[Sca-cooks] OT garage sale cookbook find

[Sharon Palmer]

>Just kind of a question for Ranvaig and maybe you other german 
>translators out there.  One of the Recipes in a 1940 book is all in 
>German, do you think that your translations of the Rumpolt book 
>would be helpful in translating this more modern one?

Was it published in America or in Germany?  1940 would be after the 
Depression, at the beginning of WW2.  It sounds like it could be 
quite interesting.


>I have looked at your word lists on the Rumpolt site, a while ago, 
>but before I go in and try to do it, i would like to know if I might 
>have a chance.

I'd check dictionaries first.

In general, the Rumpolt list are obsolete spellings and words not 
found in a dictionary.  It started as a list of words I didn't know, 
then a list of things that had been found.  Rumpolt's vocabulary and 
word use are pretty different than modern German.

Google translate isn't too bad.  Type a separate line for each 
sentence or clause.    If you click on a word on the translated side, 
it will show you other possible translations.  The parts it gets 
wrong are usually  pretty obvious and you can focus your time there. 
It gets easily confused, but still usually gives you a sense of what 
it's saying.  I use it to rough translate German dictionary entries.

I have a nice thick paper dictionary, but online dictionaries are 
much easier, dict.cc.com is good at figuring out spelling 
differences, but dict.leo.org is probably a better dictionary.  Both 
of them have forums where you can ask questions.. but they tend to be 
German speakers trying to understand English.

If the dictionaries can't find the word, try taking off word endings 
and prefixes.  German likes to push multiple words together, if you 
cant find a word, look for places to break it.

German likes to put separable prefixes at the end of the sentence, 
they tend to completely change the meaning.

German uses vowel changes a lot, like English swim, swam, swum.

I'll second Phlip's suggestion to make a guess and look up the 
English word and see if any of the translations are close to the word 
you have.

You might try putting German recipe titles into Google search.. they 
might be out there online.  Sometimes finding a similar recipe can 
give you an idea what it is saying.

I'm certainly not an expert at German (I'm more familiar with 16th c 
than modern spelling).. but I'd be happy to help where I can.  Feel 
free to send me anything you have trouble with, and I'll do my best.

As to whether you have a chance.. it depends on how much you time and 
energy you want to put into it.  When I started Rumpolt, I had nearly 
forgotten High School German, 35 years ago.  Recipes tend to follow a 
pattern, and are easier to understand than general writing.

Ranvaig