This is translated “These gadgets seem to be of no use.” which, to me, evokes the connotation that “They are of no use to us right now / to some specific end, but they may have some other originally intended use.” whereas the German sentence seems to connote to me: “These gadgets are completely useless / have no use at all (to anyone).”
Am I misinterpreting the German, and the sentences have the same connotation and are a good / natural translation, or could the translation here be improved?
You are misinterpretating insofar as that ‘scheinen… zu haben’ is expressing a fair bit of uncertainty, much more than ‘haben keinen Nutzen’ would. But I wouldn’t go as far as saying what you said about the English translation about the german one as well.
Hmm, I see how “scheinen” adds uncertainty. What I’m asking though, in English if you say: “These have no use.” it usually means that they are totally useless (in any context) whereas if you say: “These are of no use.” it is more likely to have a limited context, meaning: “These are not useful (to us right now in this context).”
Does “haben keinen Nutzen” come across more like “have no use” in English? Or is the connotation different?