Somebody must have had an urgent need…

This morning while going shopping, I saw that there was a package of tampons opened—it looked as if someone had ripped it open and taken one out.

I guess someone must have needed one RIGHT NOW.

How encouraging!

German doesn’t seem to have a good translation for “to encourage someone to do X”.

The literal translation of “encourage” is “ermuntern”, but that seems… wrong to me in that situation. Not quite the right shade of meaning.

I wonder how best to render it? Perhaps with “jemandem empfehlen, X zu tun” (recommend that someone do X)?

On the other hand, years of translationese may make “ermuntern” sound right to Germans in some years’ time….