正文翻譯

原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.ltaaa.com 翻譯：聽海的礁石 轉載請注明出處


Are Germans really the best engineers?

德國人真的是世界上最好的工程師嗎？

評論翻譯

原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.ltaaa.com 翻譯：聽海的礁石 轉載請注明出處


Ian Charles, Ph.D. Engineering, Coventry University (1992)
Having lived there for a year or so, I’d say that engineers in Germany are much more highly regarded than they are in the US or the UK. As a ‘Herr Doktor’, my social status was at least the same as that of a physician and, for want of a better description, I ‘outranked’ lawyers and accountants.
As far as engineering competence is concerned though, it’s much harder to be definitive and the following is my sweeping generalisation.
In my experience, the best at the mathematically- challenging bits of engineering such as Computational Fluid Dynamics are the Eastern European nations. The Russians, Poles and Czechs are all very good at hard sums and they are closely followed by the French.

我在德國住了一年左右。我想說，德國的工程師，要比美國和英國的工程師更受尊敬。作為一個工程師，我的社會地位至少跟醫(yī)師是一樣的，簡單來說，我的社會地位要高于律師和會計師。
然而，就工程能力來說，很難得出一個準確的答案，所以下面我做了一些概括：

根據(jù)我的經(jīng)驗，在那些挑戰(zhàn)性的工程數(shù)學方面（例如計算流體力學），表現(xiàn)的最好的是那些東歐國家，如俄羅斯人、波蘭人和捷克人，緊隨他們身后的是法國人。

Gautam Sawala, An Expat in Germany
Having lived and worked in Germany for about 4 years now. I still can’t say if the Germans are the best engineers, but with full confidence I can say, German engineers are most honest engineers. (Except for the VW scandal. That’s a black spot everyone despises.)
Having worked in a company and a startup for a while now. Here are few reason which I feel, promotes engineering advancement:

我在德國工作生活了四年，就這樣，我也不敢說德國人是最好的工程師；但我可以滿懷信心地說，德國工程師是世界上最誠實的工程師。（除了大眾公司的尾氣丑聞，這是每個人都會鄙視的污點。）
我曾在德國一家企業(yè)和一家創(chuàng)業(yè)公司工作過。通過我的體會和觀察，我覺得以下幾點原因促進了德國工程方面的進步：

There is no false advertising: I’m very much influenced by Indian and American marketing techniques. The best way to attract attention in those markets is to make yourself sound bigger, cheaper and better than your competitors. When I tried to do the same in Germany, it rarely works. I have been warned several times not to boast too much on ads. The German advertisements are usually honest. Thus giving more room for quality product development than throwing money on marketing.
You might have seen BMW and Audi get into ad war in many other countries. This is not allowed in Germany. This indirectly promotes better engineered products.
Fake it till you make it: this principle is core to success, adopted by many. Well it barely works in Germany. Don’t fake it unless you make it. If you can’t make it, go back to drawing board and start again.

德國沒有虛假的廣告：
我個人深受印度和美國營銷方式的影響，在印度和美國市場上，吸引消費者注意的最好方法，就是讓你的產品聽起來逼格更高，聽起來比你的競爭對手的產品更便宜、更好。當我試圖在德國做同樣的事情的時候，這種方法很少起作用。我多次被警告，不要在廣告中夸大宣傳。德國的廣告一般都是可靠的。這樣也就給優(yōu)質產品的開發(fā)提供了更多的空間，而不是將錢過多地花在營銷上。

你可能會看到，寶馬和奧迪在許多國家都陷入了廣告競爭之中，但這在德國是不允許的。這樣的規(guī)定，也就間接地促進了更好的工程產品。
在許多國家，成功有一條核心的原則：沒成功之前，要假裝自己很成功。但是，這條原則在德國幾乎不起作用。在德國，除非你成功了，否則就不要假裝。如果你沒成功，就回到制圖板上，老老實實地重新開始。

Richard Combs, Just a somewhat retired physicist
Hey there Opey,
No, Germans are not the best engineers. The culture just likes complexity and lives by the rule is three parts can do the job why not use fifteen? However, that said they are very good engineers, just not currently top.
The best engineers currently are:
1 South Korean
2 Japan
3 Those crummy nuclear radical Iranians (not that I’m prejudiced)
4 USA
5 Russia
6 India
7 Finally, those intellectual content stealing buggers, the Chinese (still not prejudiced)
This list changes all the time, depending on how things are working out on the international stage.

嗨，看這里，讓我們打開天窗說亮話吧。
我的答案是否定的，德國人并不是最好的工程師。一個國家的文化，就像一個錯綜復雜的生命有機體。三個人能干的活，為什么不用十五個人來干呢？這么說吧，德國人是優(yōu)秀的工程師，但是它們在工程文化方面卻不是頂級的。

擁有最好工程文化的國家：
1 韓國
2 日本
3 那些在原子能方面采取激進政策的、航臟的伊朗人（不代表我對他們有偏見）
4 美國

German Engineers.
There’s this refrigerator in my family house. My dad bought it while studying in Germany in 1969. The man is no longer with us now (God bless his soul) but that refrigerator is still functioning like a new one and is still the best cooling system in the house. Since I became conscious as a human being, I have never seen that refrigerator develop a fault! The only time we took it to the mechanic’s workshop was to get its rusting parts sanded and resprayed. It has never gone for a gas refill or any form of functional repair whatsoever. And it was made in Western Germany.

至于德國工程師。

我家里有一臺冰箱，是我爸1969年在德國學習的時候買的（他現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)不在了，愿上帝保佑他），雖然過了這么多年，但是這臺冰箱還在正常運作著，就像新的一樣，它仍然是家里表現(xiàn)最好的冷卻系統(tǒng)。自我懂事以來，還從來沒見過這臺冰箱出過毛病！唯一一次送到修理工那里，還是為了把生銹的部分用砂紙磨掉再噴漆。它從來沒有去再加氣或者做任何形式的功能修復。對了，它是西德制造的。

Stefan Trifonov, knows German
I can only speak from my personal experience in the field of structural engineering.
About seven years ago I was already a year in in my PhD study in the field of structural behaviour of glass and I had collected a great deal of technical literature in English. It didn't help a lot as most read like the author was bragging about what they knew instead of transfering the knowledge. All nice pictures but little technical content.

對于這個問題，我只能根據(jù)我個人在結構工程領域的經(jīng)驗來說一說。
大概七年前，我在玻璃結構領域從事博士研究已經(jīng)有一年了，在這個過程中，我收集了大量的英文技術文獻。但這些文獻并沒有太大的幫助，大多數(shù)作者都在吹噓他們知道的東西，而不是在傳授知識，所有的圖片都很漂亮，但是卻極少有技術內容。

Then I got the chance to visit a German university for a course and visited the library. This almost random visit turned out to be the turning point of my research. It was like I opened the door to another dimension. Luckily I had not forgotten my high school level German and was able to read some of the books that were not available in English. Fantastic sources- really detailed, research backed, no hidden trade secrets, just pure knowledge. How had I not figured to look for German language sources before?
Fast forward a few years, the spine of my bibliography consists of solid German technical literature.

然后，我因為一門課程有機會訪問了一所德國大學，并且去看了他們的圖書館。這次隨機的訪問幾乎是我研究的轉折點，為我打開了另一個維度的大門。幸運的是，我沒有忘記我在高中學過的德語，因此我能讀懂一些沒有英語的書籍。這些書真是奇妙的知識來源，知識非常詳細，做了充分的研究，沒有隱藏的商業(yè)秘密，只是純粹的知識。我以前怎么就沒想到尋找德語的文獻資源呢？
在接下來的幾年里，我的參考書目中，包含了可靠的德國技術文獻。