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Found this in the school hallways. I don’t know German

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[-] Lumidaub@feddit.org 38 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

That's the last verse of Goethe's Erlkönig. There's a translation here: https://dererlkonig.wordpress.com/translations/ (actually several translations because translating poetry is hard)

[-] blackwitch@lemmings.world 9 points 3 weeks ago
[-] solrize@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

There is also a cool 4.5 minute animated movie using Schubert's musical setting of the poem. The translation in the subtitles isn't so good though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS91p-vmSf0

The Wikipedia article about the poem looks good and has a literal translation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlk%C3%B6nig

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 4 points 3 weeks ago

I'm triggered by the son sitting behind the father.

[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

man, that's triggering some instense school PTSD flashbacks.

It is a piece of Goethe's "Erlkönig":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlk%C3%B6nig

Edit: should be noted that whoever wrote it, has either a very very bad handwriting, or made some typos

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 10 points 3 weeks ago

Whoever wrote this was probably still in school and I would guess in a North American one because of the cursive they wrote in. I think they also copied the text, badly, and that explains the mistakes.

[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 weeks ago

the type of cursive is actually the same I learned in germany as a kid

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 3 points 3 weeks ago

When and where did you go to school? That capital A that looks more like the lowercase one I've only ever seen from people from North America.

[-] Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Another European here to chime in that l also learned to write capital As like that in cursive.

The rs, fs and ts don't look like how we were taught though.

[-] blackwitch@lemmings.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

Correct, we live in the U.S.

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 weeks ago

They're spelling mistakes when not typed.

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)
[-] Lumidaub@feddit.org 28 points 3 weeks ago

This is so wrong it hurts my soul and I'm pretty indifferent towards poetry.

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks, I removed the pic but left the link for context.

[-] blackwitch@lemmings.world 1 points 3 weeks ago
[-] Lumidaub@feddit.org 24 points 3 weeks ago

I do hope you saw my other comment because this is a really crude and in fact incorrect translation.

[-] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 weeks ago

Fun fact: if you have a smartphone, Google Translate is free and has a camera mode. Wife and I use it all the time when captions aren’t translated (we watch a bit of foreign media).

I have an iPhone, it’s not just on Android.

this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
25 points (100.0% liked)

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