I’ve always wondered about the German in Rammstein’s song “Du Hast”:
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt
Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet
treu ihr sein für alle Tage…
nein!
Seeing as how AltaVista helpfully translated it as “You do not have me asked you have me asked you me asked and I anything said You want to death you separate it to be faithful for all days… no” :rolleyes: I figured I’d get a better response here.
Danke
You
you have *
you have me
you have asked me
you have asked me and I have said nothing
Do you want, until death seperates you,
to be faithful to her for all days
No
Do you want, until death, which would seperate, **
to love her, even in bad days
No
Oh yes, forgot to say, I got that translation from http://herzeleid.com
IIRC, my Sehnsucht CD came with an address or card to write or send for English lyrics.
Perhaps it is a separate issue whether someone posting the complete English lyrics to a song in German is a violation of Euty’s edict.
Being that they seem to me to go to the trouble of “publishing” their English lyrics at request for owners of their CDs, I suspect that even if it wouldn’t ordinarily be a copyright problem, in this case it could be.
[hijack]
Then again, what are the copyright issues? Can I translate a book into another language (say, Klingon) and then distribute it?
[/hijack]
Haha. Careful you don’t get Du Reist wrong.
I spoke the words to this song to a German woman. I forgot the last two words which were “so gut”.
So I told her “You smell” instead of “you smell so good”.
Yikes:smack:
Also, in German, “Du Hast” may have a double meaning. “Du hast” means “you (singular) have,” but “Du hasst” means “you hate,” & is pronounced the same way.
Like airdisc said before me, http://www.herzeleid.com has wonderful translations. Since Rammstein’s official website has linked to Jobarr’s site, I don’t think they’re concerned with possible copyright infringements. 
His translations often will do a little explanation in footnotes as well. I like this. For example, in Spieluhr, there’s the word “Totensonntag” with some *** after it. Go to the bottom of the translation and he notes: [sub]** “Totensonntag” translates to “Sunday of the dead”. This is a holiday celebrated on the last Sunday before Advent in November. It is the day when protestant christians remember their dead. Information taken from here.[/sub]*. Neat little information like that is what I love to find out.
My copy of Sehnsuct contains English versions of “Engel” and “Du Hast” as bonus tracks, and they definitely say “You Hate Me”, so foolsguinea is correct.
On the other hand, they also replace “Nein!” with “Never!”, which is WRONG…so it’s not a 100% accurate translation.
KGS, the English versions are just that: versions. Neither of them are actual translations from German into English, instead they’re changed the lyrics for rhyming purposes, and even changed the meanings.
It wouldn’t really make sense for it to be “you hate me”, I had that discussion with alot of punk 16 year old kids with a black wardrobe and double digit piercings that had gotten that idea stuck in their heads. It does sound cooler to a punk brat if it’s “you hate me.” “Du hast mich gefragt und I hab’ nichts gesagt” wouldn’t make much sense if you change the “s” to the double-s (that looks like a lower case beta when spelled in German). I suppose the first instance of “hast” could really be “hasst”, but the later one couldn’t. “Hast” and “gefragt” have to go together because “gefragt” is the past participle of “fragen.”
My kid brother got the disc as a reward from his German teacher in high school (my whole family took German as their foreign language in high school and college), he has the German copy that was sent to the teacher by friends in Europe, his copy has lyrics auf Deutsch in the liner notes, it clearly says “hast.”