Es ist vollbracht. The World Cup is over. The Italians are champions. The Germans are überglücklich to be third. And the overwhelming consensus is that the month-long tournament in Germany more than lived up to its slogan.

What was the slogan again?

"Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden," officially translated into English as "A Time to Make Friends."

Which doesn't mean the same thing at all.

Those six simple words, "Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden," are a nice example of the difficulty of translation. The Germans wanted to present themselves as welcoming, friendly hosts. "The world (i.e. people from all over the world) is our guest," the slogan says, "and we are the world's friends. So feel at home!" It's succinct, rhythmic, and also winningly self-effacing: It doesn't even use the German words for "we" or "us," let alone Germany or Germans. It manages without a single verb, too.

The English version makes no reference, however oblique, to the German hosts: "A Time to Make Friends." With whom? Nubile, inebriated Brazilians? English soccer hooligans (also inebriated, only more so)? People from all over the world? The Germans, finally?

A more literal translation would have been "The World Visiting Friends," or "The World at Friends'," or "The World as a Guest of Friends." Clumsy slogans all. Which is surely why World Cup organizers opted for "A Time to Make Friends," not a bad slogan really. "A Time Among Friends" would have been closer to the original, but less enticing.

Might there have been a better choice? Perhaps "The World Comes Round to Friends." It has all the elements of the original, virtually the same meter, and alludes to soccer besides. As the great Sepp Herberger (he coached West Germany to victory in the 1954 World Cup) once noted: "Der Ball ist rund."