April 20, 2011
Ten CUA students studying German played an integral role in a new exhibit at the German-American Heritage Museum in Northwest Washington, D.C. The students translated several documents that are part of an exhibit on the 125th anniversary of the automobile.
The documents translated (from German to English) by the CUA students, all of whom are either majoring or minoring in German, include several encyclopedia entries as well as articles about engineer and car designer Karl Benz, the early days of the automobile, and the history of the Mercedes car company.
They completed their work in the newly designed undergraduate German seminar, Theory and Practice of Translation, taught by Claudia Bornholdt, associate professor of German and director of the Certificate in European Studies program.
The exhibit, titled "The Star and the Laurel: The Birth of the Automobile," runs through May 29 at the museum, which is located at 719 6th St., N.W.
The CUA students who participated in the translation projects are Eleanor Brasfield, Quinlan Brennan, Lisa Brooks, Amy Janik, Frederic Klostermeyer, Sean Murphy, Birgitta Ott, Callie Otto, Alexander Schumacher, and Alexandra Vereau. The students were featured on an April 7 Fox 5 morning news broadcast about the opening of the exhibit.
It was Bornholdt who proposed the idea to have her translation class help with the new exhibit. She said the museum's director, Rudiger Lenz, "loved the idea" and invited the class to the museum during the first week of the spring semester.
Once the students took on the project, they spent the first six weeks of the semester translating materials for the exhibit in class and through homework assignments.
"This project provided the students with very practical, real-life experience and a tangible result," said Bornholdt. "The students were introduced to all steps involved in a translation project.
"They had to get acquainted with some very technical vocabulary and they were provided very large sections of text to translate during the first few weeks of their very first translation course. I am so proud of their work on this project and the museum staff was quite pleased."
In addition to their translations for the new exhibit, the students translated a timeline and brief history of German immigration to the United States for the museum. These translations (from English to German) are currently being published and will be featured in the museum's brochures.