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What Germans Are Reading

the-american-interest.com

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Re: What Germans Are Reading

#91

Post by DoreenMichele »

tpush wrote: post #88
DoreenMichele wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm aware. But, just like diffizil is a more formal word, so is difficult . Colloquially, people routinely say hard in English, as in hard problem to solve.

Difficult is a common word in English, and I bet most Germans have never heard nor read the word „diffizil“. Translating „difficult“ to „diffizil“ would be a poor translation IMO.

That might explain why Google Translate doesn't seem to know it.

I know the word and I'm only semifluent in German, so it would never occur to me that it was anything seriously obscure.

(Though this is also tangential and has no real bearing on whether or not to translate the book title as difficult or hard. I would have translated it as hard if someone asked me for some reason.)

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#92

Post by thecleaner »

wil421 wrote: post #87
jaclaz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do people earn only 5k after tax ? As a side note, the 5k are not actually "purchasing power" or really-really "after tax" as it is usually intended in the US, in the EU there is VAT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax which is similar to the "sales tax" in the US but that is usually much higher. In Germany (Mehrwertsteuer) it is (relativaly…

In the US we have sales tax (and even city tax) that varies from state, county, city. Most states also have an income tax. Do German states have income taxes?

Not that I am aware of. Tax rate seems fairly constant from State to state

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#93

Post by luckylion »

wil421 wrote: post #87
jaclaz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do people earn only 5k after tax ? As a side note, the 5k are not actually "purchasing power" or really-really "after tax" as it is usually intended in the US, in the EU there is VAT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax which is similar to the "sales tax" in the US but that is usually much higher. In Germany (Mehrwertsteuer) it is (relativaly…

In the US we have sales tax (and even city tax) that varies from state, county, city. Most states also have an income tax. Do German states have income taxes?

No, states and county-equivalents get a share from the federal income tax, and add other taxes (mostly on county-level), "Gewerbesteuer", which is an additional tax on businesses, and property tax being the largest ones.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#94

Post by codeflo »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #78
ekianjo wrote: post #37

My German is rusty but: > Toleranz: Einfach Schwer (Tolerance Isn’t Easy) is an improper translation. That's "Tolerance: Simply Difficult" and that translates fine in English too since you can keep the same style while being accurate.

I might translate it: Tolerance: Simply Hard (Or Easily Hard ) It more closely mirrors the German cadence and I've generally translated schwer as hard. I always understood di­ffizil to be the correct translation of the word difficult. Granted, I learned most of my German from my mother (plus a little self study and I lived there for nearly four years in my twenties), not in school. There are no doubt substantial gaps…

> I always understood di­ffizil to be the correct translation of the word difficult.

I think that’s misleading or even wrong. Source: native speaker.

First, it’s a very rare word that would definitely stand out, even in an already formal conversation. More importantly, “diffizil” is mostly reserved for problems that require a lot of fine motor skills or finesse. It would be wrong to say that lifting some large boulder is “diffizil”, for example, except as a joke. You might use it for repairing a watch or a complicated negotiation (“eine diffizile Angelegenheit”), however.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#95

Post by _delirium »

romaaeterna wrote: post #65

I can't stand reading modern Germans. They generally read and think just like English, for one thing, so that you can barely tell you've entered another language. It is pleasant, however to retreat to the 19th-century Germans, and bathe in their erudition and learning, from the period before the world went sour.

There is still a fairly regular stream of German-language "serious" monographs coming out, written by philosophers, media theorists, etc. Not usually found on the Spiegel bestseller list, though.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#96

Post by acjacobson »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #78
ekianjo wrote: post #37

My German is rusty but: > Toleranz: Einfach Schwer (Tolerance Isn’t Easy) is an improper translation. That's "Tolerance: Simply Difficult" and that translates fine in English too since you can keep the same style while being accurate.

I might translate it: Tolerance: Simply Hard (Or Easily Hard ) It more closely mirrors the German cadence and I've generally translated schwer as hard. I always understood di­ffizil to be the correct translation of the word difficult. Granted, I learned most of my German from my mother (plus a little self study and I lived there for nearly four years in my twenties), not in school. There are no doubt substantial gaps…

I would use schwierig for difficult - but I am not a native speaker, so take it with a grain of salt. I tend to use schwer to mean hard (or heavy in other contexts)

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#97

Post by klmr »

lixtra wrote: post #63
RandomBookmarks wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please be accurate. Correct would be: They removed a book they consider anti-semitic. That is quite different from what you stated. But great to include the source.

Funny enough the owner of Der Spiegel was himself considered an anti-semite by the Wiesenthal Center[1] a few years ago which stirred quite some debate back then. [1] https://m.jpost.com/International/Wiesenthal-dean-labels-Aug...

He isn’t (and never was) the owner of Spiegel. He’s the son of the Spiegel’s founder and former editor in chief.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#98

Post by hef19898 »

em500 wrote: post #67
thecleaner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that the German billionaire class controls 1T dollars. Why do people earn only 5k after tax ? There seem to be very little opportunities for investment in stock market. Real estate prices too seem insane.

> Why do people earn only 5k after tax ? It's not clear what your point of reference is. If you're wondering why it's much lower than in the US (where the 90-percentile household is probably around 170k USD pre-tax or 9k-10k post-tax), there are many many factors that contribute to the difference. The most important ones (unordered) are IMO: - USD is probably overvalued by 15%-20% [1]. In the past 10 years, the EUR/U…

Also don't forget that, at least in Germany, after tax in casual conversation usually means net salaries after stuff like social security, health care, etc... Which might also explain some of the difference.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#99

Post by hef19898 »

luckylion wrote: post #49
tatami wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and we say "after tax", but actually it's after tax, health insurance, unemployment insurance, pension fund and few more peanuts.

I'm not an expert on that since I'm self-employed, but imho that's not completely accurate. Most contributions aren't completely tax deductible (pensions: 86/88%), and many of them share a max deduction limit of 1900 Euros, so you'll quickly get above that if you're earning an average salary.

Public pensions and all the other stuff is usually directly deducted from your monthly pay, private insurance is where the deductibles come in. Not an issue for you standard stuff as an employee.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#100

Post by hef19898 »

petre wrote: post #79
thecleaner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's a good strategy here ? Buy stuff on credit but sell to who ?

Dunno, but normally it's not a great idea to buy real estate when prices are insane and property taxes are high. Also if you buy on credit the asset is the creditor's until you pay it off, so you can't sell.

Not in the case of real estate. There you might have to repay the outstanding debt immediately including any losses of the bank. Unless you manage to sell the financing along the real estate. For private persons, investors and developers are different I think in terms of credit conditions.
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