Talk:AboutScreenTranslation

Topic is the german translation of "draw freely"

I changed it back to both uppercase ("Frei Zeichnen" instead of "Frei zeichnen") as it can be both lowercase or both uppercase, but not mixed as "Frei" is an adjective here. Both lowercase would be less conservative and ok with me. Both uppercase seems correct as this is a title.

~suv prefers "frei zeichnen"

(imho "Frei Zeichnen" isn't correct either - it's "freies Zeichnen" ('frei' as adjective) or "frei zeichnen" ('frei' as adverb), and capitalized as title: "Freies Zeichnen" or "Frei zeichnen" - but I am completely ignorant of the new German spelling rules ;-)

~cilix prefers "Freies Zeichnen"

Sorry for changing "zeichnen" to lowercase without discussing first. However, "Frei Zeichnen" is just plain wrong since only the first word and nouns/names get capitalized in German titles, as opposed to English (see http://www.canoo.net/services/GermanSpelling/Regeln/Gross-klein/Titel.html for the first reference that comes up with a Google search). Hence "Frei zeichnen" is the only correct spelling for this formulation (as ~suv pointed out above). I like the suggestion "Freies Zeichnen" quite a lot, since "Frei zeichnen" for some reason sounds more like an anglicism than an idiomatic German phrase to me in this context (which may be a personal opinion, though). BTW, you could argue that for artistic or similiar reasons it's possible to start the whole expression with a lowercase letter. However, ~suv already mentioned that this leaves you with the two options "frei zeichnen" and "freies Zeichnen", both of which don't look too well in a title IMHO (and all other translations are capitalized, too). @~suv: I'm also relatively ignorant of the new spelling rules, but I believe they don't change anything in this case anyway. cilix 11:22, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, you are right, "freely" is an adverb and german capitalization would have only the frist letter uppercase here. But IMHO _this_ looks very odd. In my case I would have to think twice to agree to this way of writing it, when I would see it first. Not the best way to go for a snappy catchphrase... I thought about "f/Freies Zeichnen" before I suggested "frei zeichnen". But "freies Zeichnen" is the description of a certain technique of drawing and doesn't have the additional meaning intended here. I agree that "frei zeichnen" might look a little strange. The meaning however is closer to the original phrase as it can mean "to draw playfully/without rules" and "to draw without any domination". And in this way a little strangeness might even help to get the readers to the point.

Okay, on second thought I agree that "[Ff]rei zeichnen" is probably better than "[Ff]reies Zeichnen" (and I wasn't aware of the drawing technique, which basically rules out the second alternative). Regarding capitalization, all lowercase really looks strange at first, but once you get used to it it's actually not that bad - and you have a point that it might catch the reader's attention. So perhaps "freies zeichnen" is indeed the "best" (as in "least bad" :-) ) option. cilix 20:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)