Die Berufsbezeichnung. Certain German occupational titles are legally protected. Calling yourself an engineer, an architect, a tax adviser or a master craftsman without the qualification is an offence. The title is not a claim about what you do. It is a statement about what you have been certified to be.
The rule with a presumption
German rules are commonly drafted as a presumption: in der Regel, as a rule, this applies — with departure permitted where the case justifies it, and the justification recorded. The exception is anticipated in the drafting.
Right and fair
Right and fair. A fixed German pairing, and billig here is not the modern word for cheap. It is the older sense: equitable, proportionate, what is due. The drift of billig from fair to cheap is one of the more telling movements in the German language, and the old meaning survives only in this phrase and in the law.
Repair
German towns sustain repair trades — cobblers, watchmakers, appliance technicians, tailors — and taking a thing to be mended is ordinary rather than eccentric. The object is assumed to be worth more than the repair costs.
The four-eyes conversation
Das Vier-Augen-Gespräch. The four-eyes conversation. German conflict handling begins with separate one-to-one discussions rather than with a meeting of the parties. Several of them, in sequence, before anyone is brought together — which takes time by design.
The change request
Der Änderungsantrag. A change to a German project plan goes through a formal request: what is to change, why, what it costs, what it moves, who approves. The plan can be changed. It cannot be drifted away from.
Formation
Formation. The German word for vocational training is built from bilden — to form or shape — the same root as Bildung, education in its broadest sense. You do not take training in German. You are formed by it.
The general clause
German statutes frequently use deliberately broad terms — good faith, reasonableness, good morals — which courts fill case by case. The law is written to require judgment rather than to eliminate it.
To over-advantage
To over-advantage. A single German verb for taking more than your due from a transaction. It sits in ordinary speech and in legal drafting alike. There is no neutral English verb for it — to get a better deal carries no fault, and übervorteilen carries nothing else.
Spare parts supply
Ersatzteilversorgung. German manufacturers commit to supplying spare parts for long periods after production ends, and EU ecodesign rules now require it for several product categories with minimum durations specified. The product is expected to outlive the production line that made it.