Thread: help me with corrections

I would appreciate that some people helped to me with this translation and correct the mistakes in it! Thanks in advance

For the people that cannot adopt in their own country, Russia is a very good choice. Although russians citizens have a priority, Russian government does a wonderful job of supporting international adoption. They are giving a precious resource by allowing others to participate with the raising of their children. The children are in need and so are the adoptive parents. It is difficult to say which is in more need, but all parties involved are winners.

Дла людей не могут принять в их собственной стране, Россия будет очень хорошим выбором. Хотя граждане русских имеют приоритет, правительство Росстт делает чудесную работу поддерживать международное принятие. Они дают драгоценный ресурс путем позволять с другие участвовать с поднимать их детей. Детей будьте в потребности и потому будьте адоптивными родителями. Трудно сказать находистся в больше потребности, но всеми включили партиями, котор winners.

Never fear, the forum nitpicker is here! Anyhow, I think you're doing a very good job plunging straight into Russian. But my advice to you would be not to translate things from English. You should write things in Russian, while thinking in Russian, not translating. Use simple sentences and try to incorporate everything you have learned. Try to imagine that you're in a third-grade class in Russia and writing some sort of essay - that's the kind of sophistication you should strive for in your compositions, at least when starting out. BTW, the text you chose to translate was difficult for me to translate well.

Дла людей не могут принять в их собственной стране,

OK, look at your sentence in English - For the people that (bla bla bla). Without this word(I forget what the term is - subordinating conjunction or something like that) the sentence makes no sense. Для людей, которые не могут...
I might even suggest "Для людей, которым невозможно", but perhaps that's taking it too far.
принять - This just means "to take." This is a tough one, but I would suggest using the word усыновлять.

в их собственной стране

In their country or in their countries?
I'd suggest rewriting the whole thing as
Для людей, которые не могут усыновлять в своих (собственных) странах,...

Россия будет очень хорошим выбором

Mmm...it sounds a little too English. Actually, I'm not even sure if such a construction is very natural sounding in Russian, that is "For (x people), (y) is a good choice."

Хотя граждане русских имеют приоритет,

There is a special word to refer to Russian citizens - россияне.

правительство Росстт делает чудесную работу поддерживать международное принятие.

I'm not sure if you can say that "someone is doing good work" like this. As you can see the problem with translating fairly high-level texts into Russian is that you run into a lot of idioms. I would rather say правительство России сильно(or maybe even горячо) поддерживает международное усыновление. Again, I'm walking on thin ice here - there are hundreds of little unwritten rules that dictate which word you use with what and where. It could be that поддерживать is not even the right word to use with правительство. Also, "международное усыновление", to me, sounds like international adoption in general. Perhaps "усыновление российских детей иностранцами" would be a better choice.

Они дают драгоценный ресурс путем позволять с другие участвовать с поднимать их детей.

Err..you see, you cannot translate word-for-word, which is why it is best to think in Russian first.

Детей будьте в потребности и потому будьте адоптивными родителями.

Remember, there is no "is/are" in Russian. Будьте is literally the imperative form of быть for plural/formal(e.g. Будьте здоровы!). I would try translating this using the verb нуждаться - but again, I am not so sure of this as this is often used with an object(to be in need of something).

Трудно сказать находистся в больше потребности, но всеми включили партиями, котор winners.

There are many errors in this sentence, but the main one is that you have forgotten to put in the word "who." It is hard to say who is in more need.

There is another problem as well - quite frankly, the English text is not written all that well to begin with. Anyhow, I hope this has helped.

Many thanks Pravit for yours comments and criticisms. All them are wellcomed. I agree with you that the most important question is to think in russian. But I'm sure that you will agree with me that this only happens after a very long training, and in many ways i'm still a beginner learning russian.

By thinking in Russian, you don't have to think up extremely complicated things. The level of your composition showed me you're ready to begin writing things from Russian. As an exercise - try writing about your favorite things to do, or your "dream vacation." Don't write it in English first - just write it in Russian using simple sentences. It may seem a bit juvenile, but this is the way to begin to acquire a feel for the written language.

Originally Posted by teixman

For the people that cannot adopt in their own country, Russia is a very good choice. Although russians citizens have a priority, Russian government does a wonderful job of supporting international adoption. They are giving a precious resource by allowing others to participate with the raising of their children. The children are in need and so are the adoptive parents. It is difficult to say which is in more need, but all parties involved are winners.

Для людей, которые не могут усыновлять/удочерять в их собственной стране, Россия - хороший выбор. Хотя предпочтение отдается россиянам, российское правительство делает замечательную работу, поддерживая международное усыновление. Оно дает прекрасную возможность, позволяя другим участвовать в воспитании их детей. Дети нуждаются, и приемные родители тоже. Трудно сказать, кто из них больше в нужде, но все вовлеченные стороны победители.
[/quote]

Errrrgh, this is exactly the style I hate most. A combination of official one and of "How to write a good essay for dummies". A result is a kind of text, full of trite expression and clichees, which is almost untranslatable phrase-by-phrase, not to say word-by-word. The hardest task is to make the same kind of style in another language and not to make it sound stupid. What is "a wonderful job", why "a precious resource"? (I don't mean concepts, I mean a way of phrasing it). Why "winners" I'd like to know? In what game did they actually win? But it sounds smooth, I do admit it and I do appreciate the art of doing smooth texts.

Nevertheless, let's try to do it smooth in Russian...

Для тех, кто не может усыновить детей в своей стране, очень хорошей альтернативой [выбором] послужит Россия. Хотя предпочтение при усыновлении отдаётся гражданам Российской Федерации, правительство России делает всё возможное для того, чтобы и иностранцы смогли принять участие в этом благородном деле. Его неоценимая заслуга [well, I don't like this phrase, who can make it better?] состоит в том, что оно позволяет иностранцам принять участие в воспитании российских детей. При этом следует помнить о том, что поддержка необходима как детям, так и их приёмным родителям. Трудно сказать, кому из них больше, но в любом случае обе стороны оказываются в выигрыше.

Or something like that

The part I hated the most was "It is difficult to say which is in more need." Gahhhh.

AAAAGH, CLIPPY!!!!

Pravit, I though I implicitily agreed with you that "who" (instead which) was the correct term.

Propp, I'm sorry that my knowledge of russian still doesn't allows me to discriminate between what is translable to russian and what is not, from english. And, about the style remember: "de gustibus non disputantibus".
Wonderful job: think about a wonderfull task.
precious ressource. I believe they are many senses in which kids are a precious ressource. Imagine a world without kids for many generations. Kids are the only guarantee that humanity will have a continuity into the future. Isn't that precious?
I believe, the word game doesn't appear in my writing. In my text, the word winners means people that fulfill their expectations (not frustrated).

Teixman, I don't care about the who/which, I care about the "it is unclear who is in more need." I mean, come on, man. Do you write like this in Spanish?

De gustibus non est disputandum.

Teixman, I'm sorry, but in some cases, de gustibus est disputandum.

it is unclear who is in more need

Are adoptive parents in that much need, to the point that their need rivals that of orphaned children, or would you agree that this sentence is just filler?

it is unclear

Is it just me, or was this just thrown in to make the sentence ambiguous and pointless? Isn't the point of writing to communicate ideas and opinions, rather than save yourself from doing so?

Pravit,
I don't think this sentence is a filler. If you have read about adoption or fostering, you often find that the argument given by adoptive or foster parents is that they behave altruistically and only think about the needs of childrens. Here I try to express, that parents have also an egoist motive. So I speak of their need. In some sense you could conceive that these needs are rivals, but in fact they are looking for a "match". So, the addenda that both are winners.

fiwun, many thanks for your translation. I find it concise, and sounds nice to me.