Perfekt vs. Präteritum: The comparison of the use of the Perfekt and Präteritum by native German speakers in two translations of l’Étranger and the translation of verb tenses by Google Translate.

Abstract

The novel l’Étranger by Albert Camus has two German translations; one with the Perfekt as main verb tense and one with the Präteritum as main verb tense. Both translations are correct, but different. This thesis compares the use of the Perfekt and Präteritum by native German speakers in two translations of the French novel l’Étranger. Additionally, the original French sentences are also translated by a machine translator to see which verb tense is translated. An experiment is proposed and conducted as a pilot study to see which verb tense is preferred by native German speakers in the translation of l’Étranger. A short case study of Google translate with 10 French sentences is done to see which verb tense is chosen by a machine translator. The results indicate that the Präteritum is the preferred verb tense for the native German speakers in the two translations and it is also the verb tense translated the majority of the time by Google Translate. The conduction of the proposed experiment is needed for a clearer view on the preferred verb tense in the translation of l’Étranger. Further experiments with Google translate can give more insight in the choices of the algorithm based on the input of the German users.