False friends.
Aug. 26th, 2012 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckTranslating idioms can get you into trouble...
Like when as a German journalist you use the neutral "Patchwork-Familie" to describe a famous actor's two kids by two different women. He might feel it's disparaging and then your interview with him is cut short.
Personally, I think it's a wonderful way to acknowledge that many families today resemble a quilt because families join up and become larger when mums and dads separate and find new partners. Ohrwurm (earworm) made its way into English, so why not patchwork family, too?
(Germans call small children "dwarves" and that's meant in a completely nice way and does not mean that we think that they look like tiny old men with long beards. Don't take that up; it's not actually cute.)
Written because families can distract you from doing school work.
Like when as a German journalist you use the neutral "Patchwork-Familie" to describe a famous actor's two kids by two different women. He might feel it's disparaging and then your interview with him is cut short.
Personally, I think it's a wonderful way to acknowledge that many families today resemble a quilt because families join up and become larger when mums and dads separate and find new partners. Ohrwurm (earworm) made its way into English, so why not patchwork family, too?
(Germans call small children "dwarves" and that's meant in a completely nice way and does not mean that we think that they look like tiny old men with long beards. Don't take that up; it's not actually cute.)
Written because families can distract you from doing school work.
