Gute Auflösungen für das neue Jahr!

[pne]

I just got April issue of the TravLang newsletter.

Each issue typically has a little trivia quiz about words from different languages, often presented as a list of words asking you which word each language is from and what it means.

The solution to last month's quiz is, apparently:

Winter still holds court for a few more weeks, but spring is just around the corner. Give the language and meaning of these seasonally-themed words.

Auflösungen - Resolutions, German
Neige - Snow, French
Hielo - Ice, Spanish
Valentinsdagen - Valentine's Day, Norwegian
Tempestade - Storm, Portuguese

Eep! Did someone just consult a dictionary for that, rather than a native speaker? Or was the native speaker not given enough context?

Yes, "Auflösungen" could be translated as "resolutions", but in the sense of "resolutions of a problem or situation: the situation is resolved" (or, as elgrande reminded me, "granularities, e.g. the number of pixels per side in a monitor").

Whereas the "seasonally-themed word" was probably intended to be "resolutions" in the sense of "New Year's resolutions: plans to do something specific during a certain period of time; resolving to do something", which would be "(gute) Vorsätze" in German. (The verb: "sich etw. vornehmen; sich vornehmen, etw. zu tun".)

I'm disappointed.

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"Yes, "Auflösungen" could be translated as "resolutions", but in the sense of "resolutions of a problem or situation: the situation is resolved"."

The first context of "resolution" meaning "Auflösung" that occurred to me was the resolution of a screen, though.

screen resolution

[pne.livejournal.com]

Good point! I hadn't thought of that meaning, but it's true that both the English and German word share it.