The phrase I want translated is “big poppa.” I tried Babelfish, but the only variant it would translate is “father” to “vader”, and I don’t think that has the slang quality I’m looking for. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.
grosser Vater? (big father)
grosser Vati? (big daddy)
“Papa” or “poppa” doesn’t seem to translate very well.
Slang is often slang for one language, and often doesn’t hold up well in other languages.
Even some words, like the French “voila”, just translate terribly. “Voila” is just the best way to express it.
“big poppa” has little distinctions unique to English. Literal translation would mean little to someone who doesn’t understanf the lang/culture.
Take a saying like “right here”…in slang, you could express on a street corner, “Hey, I got your opinions right 'ere” Which is a disrespectful saying, but could never hold up in straight translation.
grosser Vati came up in a few.
“groß knallte” was provided by http://www.tranexp.com:2000/Translate/
I have no idea whether that’s any good.
Grim
Translations are funny things. I would imagine that the job of a translator (one who actually translates for people, like for diplomats) is to take the whole of the sentence or paragraph into context, and form a brand new idea with the same meaning. Direct translations are just too bizarre.
I bought the Monty Python and the Holy Grail DVD the other day and watched the special features. It included a couple of scenes that had been overdubbed into Japanese. Then they translated it back into English and put the translation as subtitles. Completely bizarre. The frenchman on the castle, instead of shouting, “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries,” instead was rambling something like “I know you, and can make many assumptions about your family members.”
I agree with troub. It is tough to translate these slang phrases directly and expect them to have some sort of equivalent meaning. Here’s the advice I can offer you based on my knowledge of German:
“grosser Vater” is obviously “big father”
“grosser Vati” uses the affectionate abbreviation for “Vater”, rendering something like “big dad”
If you are looking for something with the vernacular punch of “big daddy” [exclamation point], I would suggest:
“grosser Pappa” - simply a slangier version.
However, don’t travel to Germany and expect this phrase to convey the same meaning as “big daddy” would in America. They probably would have no idea what you are refering to.
Maybe the question is, what the hell is “big poppa”?
I know of “Big Daddy” in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, but what are you referring to exactly?
If it is just a name, you could probably get away with just saying “big Pappi”. (The English word “big” is generally understood by most Germans)
If you are talking about a man, who is a father, who is large, then what the others said is accurate.