Eine der Klaviersaiten ist gerissen.

English Translation

One of the piano strings is broken.

I suggest “gebrocken” is a exponentially better than “gerissen” which has a multitude of varying meanings in informal language.

“to break” and “brechen” are not the same.
English “to break / broken” is more often used in the general sense of “defective”, and a good german translation might be “kaputt (gehen)”.

German’s “brechen” family is reserved for “breaking by over-bending”, and “reißen/gerissen” is used for “breaking by tearing / excessive pulling forces”.

So in the case of piano strings, the only sensible translation is “gerissen”, or if the mode of failure is really unknown, then “kaputt”. Although “kaputt” is rather colloquial, and “defekt” would be a formal alternative.

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English Translation

One of the piano strings is broken.

I’m baffled that this isn’t written with ‘ei’.

It actually comes from the old high German word “seito”, but the spelling was changed to “die Saite” (the string, the chord) in modern German to distinguish it from “die Seite” (the side). (The pronunciation is the same, so you can only distinguish them in writing or via context).

source: wiktionary

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It’s commonly written wrongly with “ei” by natives as well, if they don’t know that the one is music is written with “ai” or didn’t think of it at the moment of writing.

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