Er ist Weltmeister im Erfinden von Ausreden.

This is translated “He is clever at making excuses.” which I think is a poor translation, as it doesn’t really capture the mildly exaggeratory humor or perhaps sarcasm here. Like, saying “He is clever at making excuses” seems almost to be giving him a compliment, whereas the German sentence seems to be more of an insult, i.e. implying “He is terrible at taking responsibility for his actions.” which doesn’t come through as much.

Perhaps this could be improved? Not quite sure how I’d word it though. The word “clever” is not as often used sarcastically in English…maybe a word like “great” would be better, like “He is great at making excuses.” or even “He is sure great…” or something like that…I don’t know? Perhaps even a more literal translation like “He is a master of making excuses.” would be better.

4 Likes

As an English speaker from the UK this rings quite true…. It would be even more authentic if it said ‘quite clever’…

2 Likes

Oh man I can picture it coming across that way with British humor, especially “quite clever”. There are parts of the US where we have a similar kind of understatement, like I hear that kind of thing a lot in the deep south.

I live farther north and I think that’s why I heard this differently but when I imagine myself in a different cultural context it makes perfect sense and is actually a good match to the sentence then.

1 Like