Kleingartenverein

[dream_labyrinth]

There are some words in the German language that are so much a name for a typical German trait that I somehow wonder whether there is an English word for them at all.
Which is a problem right now, because I'm working on another translation and came across one of these words.
For those who have ever been in a middle-sized German town, you probably have seen little plots of land with many fences, and in between the fences towel-sized gardens, often close to railway tracks.
Kleingartenanlagen.
AFAIK, these go back to the Twenties, when it was necessary firstly to get people to grow their own food and secondly to get them some fresh air. (It could even be earlier then that, now that I think about it.)
So these little empty spots of land were transformed into gardens, and people could grow vegetables and have a place to spend their weekends.
In Britain, I suppose there were this huge housing areas with small backyards to each house, so maybe they didn't need this solution. But here, large apartment buildings were build, and people couldn't have a backyard at their house.
So anyway, the Kleingarten.
Many people have them, at least in my part of Germany. And they spend all their weekends cutting the hedges and pulling weeds and painting fences and whatnot. They're about as crazy about their gardens as about their cars, and that is something.
I have seen a lot of them with plastic or stone figures (dwarfs, deer, geese, birds...), a flagpole with German flags (or Confederate flags for the "rebels"), little house and bench and all kinds of vegetables and flowers.
But all this knowledge doesn't help me find a good English word for it. And I don't even need the word for one of these things (I could call it just a garden or, as the dictionary suggested, allotment), but for a whole thing, for several gardens at once. Usually, the ones in one spot form some sort of association, which would be a Kleingartenverein. And I just can't think of a good word for that.
Makes me feel alternately incredibly stupid and incredibly angry at the makers of the text. And if I ever meet them, their chances of survival are bad anyway, because I need to do a lot of reworking of the German text before translating. Not that I'm writing that down, I don't care if they don't speak their own language properly. For some reason they seem to think that nouns are good, verbs are bad.
It's very much like a Dilbert comic. Substitute all "do"s with "implementation". That sort of thing. And not only do sentences get very complicated, there also is a high risk of simply being wrong. Which means I need to trace back what they most likely want to say and then translate that.
Anyway, they're going to pay me for it, which is at least something.

And it keeps me from thinking too much about the job situation. (Here I go again, so we see how good that distraction idea works. )
The basic thing is this, no matter how I decide (provided I do get the okay from the army), there is always the danger of me not liking the place I decided on, and then thinking that I probably made the wrong decision.
Knowing myself, I might get really depressed when something doesn't work out the way I want it to and get upset about me not chosing the other place.
But I can't be in two places at the same time, and from what I saw of the university yesterday, I'm not too eager to actually work there. I haven't seen the other place yet, so the university might still end up being the lesser evil. But there is no way of knowing how it is to work somewhere before I actually do just that.

Whatever. I have a fanfic idea in mind I need to write down, so I'll do that and stop worrying about something I can't solve before Monday anyway.

Language sidenote: Is "forestrial" the adjective to "forestry"? The dictionary doesn't have it, but google has several sites that seem to use the word in this sense.

Comments

[jonthedull.livejournal.com]

German is such an interesting language. I wish I was able to take more of it than the one year I did in the 8th grade.

I never knew there was an adjective form of "forestry" but my not knowing that doesn't mean much.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

German does have some interesting parts. But it is alos a rather difficult language to learn. English is much easier. :-)

[jonthedull.livejournal.com]

That dificulty is one of the reasons I only took one year of it. The other reason was that I changed schools and the new school did'nt offer German.

It's facinating all the different ways languanges work.

[rev-tobias.livejournal.com]

I know I'm being a Korinthenkacker here ;) but you spelled the subject "Keingartenverein". No Garden Association. *g,d&r*

Oh, and the Langenscheidt dictionary translates "Schrebergarten" as "allotment" or "allotment garden". Perhaps that helps.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Hmm, allotment garden. Maybe I can make something out of that. And thanks for the remark, I'll edit.

[morwennac.livejournal.com]

Doesn't "kleingarten" mean "small garden?" Why not just call it that?

BTW, garden dwarves rule!

[holyrood.livejournal.com]

you're trying to come up with a way to describe several of these tiny gardens together, right? you could try "community garden"-- that has more a connotation of being a place where people in an urban neighborhood gather to enjoy being in the garden, talk, grow food, let kids play, etc.

i got nothing on "forestrial." sorry.

oops

[holyrood.livejournal.com]

"community garden"-- that has more a connotation


please realize that this is a US-centric term and if you're translating it for another country it might not mean the same thing. i'll try to note my americanism next time i offer word advice. : )

Re: oops

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll look into that.
And don't worry about americanisms. I try to keep that in mind anyway, and there really is no perfect translation for so many things. People just need to get the idea, IMO.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

See, that's the problem. Kleingarten, if you translate it word by word, is "small garden". But it is not to be confused with a "kleiner Garten" which too yould be "small garden". That's why I need to find a better word. (and because a "Small Garden Association" sounds kinda weird.)
This is why I don't like translating. Something is lost on the way from one language to the other. ;-)

Ewww, garden dwarves... *gg*

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I know we have them in the US, but I can't for the life of me think of how they are called. I remember yearning for one when I was living in an apartment complex myself.

In what kind of sentence are you trying to use the adjective of forestry?

[angharad.livejournal.com]

And, that's a British word. They allot garden space in The Village Commons or something. In the US, with the big ol' houses/yards, no such animal.

[angharad.livejournal.com]

I actually think the adjective might be "forestry". "The Forestry Services Bureau" or "The Forestry Studies program at the university". Ah, English.

Re: oops

[angharad.livejournal.com]

I wonder, though, whether that's a less-personal style of garden, since there are no fences between the different plots? At least in the community gardens I've seen.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Yep, that sounds good. I think I'll work from there. Thanks.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you the context for the adjective to forestry off-hand, it was something with "land- und forstwirtschaftlich" - agricultural and the adjective to forestry. The nouns are a common combination, but the adjective doesn't seem to be used.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

*gg* If it is, I think I'll give up on learning English.
Probably I should stick to sciences. Mathematics is logical, languages are not. *sigh*

[call-me-harmony.livejournal.com]

Yes in the Uk we definately call those allotments. My dad had one right up to a couple of months before he died.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Good. And do you have a word for more than one, like for a whole area together? The owners form clubs in Germany.

[call-me-harmony.livejournal.com]

When they're all together we just call them the allotments, boring really.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

*gg* This is why I like English. In German, we make everything as complicated as possible.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

If it were up to me, I might phrase it as something like "land and forestry-related...." I'm not saying forestrial is necessarily wrong, but I've never heard it before, and I think it would sound strange to me.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that, too.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I googled "forestrial" and found some entries. but I suppose you can find almost anything on google, no matter whether it's right or wrong. I'll probably rephrase it.

[tuva.livejournal.com]

*nods* Exactly! *struggles with complicated German sentences* :p

Heute habe ich gelernt, dass es: ich denke daran heisst. Ich weiss nicht richtig, was das in Deutsch heisst. Ich finde es auch besonders, aber ich glaube, dass wenn meine Leherin so sagte, dann ist es richtig! :p

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Ich denke daran would be I'll remember.
Like when your parents tell you to do some shopping and you say you'll think of it and not forget it (as I so often do...).
Languages don't make sense, and German makes less sense than other languages. That's why I'm so happy being born German, I don't have to worry about gramar and vocabulary that much.

Re: oops

[holyrood.livejournal.com]

i've seen both kinds (seperated and non-seperated), but both have been called "community gardens." we've got seperate ones at my apartment complex now, but the ones where i used to live were just one big plot for everyone to use. ??

[angharad.livejournal.com]

In English, you know, we often make noun adjectives. Me, I actually enjoy it, because if I squint I can pretend they're all one word in German.

[angharad.livejournal.com]

born German, I don't have to worry about gramar and vocabulary
Okay, declension girl. Go learn Czech! Orrr, sayyyy, Hungarian?

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

OK, I should have said I don't need to worry about German grammar and vocabulary. I tried learning Russian. Yuck. All that grammar!
I hate grammar. That's what I like in English. It seems to work pretty well even without many grammar rules. :-)

[angharad.livejournal.com]

I hear that English is hard to spell, though. I wouldn't know, myself. I was born knowing how to spell English.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

I think it works as soon as one gets the basic differences in pronounciation of letters. Like the fact that an English "e" is pronounced like the German "i". Once you memorize that, it is OK.