Category talk:Lakes of Germany

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The names of lakes with two words are constructed with a genetive plural of a proper name such that "-er" is appended to the proper name and "See" (Lake) is appended. These are commonly transposed into English after the (north american) habit of "Lake + (proper name)". Composite names however keep the original "-see".

This is not a naming convention for Wikipedia - it is common habit in the real world. Guidod (talk) 23:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's stated in the category description, it may be misread as being a naming convention, with all the mess that recently resulted from it (WT:RM#Lakes). If it's a common habit, it may just as well go on "Lake". For the category description, it may be sufficient to state that "See" means "lake". -- User:Docu

The only convention should be to change the articles in such a way that both original name and the English version are given - it happens that many anlgophon tourist guides in Germany will commonly translate "See" -> "Lake". It seems that the language does not really treat the "See" particle as a required part of a proper name for the geographic entity. Similarly the English names with "Lake" are universally transposed to "see" in German. So, there is nothing wrong with using "Lake" as Germans can easily backtranslate the thing to their German name. It's about synonmous - independent of what's used as the primary name within Wikipedia.

However, I would like to point out that some translations are wrong - the Genitiv is commonly not kept for the translation. The reference to the rename request (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:RM#Lakes) has a bad example of transposting "Plauer See" to "Lake Plauer" where it fact the original name means "lake near Plau" so that it is better translated as "Lake Plau". I don't think that such specifics should go into Lake but better as a hint to the category introduction. Guidod (talk) 16:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)