Can "heavy duty" mean violently (in german: heftig)?

Question

In Starcraft2, a RTS game, one of the characters says "heavy duty", and in german it's translated to simply "heftig" (which, to me can be simply translated to "heavy") Now, i think the Blizzard team knows its job, but: is (heavy duty)=(heftig(german)) This is mainly asked to people which know both languages. But feel free to answer.

Answer 1

HI Elena,

"Heftig" is indeed a good idiomatic translation of "heavy duty." In German, "heftig" can be heavy, intense, powerful, forceful. One's speech, for example, can be described as "heftig", but so can a physical blow to the body, or a pain in the leg. It is also a common idiom to use "heftig" somewhat in the way in which English speakers will use "wild" or "intense" to describe a powerful or cool experience. My sense is that "heavy duty", in Starcraft, is used idiomatically to indicate something powerful, and then "heftig" works just fine. I'd say the only way in which Blizzard's translation falls short is that "heftig", to my knowledge, isn't a technical term used to describe a class of machinery. So, some of the connotation of "heavy duty" is lost.