Sprachmittlung / Mediation (German ↔ English)
Sprachmittlung tests whether you can carry a message across languages and cultures for a real reader. The Berlin LK task supplies a German source (article, letter, notice, statistics) and an English-language situation: a named addressee, a purpose, often three or four bullet points defining what must be conveyed. English-to-German versions exist too. It is not a translation test - a faithful, reader-oriented, situationally appropriate text scores; a literal rendering does not.
Rules that decide the grade
- Read the situation first: sender, addressee, relationship, medium (email, letter to the editor, blog comment, message) and the register that follows.
- The bullets are the content contract; the rest of the source is context. Everything in the bullets, nothing beyond them.
- Preserve figures, names, dates and above all modality and stance: hofft stays hope, not will; wird kritisiert als must not become rejects.
- Culture-specific terms: keep the German term with a short gloss (the Abitur, the school-leaving exam that qualifies students for university) or use a functional equivalent. Never a false friend.
- Write in your own words, add no opinion, and frame the text: salutation, purpose sentence, sign-off.
Worked example
Source: Der Verein hat beschlossen, das Festival in diesem Jahr abzusagen, weil die Genehmigung der Stadt fehlt; ob es 2025 eine Neuauflage gibt, ist offen. Bullet: explain why the festival is cancelled this year. Model: The organiser has cancelled this year's festival because the city has not issued the necessary permit. It is still open whether the event will return in 2025. Reasoning: fehlt die Genehmigung is rendered with an agent (the city has not issued), not as a mysterious absence; offen becomes still open, not will not return, so the uncertainty survives; Verein becomes the organiser, a functional equivalent an English reader grasps without a footnote.
Traps that cost marks
- Literal translation: the permission of the city is missing.
- Dropped bullets or added commentary - content and register marks go together.
- Strengthened or weakened statements (must for should, certainly for probably).
- Translated institutions (Gymnasium as gym) and untranslated abstractions.
- Register clash: Hi in a message to a ministry, contractions in a formal letter.
- Ignoring the word limit or omitting the situational frame.