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Thread: Old soviet song

  1. #1
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    Old soviet song

    I'm having some problems translating this excerpt of an old soviet song, can somebody help me?

    Врагов шли большие лавины,
    Их не было сил удержать,
    Как в земли вступили родной Украины
    То стали людей убивать.

  2. #2
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    Maybe you'll understand it better if you rearrange the words a little bit:

    Шли большие лавины врагов,
    Не было сил удержать их,
    Как вступили (they = the enemies) в земли родной (of [our] native) Украины,
    То стали убивать людей.
    Army Anti-Strapjes
    Nay, mats jar tripes
    Jasper is my Tartan
    I am a trans-Jert spy
    Jerpty Samaritans
    Pijams are tyrants
    Jana Sperm Tit Arsy

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jasper May
    Maybe you'll understand it better if you rearrange the words a little bit:

    Шли большие лавины врагов,
    Не было сил удержать их,
    Как вступили (they = the enemies) в земли родной (of [our] native) Украины,
    То стали убивать людей.
    It would be something like

    "The enemy came like an avalanche
    There was no forces to stop then
    They invaded our Ukrainian soil
    To kill people with steel"

    It's that?

  4. #4
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    “стали” means “to start”

    When they invaded our Ukrainian soil
    They started to kill people

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    Not quite, but roughly, yes.

    Шли большие лавины врагов,
    ---Шли applies to большие лавины ('large avalanches'), врагов (genitive plural of враг) defines those avalanches.

    Не было сил удержать их,
    ---Correct! One mistake in your English: it should be 'there were no...'.

    Как вступили в земли родной Украины,
    As - they entered the land of (our) native Ukraine

    То стали убивать людей.
    То= here 'Then', стать can also mean 'to begin', убивать людей means, as you said, 'to kill people'. To kill people with steel would have been 'убивать людей сталью' (instrumental case).

    Hope this helps.
    Army Anti-Strapjes
    Nay, mats jar tripes
    Jasper is my Tartan
    I am a trans-Jert spy
    Jerpty Samaritans
    Pijams are tyrants
    Jana Sperm Tit Arsy

  6. #6
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    Thanks a lot

    Very enlightening

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