English in everyday university life

The state of Baden-Württemberg has a coordination office for higher education translation matters. Located at the University of Mannheim, it acts as a central point of contact to support universities in the linguistic implementation of internationalization. This resource is available free of charge to all members of the universities of the state of Baden-Württemberg (after registration).

You will find professionally translated sample documents in the areas of human resources, student administration, tuition, campus security, privacy, and research, as well as university-specific glossaries and additional information.
 

The German Rectors' Conference (HRK) has an extensive collection of sample translations of documents from the field of degree studies and doctoral studies.

The German Academic Exchange Service’s international academy (iDA) sets out English teaching materials in five chapters:

• Chapter 1: Vorlesungen - Lectures
• Chapter 2: Feedback
• Chapter 3: Arbeit in kleinen Gruppen - Small Group Teaching
• Chapter 4: Einzelgespräche mit Studierenden - One-on-One Meetings
• Chapter 5: Arbeit im Labor - Lab Work
• Glossary: German-English

In recent years, the iDA has developed an extensive text collection for the field of English for university administrators:

• English for student administration
• English for personnel officers
• English for research administrators
• English for examination offices
• English for academic advisors
• English for professorial and faculty secretaries
• English for facility management
• Tips for speaking and writing
• Glossary: German-English

This service has become part of the DAAD-Moodle scheme and can be taken as an online course there free of charge (after registration):
https://moodle.daad.de/ 

The material is suitable for reference and  private study. Participation in iDA training courses is suitable for improving your existing language skills.

The most comprehensive dictionary for higher education is:

Dirk Siepmann: "Wörterbuch Hochschule. Forschung, Lehre und Management" (Deutsch-Englisch/Englisch-Deutsch) Gebundene Ausgabe, 4. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage 2019, 352 pages

You can order it directly from the Hochschulverband.

DHV-DE, the academic translation service of the Deutscher Hochschulverband, supports researchers with translations from German into academic English, French, Spanish or Russian. For non-native speakers of German, translations into German may also be provided. Research papers, grant proposals, applications, websites, and more may be translated or proofread by DHV-DE. In addition, certified translations may also be provided for e.g. certificates and degree-related documents.

Postediting of machine translation is also possible; because artificial intelligence produces texts which are fluent, but not lexically, terminologically or syntactically flawless, nor necessarily coherent. Nor can AI provide adequate technical language.

The services offered by DHV-DE are open to both members and non-members of the Deutscher Hochschulverband. For more information on the services offered and the pricing of the translations, please visit the translation service DHV-DE des Deutschen Hochschulverbandes website.
 

Good results (in several languages) are often provided by the freely available "DeepL" online translation program. Careful postediting is required.

If you plan to publish a machine-translated text, it is essential that you or another competent person check it personally. Pay particular attention to the following points:

• Do the translations of technical terms used in everyday university life correspond to those used at the University of Tübingen? (see fold-out element below)
• Does the type or tone of the translation correspond to the context in which it is to be published?
• Is the content of the text coherent throughout - and are important individual terms translated consistently throughout the text?

Data privacy notice: Any text fed into DeepL becomes instantly public. You must anonymize source documents which contain personal data!

German-English glossary
The glossary covers terms as they are used at the University of Tübingen, in higher education and by the DFG. You can download the glossary as a PDF and search for both German and English terms using the search function: German-English glossary: German-English glossary

English-language subject titles
The names of the individual study subjects are translated in the list of English-language subject titles: English-language subject titles

Terminology for Transcript of Records
A list of useful terms for filling out transcripts of records is available in the downloads area (University Log-in required).

Many University institutions are listed in English in the  online course catalogue.

For translations (GER-EN) for the central administration, you can contact Amanda Crain (Public Relations Department).
For translations from other areas of the University of Tübingen, we can arrange contact with freelance translators if necessary. Please contact Amanda Crain.
amanda.crainspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de