German translation of “The Emergent Task Planner”
Posted on February 22, 2011 in Asides
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:25 am)
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:25 am)
I’m working on a translation of the ETP in German with the help of a reader, but apparently “emergent task planner” is difficult to translate. Any ideas?
24 Comments
Hi! First of all, thank you for the wonderful simple sheet to organize my (work)day. Maybe you can use dynamic instead of emergent.
Dynamsicher Aufgabenplaner
Or you use lively? Lebendige Aufgabenplaner
or flexible Flexible Aufgaben Plannung
I vote for the last one.
Cheers, Dagmar
Hi David,
as my mother tongue is German I am not quite sure, what the sense of “Emergent” should be exactly. Upcoming? Emerging? Detailed ? Important? Task Planner in fact ist “Aufgabenplaner”, but there should be a differentiation to others, I guess
Maybe “Strategischer Aufgabenplaner” in the meaning of Strategic Task Planner
Otherwise not so good from emergency: “Notfall-Aufgaben-Planer” http://dict.leo.org/forum/viewWrongentry.php?idThread=44283&idForum=3&lp=ende&lang=de
Best regards Tobias.
Difficult …
I don’t find anything better than “Aufgabenplaner”.
“Aufstrebender Aufgabenplaner” sounds just strange.
The verb to emerge is also known in German (emergieren) which means: getting visible, becoming clear or come to light. “Emergierender Aufgabenplaner” would be the literal translation but this does not fit to the meaning of “emerging”.
I would propose “Kernaufgabenplaner”, which translates as Core Tasks Planner. This represents better the concept of focussing on the most important tasks for the current day, in my humble opinion.
I like all of the above ideas, but humbly suggest seeing if the translation for “adaptable” or “flexible” works.
I’m leaning toward “adaptable”…I should explain the origin of the Emergent Task Planner.
The title breaks down as follows: “emergent task” as a subclass of “task”. This is a phrase that isn’t common in English. The idea, in my mind, is that an “emergent task” is a task that wasn’t planned in advance through rigorous long-term planning. They are the tasks that have popped up, appeared out of nowhere, or just seem important today because you just know they are. I think “adaptable” probably is the most accurate. An emergent task is also one that becomes obvious once you get started on something. For example, if you decide you want to paint a picture of flowers, and discover that you need to buy brushes first, you’ve just come across an emergent task; it’s one that “emerged” in the course of pursuing something else.
Any thoughts?
Of course, it should also sound cool in German too, if you are German :)
Having translated the whole ETP headlines I still have problems with a German translation for “emergent”. There’s nothing that sounds as “cool” as the original term. “Lebendiger Aufgabenplaner” or “Der lebendige Aufgabenplaner” would be best. But it’s no real translation and still sounds strange. Perhaps there are more ideas without “Aufgabe”… “Aufgabenplaner” sounds so formal…
“Aufstrebend” is the correct translation. But as Uwe stated: It’s so strange…
Technically, the proposals are possible, but so far non of those sounds cool or sexy to me. I would like “Kurzfristiger Aufgabenplaner” without too much enthisiasm on it either
Entwickelnde Aufgabenplaner. I’m tempted to write this as one word, since “entwickelnde” modifies Aufgaben, not Planer.
To put things on a new track: Entwickelnde-Aufgaben Entwerfer
But I like Stegreifsplaner
Dave’s explanation sounds like Yak Shaving to me.
I believe Stegreifsplaner is not the right one, because “aus dem Stegreif” rather means to say the first thing that comes to mind on a certain topic.
Wie waer es denn mit einem “Arbeitsflussplaner”? That means “work flow” of course, but it has got something to do with it imho.
Perhaps you get a better result by searching not for such an accurate translation but a more “made-up” word. For example “Pop-Up Aufgabenplaner”, “ADAPT Aufgabenplaner” or “DS Aufgabenplaner”? Finally we use in Germany mostly terms like todo list or getting things done and not the german translation. Perhaps use simply the original english title?
Hm, Andrea’s suggestion is very intriguing. Just use the title As-Is, and leave translate everything else? The “Instructions in English” line underneath it reinforces that it’s originally a product in English and helps maintain consistency in the identity of the form across multiple languages.
On a side note, reading this thread makes me want to study German :-)
Want to study German? Think again…
But I think, Andrea made the point. Just leave the title as it is… We have so many English terms in our German language – “Anglizismen”. Why not “Emergent Task Planner”?
Or for a compromise: “Emergent Task Planer”, the last word (with only on “n”) being German.
Mixing German/German makes it “cool”.
I would also advice some caution regarding studying German language. I can think of many nicer activities.
Since no compelling translation has been found so far I agree with the others who suggested to just keep “Emergent Task Planner”.
There are many areas in which the English word or description sounds OK and the German translation sounds awkward (e.g. “Laptop -> Klapprechner”, “Flipchart -> Tafelschreibblock”).
Why not a combination of both ? As an honour to David: ETP Aufgabenplaner.
Well, if I had a choice between studying Chinese and German…
German is an awesome language to learn! It’s definitely my favourite working language as a mother-tongue English translator. (Mandarin’s great to learn too, by the way). Don’t listen to the naysayers, David :)
Or Russian…
A few years ago I was at the bookstore browsing the language section, and came across one of those displays filled with “Grammar Cheat Sheets”: laminated in plastic, with the main grammatical rules summarized. I picked up a few of them…the Russian one couldn’t fit on a single sheet like the others! I’ll have to dig them up.
Maybe a title that reflects the idea behind the ETP would be: “Davids rollender Tagesplaner”. If there might pop up a question mark regarding grammar, still the term induces the right associations.
Planung des spontanen Aufgabenaufkommens (PdSA)
maybe simple: “Tagesplaner” (day planner) with the tagline: “Es kommt meist anders, als man denkt.” (Things never turn out the way you expect.)