performance

Which translation, when

Why

German gives performance three honest words and the machine two dishonest ones. Die Leistung is the content, what the debtor owes, § 241 Abs. 1 BGB, and it builds the working compounds, Leistungszeit, Leistungsort, Leistungsstörung. Die Erfüllung is the effect, § 362 Abs. 1 BGB, the obligation is extinguished when the owed performance reaches the creditor, and its compound Erfüllungsort quietly does procedural work, the place of performance grounds a forum, § 29 ZPO. Die Durchführung is the process, carrying the contract out over time, legitimate and common. The failures split too, die Nichtleistung is not performing at all, die Schlechtleistung performing badly, and German remedies key off the difference. What performance never is in a contract is Aufführung, the performing arts, or the untranslated Performance of HR reviews and fund fact sheets, both of which the training data supplies in bulk and both of which end the legal register on contact.

Typical mistakes

• Aufführung des Vertrages is theatre, contract German says Erfüllung or Durchführung, and the residue is loud enough to end the reading.
• Non-performance splits before it translates, die Nichtleistung is not performing at all, die Schlechtleistung performing badly, and the single English negative must be sorted first because the German remedies differ.
• Erfüllungsort is a jurisdictional lever, § 29 ZPO grounds a forum at the place of performance, though an agreed Erfüllungsort carries that weight only between merchants, § 29 Abs. 2 ZPO, so performance vocabulary in a contract is quietly doing procedural work.

What matters

Delivery and payment clauses run on the pair: the Supplier’s performance is die Leistung while it is owed and die Erfüllung once rendered, § 362 BGB, and the place of performance, der Erfüllungsort, quietly fixes a forum, § 29 ZPO. The Aufführung version plays to a different audience, and the untranslated Performance belongs to the annual review, not to clause 4.

Examples