Talk:Eisbrecher (Nena album)

Engel der Nacht

In the lyrics of Engel der Nacht, Engel is in plural, therefore the translation is AngelS of the night. My edit keeps getting changed back to singular which is wrong. I know the lyrics and I understand them correctly. NayruLink (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I am a native German speaker and the verb conjugations are in plural. Engel der Nacht WOLLEN (not will) nichts versäumen… Engel der Nacht KÖNNEN (not kann) nicht fliegen. Seriously. Who came to the dumb idea that this has tp be singular?! NayruLink (talk) 10:28, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Please somebody answer me. I know what I'm talking about and the one who edited this seriously isn't. NayruLink (talk) 10:30, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, let's see. The song starts with "nur wir zwei – endlich allein", the one of these two being the song's author, and the other his partner, "an angel". Could it be that the author calls himself an angel too? I doubt that. Surely there are plural "angels" further in the chorus, but it seems to be just a lyrical generalization. And translations don't have to be too literal, they should reflect meanings. — Mike Novikoff 13:20, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

That is an argument, but it seems a liiittle bit far-fetched. I'm always looking for the source of the title in the lyrics, and here I think it must be the chorus. By the way I think Eisbrecher talks about IcebreakerS. And sorry for my rage, I was just angry. NayruLink (talk) 09:32, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Any translation is always some interpretation (that's why software translation still sucks after all these years of its development). I guess we'd better look at the general meaning of the lyrics and derive our translations from that. To look only at one local part is not enough and the result may be not very precise, even plain wrong at times. For "Engel", we can turn it both ways, it may well be plural from some point of view, but there's nothing wrong with the singular either. And "Eisbrecher" ("ein Eisbrecher auf dich") is clearly about the figurative meaning that is similarly called "an icebreaker" in English: something that will help "break the ice" in personal relationship. Again, there's a generalization in chorus, but the overall meaning is "some icebreaker, can we find it?" ("vielleicht jemand wie ich").

I'd also like to hear more opinions, especially from Duncan R2 who is the greatest contributor to these articles in the past few years and has skills in translating German to English (whereas I concentrate more on the technical side and formatting). — Mike Novikoff 02:05, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

The Eisbrecher one is correct, I only remembered the chorus line. Engel der Nacht however still doesn't convince me. Also I do know English well enough and I'm fluent in German, so I don't think I'm that bad at translating it. NayruLink (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Engel der Nacht readdressed

We had this talk already, but I have to readdress it: Engel der Nacht can mean one angel, but at no place in the lyrics does she sing about one angel. However, whenever the title part is sung, she sings about several angels. I know there is a comment next to the translation saying "singulae, see the lyrics", but that comment just doesn't make sense, since it's just wrong. Honestly, "Angel" is simply wrong and should definitely be changed NayruLink (talk) 20:39, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd rather suggest deleting all these translations altogether as an original research. We have no official translations, and inventing them, especially if there are controversies, is against the rules.

You know, in 1980s I've been a child in the Soviet Union, and there was only one record label, Melodiya (that was much worse than Amiga). Their policy was to translate each and every title of any foreign record, and if you knew Russian, you'd never believe what they did to Beatles and Rolling Stones. The same thing continued in late 1980s at radio stations, and even though I'm grateful to them for airing Pink Floyd albums at FM, I'll never forget these crazy translations they gave. (Many of the Pink Floyd's titles are idioms, and some have a story behind them, so that the unaware transator would be in a swamp). Being a decent international community of the 21st century, we definitely shouldn't repeat that awful approach. — Mike Novikoff 02:00, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I totally see what you mean, it's just that as a German who really knows Nena's lyrics and their meanings it angers me when someone else has a different translation that seems flawed to me. Anyways on the article that you gave the link to, I found this: "Faithfully translating sourced material into English, or transcribing spoken words from audio or video sources, is not considered original research." To me it sounds like that applies to song titles, meaning that the translations can stay. What do you think? NayruLink (talk) 21:08, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok, since you are German and I am not, I'll take your word.

I've just remembered how angry I was when in ruwiki they've distorted the name of the railroad station next to my home, even based on some sources that they count as "reliable", but absolutely contrary to what it's really called, and the case is still not resolved since 2015. Let us not be like that. — Mike Novikoff 18:55, 10 October 2019 (UTC)