretation up though, so context is required.

    evilthecat on
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    GrobianGrobian What's on sale? Pliers!Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I found it on Project Gutenberg, but, like I said in my edit, there is no context: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/7vepi10.txt

    /another edit: I asked some more Germans and they agreed with my translation. Someone bilingual came up with "I have learned (how) to live, now grant me time, ye gods" which sounds way better.

    Grobian on
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