small questions about Translation (German-English)

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1. Am späten Nachmittag desselben Tages
On the late afternoon of the same day
Or: in the late afternoon of the same
My lectuer said if there is an any adjectives before "afternoon", then I could use "on", otherwise it should be "in". Is that ture?

2.Er hörte, wie jemand gerade "Gott sei Dank" sagte.
How is the punctuation like in this English sentence?
He heard someone just saying, "Thank God".
Or: He heard someone just saying "Thank God".

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Re: small questions about Translation (German-English)

sisi wrote:

1. Am späten Nachmittag desselben Tages
On the late afternoon of the same day
Or: in the late afternoon of the same
My lectuer said if there is an any adjectives before "afternoon", then I could use "on", otherwise it should be "in". Is that ture?

"On the late afternoon" and "in the late afternoon" both sound odd. I would translate the phrase as: "Late in the afternoon on the same day." This is one of those instances where a straight word-for-word translation doesn't fit with the way people speak the language.

sisi wrote:

2.Er hörte, wie jemand gerade "Gott sei Dank" sagte.
How is the punctuation like in this English sentence?
He heard someone just saying, "Thank God".
Or: He heard someone just saying "Thank God".

Reporting indirect speech is a somewhat grey area for English speakers. Actually, I'd translate it as: "He listened just as someone said "thank God!"

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Re: small questions about Translation (German-English)

sisi wrote:

2.Er hörte, wie jemand gerade "Gott sei Dank" sagte.
How is the punctuation like in this English sentence?
He heard someone just saying, "Thank God".
Or: He heard someone just saying "Thank God".

Reporting indirect speech is a somewhat grey area for English speakers. Actually, I'd translate it as: "He listened just as someone said "thank God!"[/quote]

Thanks for helping! Anyway, I'm afraid your suggestion about the second sentence is not right. This sentence is not about direct or indirect speech. And your translation means something different from the original sentence.

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It most definitely is "In the late afternoon...."

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That question made me dizzy Confused

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Joe is certainly correct about the first sentence. Never try to maintain the same word order in English that you would use in German. A slavish adherence to a word-for-word translation can only result in confusion and a very awkward and stilted result in English.

#2 He heard someone just say, "Thank God."

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I disagree a bit with Joe, too....respectfully, of course!

"In the afternoon" and "in the late afternoon" sound fine to me.

BUT "On that day, in the afternoon...."

The trouble with English is, that there are so many ways of saying the same thing: many or most of them are quite correct.

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"When are you coming home?"
"In the late afternoon."

or

"When are you coming home?"
"Late in the afternoon."

I don't know. The first version still sounds a bit strange to me. Not that I don't understand it, it's just that the second version sounds more "normal." But "In the late afternoon of the same day" really sounds odd. Maybe that's just my personal preference.

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joefromchicago wrote:

"When are you coming home?"
"In the late afternoon."

or

"When are you coming home?"
"Late in the afternoon."

I don't know. The first version still sounds a bit strange to me. Not that I don't understand it, it's just that the second version sounds more "normal." But "In the late afternoon of the same day" really sounds odd. Maybe that's just my personal preference.

You are quite right Joe, I agree with that summary, particularly for reported speech.

But I think "in the late afternoon" would sound fine in different contexts.
If we have phrases like "the early morning" and "the late evening" then we can also use "the late afternoon" without having to change it to "late in the afternoon", especially in written English. But it comes down to personal preference, to be sure.

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small questions about Translation (German-English)

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