This has been a heated topic between my German-speaking mates & me ever since Rammstein released English versions of their songs. The lyrics for Du Hast and Engel are substantially different when translated into English, with Du Hast being completely odd - the second translation above is what the German actually says - and Engel being just plain shitty compared to the German. I guess "Only when you sleep in the clouds, can you see Heaven" is a bit hard to get to scan in English tho'. Hmmm, that page of translations you quoted looks pretty wide of the mark too - some of them look like they've been done by non-German speakers with German-English dictionaries.
There is a long history of this sort of thing tho'. Nena's 99 Red Balloons was a lot sillier than the German original. German seems to scan/rhyme easier than English at times. But my German is pretty lousy at the moment - I've started working on it again, as I'm probably in Switzerland for Xmas.
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timeasmymeasure
Rammstein Translations ...
Date: 2001-07-23 08:13 am (UTC)There is a long history of this sort of thing tho'. Nena's 99 Red Balloons was a lot sillier than the German original. German seems to scan/rhyme easier than English at times. But my German is pretty lousy at the moment - I've started working on it again, as I'm probably in Switzerland for Xmas.