The translations

Chapter 25

"Frühling" / "Spring" — in the German original and all four English renderings, aligned scene by scene.

The chapter is built on a recurring spring refrain that returns through the day, advancing the clock each time; the eight blocks below each open on one of its beats. The columns align at every scene boundary — but within a scene the paragraph counts differ, because the translators break the prose differently. The human, in particular, fuses passages the machines keep apart. [Correction 2026-10-14: not in the printed book, where every refrain stands alone, as in the machine versions, and her paragraphing follows the German closely; see the correction note at the end.]

Toggle any column on or off to compare the hands you want — set two against each other, or read one straight through.

Tap a version to read it, then tap another to compare the same passage. Prev and Next move between the eight scenes.

German: Gabriele Tergit, Effingers, Ch. 25. Column H: Sophie Duvernoy's translation (NYRB Classics, 2025). Columns A·B·C: the three AI renderings. All texts are shown in a uniform plain format; wording, paragraphing and punctuation are the translators' own.