Yet another tricky linguist
This so-called "German student" is getting tough on a translation problem.
The German text in total is: "Chinesisches Sicherheitspersonal im Steinhagel: Das Militär reagiert mit
Härte".
The Chinese guy who made the anti-cnn photo translated as "Spiegel said: army response with cruel act!"
This so-called "German student" says the translation must be "army response with hardness". And then he ranted a lot about the difference between "cruel act" and "hardness". Finally he concluded: it must be translated into "hardness", otherwise, those who translate the german text into "cruel act" are called as liars.
After the Cafferty incident, suddenly we have another linguistic problem popped up. Can somebody who understand german language tell us whether the german text can be translated into "cruel act" or not? And if yes, who gives the so-called "German student"'s privilege to enforce a dedicated way of translation? We all know that writers do explore "puns" to instigate tricky implications to their audience, don't we? Why should Spiegel use such puns at the first place, and then play the Cafferty trick here? Are they honest people we can trust?