Now that we had a chance to talk about the Weis- words in German and their differences in translation, here’s an opportunity to try out some exercises for you to practice the usage.
Exercise A: Look at the following clips and determine in German which of the Weis-words would best fit. Afterwards, translate this into English. In some cases, more than one answer may be possible.
Exercise B: Repeat the procedure, but this time with this gallery of pictures.
A while back, I had to correct some papers for Legal English on wanted persons, which featured the German word “Hinweis.” Two wanted criminals were described in English and the students were asked to fill in the missing blanks using the translation for the given German words. In two sentences there was this sentence:
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If you have any ______________ (Hinweis) about this wanted person, please contact the local police at (…..).
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The answers to the exercises included: hints, advice, remarks, comments, notes, information, clues, and indication.
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The question is which of the given words is correct, in your opinion? There are more than one answers possible……
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Before we get to the correct answer, we should take a look at the many forms of the German word, Weis.
Weis is the rootword in German and it is in reference to information, be it in written, verbal or even physical form. When we add a prefix to -weis, the meaning is different. The most commonly used prefixes for -weis are:
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Hinweis, Ausweis, Nachweis, Beweis and Verweis.
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Yet for each one, there are different meanings. Tale for instance the first one:
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Verweis has many meanings in German that can also be translated into English. This includes expulling someone from school or a football game (throw someone out). Here, we would use the word for reference, a source (person, library, written pieces, etc.) which you found some information. Reference can be used in all situations where you want to name a source as a reminder of an action you wish to take or an argument you want to make.
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Example: In reference to our conference call from last week, we ask you to provide a down payment of $5000 for the microscope now and you can pay the remaining $12,000 in six months time.
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This is in reference to the police department’s purchase of a microscope for the coroner’s office and because of a lack of money, they and the company manufacturing it agreed to a deal.
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Nachweis is in reference to any form of papers or documents needed as proof.
For instance, if you wish to leave Germany for Austria and the border guards ask for Nachweis, then you can present him/her with papers proving why you want to enter Austria. It can include papers proving you are living in Austria. It can include tests you have to take to determine you are healthy and have no pre-existing illnesses- the latter is in reference to the crisis involving Covid-19.
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Beweis means the same as evidence and proof but in the sense that there are factual evidence, mostly through physical or verbal evidence to prove one’s guilt. Yet Beweis can be translated as observation, indication and at times, also display if it has to do with watching and documenting a person’s actions, markings if there is anything special about the evidence or the person/ object of interest where as information is a bit of both, proof through physical evidence or through the word of mouth on the part of the eyewitness or victim.
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Ausweis is a bit more specific. It has to do with personal identification, with name, date/ place of birth, nationality, information on your family, most of the time with an identification number and in some cases, proof of approval- with a signature or stamp of approval.
Examples of Ausweis in English can include: Car registration (documents), driver’s license, temporary permit to live in a foreign country, Identification card, passport (Reisepass), builder’s permit, seasonal pass to play golf at a local golf course, permit to run a business, etc.
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Perhaps the most complicated of the “wise words” is the German word, Hinweis. As you can see in the table above, Hinweis means the same as having factural evidence that is needed to solve a crime or case. Yet when looking at these English meanings, it is obvious that there has to be some differences among this group of words.
And there are indeed. We’ll start with Information.
Information-Anything that is factual and helpful, regardless of how. It can be written or verbal but it can also be physical evidence.
Remarks and Comments– Statements that can be made based on observation and action. Used as a helpful hint
Observation and Indication- Watching and following up on the behavior, actions and trends involving a person, group of people, animals, etc. Can be used to provide information on a case but also for experiments.
Advice-Providing information to a person with the purpose of him/her taking action or changing behavioral habits that are different than what the person wanted to plan to do.
Notes (noted information)- Notes are anything that is written by a person, be it during a lecture/ seminar, an interview or while doing research for a paper, project, etc. It’s basically pen on a leaf with some facts and ideas from the author.
Hints-Hints are basically some information that is given to help the person before starting the case/research. Hints can also be used for exercises in class.
Clues-A clue is finding something that may be useful for a case or research, yet clues are used mostly for solving crimes and there is a probably that half the clues found are irrelevant. Clues are not pre-given like with hints, nor is there a guarantee that it’s proof as you will see in the next pair.
It’s not to be mixed up with the phrase “Get a clue!” which means “Wake up and pay attention to what you are doing!”
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Leads and Tips-These two words are in connection with information and other items that are proven helpful for the person, through oral and physical sources. Evidence and proof could technically fall into this category if a person found something that would be of great help.
Markings-Markings have two different meanings. They can feature a description of an object or a person. It can also mean anything that is left behind by a person or an object. It depends on the context.
Now that you had a chance to learn the translation of the “Wise Words” in German and the difference among each groups of translated words, we will move onto the exercises, which you will find in part two, by clicking here. =>
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