... easier to schedule ?

kc: thanks for you answer, but my question was not for paraphrases, but for a "real" translation and for the reasons, why this word is not to be found in dictionaries.

Dear Claudia,

This IS a proper translation! Many words have no one-to-one translation...

As for why it's not in dictionaries, they probably avoid the thousands of
"-bar" words to save space, inadvertently missing the ones - like this one - that should be in there!

Claudia. It happens more than once that there is no "real" translation (as you call it) for a given word but that you have to paraphrase it. This is the case with many German words ending with "-bar" (or other suffixes). The German language has lots of possibilities to change words and meanings by adding prefixes, suffixes etc. and I think it's simply not feasible to include them all in a dictionary - that's why many of them are missing. To sum it up - forget about the "real" translation - there's so many cases where it does not exist... :-)

To the Germans commenting: Part 1 of Claudia's question was: does the word 'planbar' exist in German at all or have I been mixed up in using it all these years?

I am sure the word "planbar" exists. Has anyone checked the Duden for it?

Der Duden kennt planbar:

"planbar <Adj.>:
sich planen lassend.
Quelle: DUDEN - Deutsches Universalwörterbuch"

Thanks to all for your help. You know, my idea was, that many English translations for the German "-bar" words end with "-able" like verfügbar = disposable, vergleichbar = comparable a.s.o. Thus planbar = plan(n)able would not be the worst variant ;-). I see, however, that it does not exist (until now). Therefore I will further paraphrase it as best I can...

"plannable" scheint aber doch nicht völlig abwegig zu sein. Eine Google-Suche ergab eine ganze Menge Treffer.

Ich glaube planbar ist ein sehr deutsches Wort.
Etwas ist planbar, wenn es so beschaffen ist, daß es zu planen ist.
Beispiel:
Mein Urlaub ist planbar. Ich weiß, wann ich Urlaub habe, deshalb kann ich planen, wohin ich verreise.
oder
Meine Lebensabend ist nicht planbar. Ich weiß nicht, ob es 2040 noch ein Rentensystem gibt.
Für bessere Satzbeispiele:
http://www.wortschatz.uni-leipzig.de/
ansonsten
-to able to schedule- würde ich verwenden.
Sind kalkulierbar und berechenbar Synonyme von planbar?

Plan- und berechenbare Lizenzpolitik

Glaube nicht, dass kalkulier- und berechenbar Synonyme von planbar sind, da ich gerade aus dem deutschen übersetzte, und einer hat planbar und berechenbar im gleichen Satz verwendet, also meine ich, dass sie schon verschiedene Bedeutungen haben, wenn auch ähnliche.

www.conginst.org

Even though the "D" of R&D [research and development] is somewhat more amenable to planning and measuring than the "R," the difficulty of evaluating R&D is still daunting when compared ...

how about this a direct translation of "planbar"?

Situations that are not forseeable during a longer journey...
...are situations that cannot be planned.

How about that?

Google findet allerhand Beispiele, auch aus englischsprachigen Ländern

from Lisa

Situations that are not forseeable during a longer journey...
...are situations that cannot be planned.

Dear Lisa,
In the above sentence, it would have to say "...are situations that cannot be planned for" to make sense. (And yes, it's ok to end a sentence with a preposition.) Your example is more of a tautology.

Dear Ingrid, dear Byrdy,
Google will find anything you tell it to look for, if it can be found on the Internet. But being found on the Internet is not an indication of correctness.

Dear Claudia,
When you say the word "planable" does not exist "-- until now" do you mean "Now it does exist"? Or "it has not existed up to this point (and still doesn't exist)"? In the latter case, the expression is "so far" rather than "until now."

New words are added to the English language all the time, by I don't think "planable" would be a valuable addition. It doesn't seem to make much sense in English. Anything can be planned; it's a question of whether the plans are realistic, feasible, sensible, or, shall we say, doable!

It is either to be tranlated (context) as

ability to schedule (Planbarkeit - zeitlich)
able to schedule (planbar - zeitlich)

or

ability to plan(Planbarkeit - generell)
able to plan (planbar - generell)

which is tranlates als Möglichkeit zu Planen = planbar, Planbarkeit

Ich verwende in dem Zusammenhang meist "predictable", was planbar ziemlich nahekommt (berechenbar, etc)

...

Das Problem scheint mir die aus deutschem Politiker-Geschwafel entlehnte Unsitte zu sein, alles möglichen (und unmöglichen) Verben zu substantivieren. Da dies ein spezifisch deutsches Problem ist, überrascht es nicht, dass es für solche "Vokabeln" keine Entsprechungen gibt. Abhilfe schafft z.B., sich auf gute sprachliche Traditionen zu besinnen und solche Entgleisungen schon im deutschen Originaltext zu vermeiden.