My current hypothesis, based on this explanation, is that while you may set up the conditions that produce ein Erlebnis – going on a vacation or to a new restaurant or for a walk in the park – the “experience” just happens to you, you are somewhat passive. For it to be eine Erfahrung, you must put in some sort of effort, you don’t simply collect these “experiences,” you build them.
Man braucht scharfe Scheren zum Schafe scheren.
Will things get better? Will things get worse?
Excuse me, can you translate?
To get a feel for Papierdeutsch, imagine taking a fairly abstract concept and expressing it with a cumbersome compound noun rather than a simpler combination of noun and verb: die Nichtbefolgung – “noncompliance” rather than nicht befolgt “not followed.” And to make sure that you further obscure your point, try to use a passive sentence construction (z.B. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass… “It should be noted that” Wir weisen darauf hin, dass… “Please note that”) and substitute as many simple prepositions as you can with more complicated ones (z.B. betreffs – “regarding” – instead of wegen – “about”)! Thanks to http://www.werbewolf.ch/News-Inhalte/Sammel%20Duden/dujuni.html for these wonderful examples.
I came away happy because with my German speaking friend’s help, the explanation of my US friend’s mistake was accepted, and while I can’t say I feel much more confident navigating Papierdeutsch, it was a great example of how language learning helps us recognize when we need to be humble and ask for help. I was also put in mind of the “Jive” scene in the film Airplane where a little translation is required and wondered if perhaps Monty Python had done any sketches poking fun at Papierenglisch?!
One real advantage in learning German rather than Vietnamese, for example, is that the two languages share common roots and have many words in common. This advantage can also be problematic. You can develop a sense that you know more than you do each time that you ask how to say something in German and are given either the English word or a cognate – Question/Frage: Wie sagt man “balcony” auf deutsch? Answer/Antwort: Balkon. You can also be lulled into a false sense of security, a feeling that if a German word looks like English, you can treat it as the same word…which brings us to false friends – die Übersetzungsfalle or der Fauxami.
Just for fun, I broke down the first translation of “false friend.” With so many compound words in German, one can often come up with a reasonable stab at a word’s meaning from this sort of exercise and it certainly helps widen your understanding of the smaller words that make up the compound.
So, roughly, we have a trap in putting the meaning in one language across into a second language, or a translation trap.
The second translation is a loan word or Fremdwort – der Fauxami is a direct import of the French faux ami.