Usually I stay clear of connotation-rich German words that have no real equivalent in other languages. Their purpose is to obfuscate. But there is one that describes the eurozone’s crisis management rather well. It is überfordert. The nearest English translation is “overwhelmed”, or “not on top of something”, but those are not quite the same. You can be overwhelmed one day, and on top the next. überfordert is as hopeless as Dante’s hell. It has an intellectual and an emotional component. If you are it today, you are it tomorrow.
一般我都對那些含義豐富、在其它語言里找不到確切對應的德語詞避而遠之。這些詞的目的就是把人搞糊涂。但有一個詞，用來描述歐元區對危機的處理可謂相當貼切：überfordert。與之最相近的英語是“overwhelmed”（被壓垮），或者“not on top of something”（不能掌控局面），但這些都不很貼切。你可以今天被壓垮，明天又站起來。而überfordert就像但丁筆下的地獄，讓人看不到希望。它既有理智，也有情感的成分。若你今天überfordert，明天也逃脫不出。