This post will be especially interesting for readers who understand English as well as German. (For those of you who do not understand German, I included some explanations to give you an idea of the things I'm talking about.)

Most of you know that after the recent events, the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson was rescheduled and published earlier than initially planned. This led to rescheduled international publications that of course had to be translated first and then rushed to the market. Unfortunately, in case of the German translation (done by six translators) this shows all too clearly with issues ranging from "weird" to just plain wrong translations. So here are some "highlights".

• The translation of "silicon" as "Silikon" has already been widely discussed (e.g. in the German Amazon reviews). For the English-only readers: "Silikon" is the stuff that, e.g., breast implants are made of (see the Wikipedia entry on Silicone), whereas the correct German translation should be "Silizium". Since the silicon-Silikon pair is one of the common examples of "false friends", it's surprising to see this mistake in a translation by professional translators.
• In other cases, it would have helped if the translators had some basic IT knowledge. Or how else could one explain that "Heathkits came with all the boards and parts color-coded" (English version, p. 16) was translated to "Die Bretter und die anderen Teile in den Heath-Baukästen waren alle farblich codiert" (German version, p. 35)? For English-only readers: seen in isolation, translating "boards" with "Bretter" would be OK, but since "Bretter" in German mainly refers to wooden boards (or planks), the translation seems rather weird in context and should rather have been "Platinen" or "Leiterplatten".
• Another instance of a translation that would be correct seen in isolation (and without background knowledge) can be found in the chapter on the Apple Retail Stores: "His name is listed as the lead inventor on two patent applications on the staircases" (English version, p. 375) became "Er ist namentlich als Haupterfinder auf zwei Patentanmeldungen für die Treppenhäuser genannt" (German version, p. 443). In German, "Treppenhaus" rather refers to a separated part of a building that contains the stairs (see, e.g. this picture of a "Treppenhaus"). Since the staircases are integrated parts of the Apple Retail Stores (instead of located, e,g. behind a wall or doors), the better translation for "staircases" would simply be "Treppen" - which is the translation that is used in other sections of the German version (e.g. p. 268) that probably have been created by one of the other five translators.
• An example of a translation that is wrong in the sense that it means exactly the contrary of what is actually intended can be found next to photograph 19 in the middle of the book, where the German caption says: "Sie ist unberechenbar, und sie ist das willensstärkste Kind, das ich je getroffen habe. Es ist wie eine Belohnung." ("Belohnung" can be translated to "reward".) So what about the English version? It says: "She's a pistol and has the strongest will of any kid I've ever met. It's like payback." Steve Jobs is (ironically) referring to the strong will of his daughter in the sense that he has met his match in her, which can be seen as a payback by destiny, so to speak. So, the German version should rather use words like "Rache" or "heimzahlen" instead of giving the ironic remark a completely different sense by saying that the strong-willed daughter is a "reward".
• And finally, for an example of a translation that is completely mysterious and actually makes no sense whatsoever, one can look at page 326 of the English version, where it reads: "Gates likewise was embarrassed when he saw the videotape of the event. 'I didn't know that my face was going to be blown up to looming proportions', he said." A translation of the second part that would have kept the meaning intact would have been: "Ich wusste nicht, dass mein Gesicht auf bedrohliche Ausmaße vergrößert werden würde." ("looming proportions" - "bedrohliche Ausmaße") But what does the German translation actually say? "Gates war ebenso betreten, als er die Videoaufzeichnung der Veranstaltung sah. 'Ich hatte keine Ahnung, dass mein Gesicht auf lemmingähnliche Proportionen aufgeblasen würde', sagte er" (p. 384). And yes, the English-only readers may have guessed: "lemmingähnliche Proportionen" would mean "lemming-like proportions" in English. As I said, it's a complete mystery how this translation came to be.

So is this picking on translation errors nit-picky? Hey, it's Steve Jobs' biography! If you can be nit-picky about a biography, then it's this one. So let's see what the second edtion of the German version will bring.

English edition: Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster.

German edition: Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. München: C. Bertelsmann.