Oddly enough, I had a friend explain this to me just last week.  Her
explanation was that problem is not one of literal translation but of
a sort of "botched grammar."  To say what he wanted to say, he should not
have used the noun identifier 'ein' (the 'a' in the English translation).
What he said is a perfectly valid sentence, but if a native speaker had
said it, it would have been understood to be a type of donut.

Of course, I'd defer to an actual native German speaker, should they decide
to weigh in.  This IS second-hand information.  :-)

Dave

On Fri, Nov 19, 2004 at 09:35:25AM -0800, Newton, Ernie wrote:
> I've always been a big JFK fan. It was the first political
> convention and election I watched, at age 7, and then my first
> assassination and presidential burial, at age 10.
>
> I've never understood why what he said translated into a jelly donut.
>
> When I use my favorite online translator...
>
> http://translation2.paralink.com/
>
> ...and put in Kennedy's quote, it translates into
> "I am a Berliner".
>
> When I put in "I am a jelly doughnut", it returns,
> "ich bin ein Gelee-Krapfen".
>
> So what gives??
>
> Ernie
>

--
+---------------David Oksner-----http://www.case.net/---------------+
|If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.|
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