Help Translating Word Clock

pjkoeleman

@j.e.f.f
First of all, German is not my main language, but there are some things I see.

20:25 “Es ist fünf vor halb zwanzig” should be “Es ist fünf vor halb neun”, I would never use the “zwanzig” wenn I write the time like this or speak about the actual time.
20:30 is now written as “Es ist halb ein und zwanzig”. I think that has to be like in Dutch “Es ist halb neun”. Dutch and German look a lot the same.
20:35 schould be “Es ist fünf nach halb neun”
20:40 schould be “Es ist zehn nach halb neun”
20:45 schould be “Es ist viertel vor neun”
20:50 schould be “Es ist zehn vor neun”
20:55 schould be “Es ist fünf vor neun”

The use of “zwanzig” is strange in my opinion, but let some German speaking users decide how they want it to be.

j.e.f.f

@pjkoeleman it was my impression based @clubbi 's translation suggestion that the clock should show 24 hour time, which is why it is laid out as such.

@clubbi @willfri should this be a 24 hour clock or a 12 hour? Also note that it’s possible to have layouts for both styles, so I could add a German 12 hour clock in addition to keeping the current 24 hour layout.

willfri

@j.e.f.f How @pjkoeleman said I would also prefer a 12 hour layout because all times after 12 sounds strange in German.

Use “Uhr” only when it’s xx:00. The example at 01:15 should be “Es ist viertel nach eins”. So it would be better if you could find a solution for “ein” and “eins” because it sounds much better.

Some examples for better understanding:

00:30/12:30 “Es ist halb eins”
01:00/13:00 “Es ist ein Uhr” (use “ein” only here)
01:05/13:05 “Es ist fünf nach eins”
01:15/13:15 “Es ist viertel nach eins”

j.e.f.f

@willfri Thanks! A twelve-hour clock is easier for me to layout as well, so it looks like I’ll go that route. I’ve been thinking about a good way to handle the “s” on the end of “ein” and I think I have a good solution in mind that won’t be a special case just for the German layout.

I’ll post back new screenshots when I make the change.

j.e.f.f

@willfri OK. Here is the German layout, now using a 12 hour clock. I have it properly displaying
ein/eins" in context.

Question: Since we’re using 12 hour time instead of 24, is it customary to specify what part of the day it’s in? For example, in the French translation, it would say “Il est cinq heures du matin,” or “It’s five o’clock in the morning.” Similarly you’d append “de l’après midi” for the afternoon, and “du soir” for in the evening.

pjkoeleman

@j.e.f.f
I think that is awesome, for a Dutch person.

willfri

@j.e.f.f said in Help Translating Word Clock:

Question: Since we’re using 12 hour time instead of 24, is it customary to specify what part of the day it’s in? For example, in the French translation, it would say “Il est cinq heures du matin,” or “It’s five o’clock in the morning.” Similarly you’d append “de l’après midi” for the afternoon, and “du soir” for in the evening.

I’m not sure if it’s needing. In German it would be

Night: “Es ist zwei Uhr nachts”
Morning: “Es ist sieben Uhr morgens”
Afternoon: “Es ist drei Uhr nachmittags”
Evening: “Es ist neun Uhr abends”

But for the other times without “Uhr” it sounds in my opinion wired: “Es ist viertel nach zwei nachts”
I don’t know how other German people see it.

j.e.f.f

@willfri thanks. I think I’ll leave it as is then.

strawberry 3.141

@j.e.f.f There is a shop about 30 minutes drive which sells a word clock, but I’m not sure if it was in german or english. Anyways if I’ll get there I will take a photo so we can see how they arranged the layout.

EDIT: I found a picture online of the shop, looks like they have swissgerman, english and german. I could try to create a swissgerman translation. But switzerland has so many dialects and there are no rules how you write words down as far as I know, because they have to write in german but they speak in swissgerman. I will give it a try.

EDIT 2: need to investigate why it’s not showing the characters äöü, because the font supports it. Some encoding stuff should be the issue.

EDIT 3: https://github.com/fewieden/MMM-MyWordClock I have to leave now. Will create the tall version and pr later.

pjkoeleman

@willfri @strawberry-3-141
Is the translation of 13:20 okee, I would say “Es ist zehn vor halb zwei”?

j.e.f.f

@strawberry-3.141 This is amazing! Thanks for this. Let me know when the tall version is available and I’ll merge it in

willfri

@pjkoeleman Yes, “Es ist zehn vor halb zwei” would be better as “Es ist zwanzig nach eins”

pjkoeleman

@willfri
Then we have to ask @j-e-f-f if he will changes this in the German language.

Disclamer : Ich bin nur hier, um mein Deutsch zu üben.

A Former User

I am ashamed to tell this, I’m living in Germany for years but cannot speak any Deutsche. :)

You can see this.
https://learn-german-easily.com/tell-time-in-german

j.e.f.f

@pjkoeleman Yep I’ll take care of this. Thanks for pointing this out!

j.e.f.f

@Sean From the link you sent, it appears that “Viertel” should always be capitalized, much like “Uhr.”

@willfri @strawberry-3-141 is that the case?

A Former User

@j.e.f.f said in Help Translating Word Clock:

@Sean From the link you sent, it appears that “Viertel” should always be capitalized, much like “Uhr.”

Viertel is a noun. viertel is an adjective. All nouns begin with capital in German.

Additionally,
Eins is a feminine-noun. It means ‘number 1’
eins is a numeral, but varied form. The root form is ein. eins is used as neutral-noun when used alone without any other subjective. So, eins is shorten from ein Uhr. One more funny thing, Uhr is feminine-noun, so eine Uhr means a clock not an hour

j.e.f.f

I just pushed an update to correct the German layout. Here’s an example:

kruemel

erm… sounds strange to me (Switzerland)
We say: “Es ist zwanzig nach zwölf”
or “es ist fünf vor halb eins”

or “es ist fünf nach eins”
or “es ist zwanzig vor eins”

but nobody here says “zehn vor halb eins”

… complicated this world languages, everybody talks different :D

A Former User

:D
In Standarddeutsch(Hochdeutsch),
08:20

Es ist zwanzig nach acht.
Es ist zehn vor halb neun.
both are available. (Also, zwanzig vor = zehn nach halb)

How about this?
08:15

Es ist Viertel nach acht.
Es ist viertel acht.

And in some southern German, even this is available.

09:45

Es ist drei viertel neun.

09:40

Es ist fünf Minuten vor drei viertel neun.

That is why I dropped my German lesson. :)