Can translation be taught? Although some people are more gifted than others, teaching and practising help anyone to perform at a higher level. In this course, we will translate various texts from English into idiomatic German. The aim of this course is to gradually improve the students' translation skills. Since translation into German poses several knotty problems to the German native speaker, we will especially address complex issues such as participle constructions, infinitives or various syntactic structures. Of course, we will also deal with tricky words which have different meanings depending on the context. Besides, students are expected to enlarge their vocabulary by regularly revising Humphrey's Your words, your world. There will be two exams, one of which will also contain a vocabulary test.

Reading material:
Friederich, Wolf. (1995, 9th ed.) Technik des Übersetzens. München: Hueber.
Hervey, Sandor et al. (2006) Thinking German Translation. London and New York: Routledge.
Hohenadl, Christa und Renate Will. (1994) Into German. München: Hueber.
Humphrey, Richard. (2005) Your Words, Your World. Stuttgart: Klett.