Thread: Difficulties of translating from russian...

If you are a native speaker of any other language than russian, what are the major difficulties of translating from russian to your language?

Though I am a native speaker (and a translator) I would say that it's much more difficult to translate into a foreign language than into a native one. I experience more difficulties when translating from Russian into English than the other way around.

Ramil, I

I think basically some fixed phrases are the most difficult to translate; and cultural refferences.
Not to mention the obvious, that is specialized vocab. :P

russian to english is easy
english to russian is a bиtch

coming from a native engish speaker.

I think basically some fixed phrases are the most difficult to translate; and cultural refferences.
Not to mention the obvious, that is specialized vocab. :P

I think you have summed it up very nicely. Translation problems are pretty much the same for any language pair.

And cultural references are really the worst. Even when you understand them, translating them may pose a problem. Especially when you are translating a movie -- you can't insert a footnote or add an explicit clarification, since the subtitle or voiceover must be concise... so you have to simplify — and, sometimes, oversimplify, — or translate literally, and then only a minority of watchers will understand what the hero is on about.

There are also some understanding problems, which are specific to Russian. For example, most English speakers struggle with Russian aspects. But understanding comes BEFORE trasnslation as such, so I am not sure if this is what you are asking about.

from rus to eng i find translating the grammar structure, ie the russian punctuation rules make me have to think of a nice english way to re-phrase something. esp. some of the huge russian sentences.

Translating to English isn't as easy as peasy! Does one translate the intent, the real meaning, the literal meaning, the grammatical structure? Especially when translating prose, it is important not only to get the meaning, but to keep structure and rythm. Poetry - forget it. News and converstation - easier, but slang isn't.... So, don't be too hasty with your easy!

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Translating to English isn't as easy as peasy! Does one translate the intent, the real meaning, the literal meaning, the grammatical structure? Especially when translating prose, it is important not only to get the meaning, but to keep structure and rythm. Poetry - forget it. News and converstation - easier, but slang isn't.... So, don't be too hasty with your easy!

Yeah, when it comes to poetry, I totally disregard the rhythm and structure and focus on the meaning.

Yazeed

But Yazeed, by doing so, are you really translating?
I mean, isn

I find harder to translate a text from Russian to English,it makes me go nuts!

What about Turkish?

Originally Posted by Rtyom

What about Turkish?

hehe I can almost translate anything from Russian to Turkish,but the real deal is to translate a text correctly from Turkish to Russian I need to study more on translations