On my bilingual English-German web site, where I promote my services as a musician, I have an events section indicating where my gigs are taking place. Since some of those gigs are in Roman Catholic churches (weddings, funerals, memorial services and that sort of thing), I'm a little confused when it comes to translating the parish names. At first I used "Sankt Augustine", "Sankt Elizabeth" and so forth, but when I found out the word "sankt" (minus the capitalization) can also mean "sank" (especially when translated via Babelfish and other online translation utilities), I started substituting "Heilige" for "Sankt" on the advice of my dictionary. However, german.about.com's online glossaries, and my own browsing of German parishes' web sites, seem to insist that "Sankt" can be used, although I'm a little muddled about which of the two words is appropriate for what context. Also, can I sidestep the issue by using the abbreviation "St." whether I'm writing in English or German?
2006-09-19 04:02:52 · 3 answers · asked by ichliebekira 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
In this context is better to say "Sankt", I mean when you use it in combination with the name and you can use the abbreveation "St.". You have to use "Heilige" when you use the word in general without the name. Don't get worried about this association with "sank", actually I am confused why these dictionaries tell you this, because actually in German we have the word "sank" with same meaning like in English, with the conjugations "sankest" and "sanken" but not "sankt".
2006-09-19 04:23:03 · answer #1 · answered by Elly 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Sankt would be Saint. Heilige means holly, as in holly water. So you should use Sankt for names. According to what I have seen online, you could use the abbreviation St. for names of churches or places.
Here are some examples:
http://www.st-michaelis.de/
http://www.sankt-andreasberg.de/
and an online dictionary:
http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/dings.cgi?lang=en
2006-09-19 04:40:06 · answer #2 · answered by Belindita 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not a native speaker of German, but I took it for three years in university, and still practice as much as I can. However, my understanding of it has usually been that "Sankt" is for Saint, as in Saint Augustine, etc, while "heilige" is the adjective for "holy": "heilige Nacht"="holy night".
2006-09-19 04:18:57 · answer #3 · answered by nellierslmm 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋