Sprachmittlung: mediating German content for an English-speaking partner
Sprachmittlung (mediation) is not translation. You receive a German source text and a situation in which an English-speaking person needs specific information from it, and you pass that information on in English in the text type the task names - an email, a note, a message or a short oral summary. The exam tests selection, adaptation to the reader and confident paraphrasing at B1.
Read the situation before the source text
Ask: Who am I writing to? Why do they need this information? What exactly do they ask for? What format is required? The answers decide what to include and how formal the text must be.
Select, do not transfer
- Include everything the partner needs and nothing else. A statistic nobody asked about can only create errors.
- Keep facts exact: times, prices, dates and names.
- Convert conventions: 18 Uhr → 6 pm; 3.000 Euro → €3,000; Straße → Street.
Paraphrase when the word is missing
If you cannot find a word for "Förderverein", do not stop: write "a group of parents and teachers who support the school financially". Generalise, describe or simplify. A correct simple sentence scores; a broken literal translation does not.
Worked example
Situation: your Irish host sister asks when the café opens and what you two, as students, pay. Source: "Das Café öffnet täglich außer montags von 9 bis 18 Uhr; der Eintritt kostet 4 Euro, für Schüler 2 Euro." Mediation: "The café is open every day except Monday, from 9 am to 6 pm. Entry is €4, but students pay €2." Reasoning: "außer montags" becomes "except Monday"; 18 Uhr becomes 6 pm; both prices stay because the question is about cost, but "täglich" is not expanded into a long description of opening hours.
Traps that cost marks
- Word-for-word translation that keeps German sentence order and produces English that a reader cannot follow.
- Wrong register: "Hey" to a company, "Dear Sir or Madam" to a host family you live with.
- Adding your own opinion or inventing details that are not in the source.
- Forgetting the greeting and closing formulae of the required text type.
- Ignoring the situation: the same source text needs different content for a tourist, a teacher and a journalist.