Yep. As a German, reading that Google-translated text was really cringeworthy. And the prop department didn't even bother to chose a font that has umlauts. But why take the effort of using a real german text for something that will only be shown for about 10 seconds?
You're right, the camera only pans shortly over the texts and for a non-German audience that is perhaps enough to give the illusion of it being acceptable German. While the creators fully ignore the German speaking audience.
But it's little things like that destroying the immersion of a TV series, just like the gangbanger fully changing cloths from one scene to another and it adds up. For the Lamaschtu page they could have used the German Wikipedia text for example and just print that out, no hassle there. It's not much but way better than that awkward translation.
Because of that I think it would be rather crucial to get at least the title correct (and again, there's a German on the set but they didn't even bother there).
The team behind The Strain isn't really famous for paying attention to detail which is actually important.
I would argue details like this immerse the audience/let the audience immerse deeper into the show but The Strain? The Strain sadly pushes you away.
Review by ds1BlockedParentSpoilers2015-09-14T21:45:00Z
The comment about "screwing the secretary, eh? A bit of a cliché" was brilliant.
"Say goodbye to eternal life", yeah what a threat by a masterkiller like Eph. Cheesy one-liner.
Being the stupid clichéd love affair that it really is, I didn't and don't care for the secretary, but must question the way Palmer was secured. Actually he wasn't secured whatsoever by his bodyguard. He was made a much simpler target instead.
Previously, the bodyguard even directly looked into the scope of Eph's rifle but didn't see anything. It's equally absurd to even think a second about Eph being able to hit Palmer in the first place. He wasn't able to do so with a much lesser distance and a still-standing Eichhorst. He should know it himself that he is incapable of hitting his target. His alcoholism is no excuse here.
Hilarious was also the secretary being operated in Palmer's office. What the actual f. What an unsterile and unprepaired environment. But in a hospital the master's appearance couldn't that easily happen, right?
The script seems pretty rushed, written in a too strict timeframe or too little care or even both. I think it's both.
I bet Palmer is only killed by Eichhorst later on. Cliffhanger was pretty obvious, at least the book part of the cliffhanger.
All in all an okay-ish episode. No Zach, that is worth a bonus point.
The German in the book, was it Google translated?
The complete English title of the Occido Lumen is supposed to read as "Occido Lumen - A complete account of the first rise of the Strigoi and full confutation of all arguments produced against their existence".
German was:
"Ein compleat Konto des ersten Aufstieg der Strigo und volle Widerlegung aller Argumente gegen thier(?) Existenz produziert"
If I translate that back as it is (ignoring that compleat is not German, just like thier), I'd end up with:
A complete bank account of the first rise of the Strigo and full confutation of all arguments against their existence produced.
Better would have been:
Eine gründliche Auseinandersetzung des ersten Aufstiegs der Strigo und eine volle Widerlegung aller aufgestellten Argumente gegen ihre Existenz.
Sounds still somewhat bumpy and lengthy but that's what the English title says. It kinda goes around three edges instead of one.
To say "going to proof the existence of the Strigo" is shorter than saying "going to refute produced arguments against their existence" and means the same. In English the lengthy version sounds better, in German it's the shorter version that sounds better.
In our digital world you might expect maybe not 100% accurate non-English texts but you could demand a little more than that.
Especially considering the actor of Eichhorst is actually German. Shouldn't be a big deal asking him for an appropriate translation of at least the title.
The mythology described on the other page is pretty much accurate but the German is not at all. But interesting nontheless, if you care for mythology that is. The other sides of the book are written awkwardly as well, but most of all umlauts and the ß are missing entirely. This would suggest the used font didn't support umlauts when they copied it from Google to print it out. Seriously, it's no problem to use ue, ae, oe instead of ü, ä, ö or ss instead of ß but leaving them out completely? No-Go.
I know the book thingy is only a minor thing, even though the book itself plays a bigger role, but I like to pay attention of how my native language is (ab)used in fiction.