×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

A question for German speakers

A question for German speakers

A question for German speakers

(OP)
I'm reviewing a document written by someone whose native language is German and they keep misusing "respectively" to mean something like "or" or perhaps sometimes "particularly".  Can you think of a particular German word they might be thinking of and mistranslating here?

Hg
 

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: A question for German speakers

Using FoxLingo translator;

respectively > English to German = beziehungsweise

beziehungsweise > German to English = and/or

RE: A question for German speakers

(OP)
Hmm.  Any insight on a subtle difference between "beziehungsweise" and "oder"?

Hg
 

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: A question for German speakers

Here is an example that may be subtle.

Oder is directly translated as or.  For example:

Cars have two or four doors.
Autos haben zwei oder vier Türen.

Beziehungsweise is used for lists where we use respectively.

The cars have two and four doors, respectively.
Die Autos haben zwei beziehungsweise vier Türen.
 

RE: A question for German speakers

(OP)
The context for these is definitely not "respectively".  I did some more poking around and it seems like bzw. can also mean something like "more precisely," or "alternatively".

I changed most of them to "or" with one each of "more precisely", "alternatively", and "particularly".  If they don't like it, I hope they get the drift and come up with something closer to what they want.

Thanks to CBL for tracking down the word.  I don't remember it from 3 semesters of German.

Hg
 

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources