Yes, ich_iel mostly just takes English words and translates them 1:1. Doesn’t actually make sense in German, but that’s part of the joke. If you translate it back to English 1:1 again you should understand it perfectly.
As a native German speaker I often had to translate ich_iel memes 1:1 to English first to understand them myself. Its basically English but in German.
That’s a good example. The correct way to translate “chop a tree up” would be “einen Baum kleinhacken”.
einen = a
Baum = Tree
klein = small (used as in chopping it into small pieces)
hacken = chop
ich_iel would use a translation that fits the individual words, but not the context. “Up” would be translated into “hoch”, which means the direction up.
ich_iel is the worst place to learn german, the running gag is to translate stuff from english literally while actively ignoring the context.
My English is so good, that makes me nobody so quickly after!
Classic english for runaways.
That honestly sounds like it would be hilarious.
Does it translate well back into English enough to get the joke?
Yes, ich_iel mostly just takes English words and translates them 1:1. Doesn’t actually make sense in German, but that’s part of the joke. If you translate it back to English 1:1 again you should understand it perfectly.
As a native German speaker I often had to translate ich_iel memes 1:1 to English first to understand them myself. Its basically English but in German.
The English idioms must be super confusing. We have some odd ones like “chop a tree down” followed immediately be “chop a tree up”.
Hacke einen Baum runter.
Hacke einen Baum hoch.
That’s a good example. The correct way to translate “chop a tree up” would be “einen Baum kleinhacken”.
einen = a Baum = Tree klein = small (used as in chopping it into small pieces) hacken = chop
ich_iel would use a translation that fits the individual words, but not the context. “Up” would be translated into “hoch”, which means the direction up.
Boomers are called “Explodierer” over there, I think you’ll get the gist of the joke.