Heidegger’s apparent unreadability partly stems from translation friction between German and English

Evidence

For non-German readers, it should be added, some of the awkwardness is an artefact of translation. German welcomes monumental word constructions, but in English they tend to come out as long hyphenated lines, trundling along like mismatched railway carriages. The Question of Being, for example, is an elegant Seinsfrage in German. But even German cannot comfortably accommodate Sich-vorweg-schon-sein-in-(der-Welt) als Sein-bei (innerweltlich begegnendem Seienden), or ‘ahead-of-itself-already-being-in-(the-world) as being-together-with (beings encountered within the world)’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 205

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the translation-theory theme; suggests how philosophy in German claims majesty that English mangles. — connects to: Hayek’s English-vs-German framing collapses when read through German interwar debates — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 383; Some of Heidegger’s awkwardness is an artifact of translating German compound words into English — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 205