WotD: procrastinate

[muckefuck]

1. zaudern
2. aarzelen
3. remolonear
4. temporitzar
5. tergiverser
6. oedi
7. moilleadóireacht a dhéanamh
8. 질질 끌다
9. 拖延 tuōyán

Comments

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

That doesn't sound right here... zaudern is to hesitate for a short while because you're unsure of the situation (zum Beispiel, wenn man in einen eiskalten See springen soll, dann zaudert man vorher).

Procrastination is putting something off on a regular basis due to laziness or similar reasons, right? I don't think there's a one-word translation. I've heard "prokrastinieren" on several occasions recently, but that's a neologism and nobody uses that (yet).

to procrastinate something = "etwas auf die lange Bank schieben"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The difficulty is that I was looking for an intransitive equivalent (since that's the way the word is usually used in English--if you put something off, then you are procrastinating). Several languages seem not to have one, and German may be one of them.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

That's my word of the week!

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

Just wait a few years until Prokrastination doesn't sound like an unpleasant medical examination to German ears. ;)

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

In a perfect example of today's procrastination, in fact, I just spent 10 minutes on the phone with my boyfriend asking him what HE thought 'procrastinate' would be in German, which led to the discovery that he didn't completely understand what 'procrastinate' means.

He supplied faulenzen, but that doesn't have the idea that there's something you're supposed to be doing, but you aren't. LEO gives aufschieben.

[areia.livejournal.com]

Same problem in Dutch: aarzelen means to hesitate. I read a few discussions online where Dutch speakers were trying to decide what would be a good translation. Someone suggested uitstellen, but that just means postpone, so it loses the idea of postponing something by doing something else, and it doesn't cover the lack of desire to do the task being postponed.

It looks like there's no direct translation. Ultimately, if we decide we need this word, my guess would be that we'd import the root and go for something like procrastineren.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

To my amazement, there's an English cognate. Where is the Earth Day slogan that begs us not to tergiversate on the planet?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

aufschieben is transitive. I can die Hausarbiet aufschieben, but I can't just sit around *am Aufschieben.

Nevertheless, it is probably the closest synonym.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to discover that there are as yet no cognates to the English term in colloquial use in other languages.

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

Das Prinzip des Aufschiebens ist doch, dass man genau weiß, was man eigentlich tun müsste, es aber nicht tut.
Insofern finde ich es fast schon ironisch, wenn man die zu erledigende Tätigkeit durch intransitiven Gebrauch des Verbs sogar in der Sprache meiden kann. ;-)

Wow

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

As other people are telling you about other languages, there is no direct translation. So we have to get by with things that try to mean the same

ESP: Postergar o aplazar serían unas traducciones más correctas. Remolonear es lo que haces por las mañanas cuando te suena el despertador y te quedas 5 minutos más en la cama. Además, se usa más en la expresión "hacerse el remolón" o "eres un vago".

CAT: Temporitzar apareix en el diccionari de la Gran Enciclopèdia com a "Diferir per tenir ocasió d'esperar un moment més favorable." o el que es fa amb un temporitzador d'un aparell.
En un sentit no negatiu, jo diria ajornar però en el sentit més habitual en anglès, que es fa com a crítica, el que es faria seria revertir el sentit de la frase. És a dir, el que en anglès seria "Don't procrastinate", en català seria "Espavil·la't". I si critiqués algú volent dir "You're a procrastinator", jo diria "Ets un mandrós".

[peredur-glyn.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with oedi, but a nice idioms to add to your battery could be cicio (fy) sodlau "(lit. kicking my heels) to laze about and do nothing productive".