this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Sad that your translator has chosen "problem" instead of "issue".
Translation ~~problem~~ issue.
übersetzungsstreitfrage
Problems is in the word at least. I'm mostly confused by the rest of that word.
A more direct or literal translation of Geschicklichkeit would probably be something like or skilledness or skillfulness. Other words with the -lichkeit ending that might be more familiar are Freundlichkeit (friendliness) and Brüderlichkeit (brotherliness)
(So there are actually two endings here. -lich is cognate to english -ly, though -ed can also work. -keit is equivalent to english -ness)
The base word, Geschick, translates to 'skill' on its own. The difference is that it ~~strictly~~ (edit: apparently not) behaves as a countable noun, as in you can have a number of skills, just as you can have a number of friends, of brothers, etc. It doesn't work when describing a quality or property someone may possess, so that's where the suffixes come in.
It's the difference between "there's a lot of friend here" and "there's a lot of friendliness here"
~~In English, skill is an exception to a rule. It can be used in both ways, without the help of suffixes. German, on the other hand, doesn't generally make that kind of exception in the interest of maintaining consistency.~~
The Germans are probably going to roast me for this but that's my understanding from just under 2 years of learning and a brief series of googles.
noun
I'm German and I just use whatever sounds better and "Geschicksproblem" would sound even more like you just had a stroke. Also it's kinda part of the meme to make words as long as possible because it's funny.
Geschick and Geschicklichkeit are pretty much synonymous. Maybe Geschicklichkeit suggests a bit more that the natural skill is enhanced by technique and training, but that's it.
Welp, I tried. German grammar eludes me again. Thanks for the info though! and for catching that error :)