MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Help with German to English translation please

AlexBell · 03-01-2017, 04:16 AM

I'm afraid I have only two words of German, so I must make my request for help with translation in English.

I'm working on 'The Young Cosima' by Henry Handel Richardson for the MobileRead library. It was first published in 1939 and the author died in 1946, so that it is in the Public Domain for MobileRead purposes. It is about the tangled relationships between Franz Liszt, Hans von Bülow, Cosima Wagner, and Richard Wagner. The book contains some German words or phrases which I can't make any sense of using Google Translate. I want to put the translations as end notes or annotations.

The first word is Commerzienräte as in 'Oh, I could have spat at them: this crowd of paunchy Commerzienräte'. Hans von Bülow is bitterly complaining of the poor applause given at one of his concerts. What is he calling the people in the audience?

Also, should this word start with a K, in today's German? Would it have started with a K in 1939?

The second word is Mendelsvaterenkelism, as in 'what our young friend Hans so wittily calls Mendelsvaterenkelism'. Both von Bülow and Wagner were against Mendelssohn and his kind of music, and so far as I can tell it is an invented word. Does it have any meaning in English?

The von Bülow family motto is quoted as 'Alle Bülow'ehrlich'. How should I put this in English?

Hans von von Bülow is bitterly criticised by his mother for 'hacking around the country as fahrender Künstler'. Google translates this as 'driving artist'. Is there a better translation?

03-01-2017, 04:16 AM	#1
AlexBell Wizard Posts: 3,413 Karma: 13369310 Join Date: May 2008 Location: Launceston, Tasmania Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet	Help with German to English translation please I'm afraid I have only two words of German, so I must make my request for help with translation in English. I'm working on 'The Young Cosima' by Henry Handel Richardson for the MobileRead library. It was first published in 1939 and the author died in 1946, so that it is in the Public Domain for MobileRead purposes. It is about the tangled relationships between Franz Liszt, Hans von Bülow, Cosima Wagner, and Richard Wagner. The book contains some German words or phrases which I can't make any sense of using Google Translate. I want to put the translations as end notes or annotations. The first word is Commerzienräte as in 'Oh, I could have spat at them: this crowd of paunchy Commerzienräte'. Hans von Bülow is bitterly complaining of the poor applause given at one of his concerts. What is he calling the people in the audience? Also, should this word start with a K, in today's German? Would it have started with a K in 1939? The second word is Mendelsvaterenkelism, as in 'what our young friend Hans so wittily calls Mendelsvaterenkelism'. Both von Bülow and Wagner were against Mendelssohn and his kind of music, and so far as I can tell it is an invented word. Does it have any meaning in English? The von Bülow family motto is quoted as 'Alle Bülow'ehrlich'. How should I put this in English? Hans von von Bülow is bitterly criticised by his mother for 'hacking around the country as fahrender Künstler'. Google translates this as 'driving artist'. Is there a better translation? Last edited by AlexBell; 03-01-2017 at 04:19 AM.