For the preparation of a research study in business communication, as part of my Ph.D. project, I’m looking for native or native-like speakers of English who also know German. The task involves translating German adjectives to English. It should not take long and I was hoping to find subjects here. I would really appreciate your time and help.
The link to the questionnaire is attached below. Please download the document in google docs by clicking on “File > Download as” and send it back to the email given.
Please don’t hesitate to get back to me in case you have any further questions.
I will do it when I get a bit of time. I have a question though. It is unclear how one should rate their ‘proficiency level’. I think ‘native-like’ is pretty clear, but what do you consider ‘basic’, ‘good’, and ‘very good’?
Thanks for your question. You are right, these items are not clearly specified. It should indicate how people self- assess their overall proficiency. For orientation you can refer to the following criteria:
‘very good’ relates to someone who is able to communicate fluently;
‘good’ refers to someone who manages to follow and participate in routine conversation but some lack of grammar and vocabulary;
‘basic’ means reading and writing of routine texts but no fluenty conversation.
Hope that helps? Thanks a lot for participating, I really appreciate it. Please dont hesitate to get back to me in case of any further questions.
It would help to have some context rather than just a list of words! For example, “autoritär” is (of course) basically translated as “authoritarian”. However other words like “domineering” or “strict” might be a more natural choice in some instances??
Context is provided in that you should imagine or relate the adjective to a business person / professional / business context. Can’t tell more as it would bias the translation task.
Na schön, ich werde es mal versuchen. (Normalerweise hätte ich keine Zeit für so etwas - aber Sie können es als ein kleines Abschiedsgeschenkt betrachten - bevor wir Briten aus der EU austreten! :-D)
