Thread: How do you say "The sacrifice of hiding in a lie" in Russian?

Hi there.
I would just like one or two people out there to make sure my Russian is correct.

I was trying to work on translating "Wrapping myself in a Lie, I sacrifice myself".
What I ended up with was "катаясь во лжи, я жертвую собой".. (да или нет?)

It's just that my Russian books and "Myself" Conjugation Tables have me confused. :\
I was under the impression I had to use 'сбой' or 'себя'.. я не уверен!





Any help is much appreciated!
большое спасибо!

Well, grammatically the sentence is correct and "собой" is used right. Though it has no sense as words "to wrap" and "to sacrifice" here should be translated somewhat differently.

To keep a sense I'd translate it as "Утопая во лжи, я гублю себя."

Впутывая себя в ложь, я жертвую собой.
More literary:
Погрязнув во лжи, вредишь себе.
Единожды солгавший, кто тебе поверит?

да? нет? ;]

tattoo.jpg

(I have another post regarding what I wrote in the picture... just incase there are some out there who like to stay well informed)

It looks extremely beautiful and neat, but the letter "п" in the word "купаясь" and the letter "т" in the word "жертвую" are not correct. Also in the word "лжи" л usually is linked with the upper curve of ж, but I don't know, may be it's your own style)

"П" and "Т" look the same and both are not exactly right. Also "П" does not require a vertical dash above (such a dash is sometimes used above "Т" and below "Ш", but not with other letters).

"Л" in "лжи" misses its right "leg". The line that connects "л" and "ж" should not be smooth, it must consist of a little hook (right part of "л") and a curve that moves upward (left part of "ж"). Same happend to "ая" in "купаясь" - both letters lost their respective "legs" (there should be two little hooks meeting between them).

"Б" in "собой" looks unusual - more like a music note than a letter - but it can be attributed to your personal handwriting style, especially when the phrase looks so decorative.

Overall it looks nice and letters have a pleasant "round" look about them. Not bad at all.

EDIT: Oh, I think it was "кутаясь", not "купаясь". Then my notes about "п" do not apply.

The pic below is not an example of penmanship, but merely to illustrate some obvious mistakes:

Thank you BleuVert, gRomoZeka and Ramil!
You all were very helpful!

Would it be better to use "кутаться" or "тепло одеваться" instead of "катаясь"?
Although I do at least like half of what it-ogo said with the use if "Утопая".
I just want to make sure I correctly convey "hiding" in a lie, "wrapping myself in a lie" amd "being lost" in a lie.

Can I ask two questions about this, please?

I seem to remember that you were supposed to put a little line above the "m" letter when I did this at school. But it was not in the examples when I refreshed my skills last year. I assumed that I remembered it wrong. But now I noticed that OceanEyes had used it in her example. How should this be done??

Is there a little "bump" before the letter "ж" in cursive? (seems like it, from Ramil's correction) I thought it was not needed for "ж"?

Originally Posted by Hanna

I seem to remember that you were supposed to put a little line above the "m" letter when I did this at school. But it was not in the examples when I refreshed my skills last year. I assumed that I remembered it wrong. But now I noticed that OceanEyes had used it in her example. How should this be done??

Both ways are correct. These lines (above т and below ш) are old norms, which help much to read the cursive, but they were almost always skipped in a hurry so they are removed even from the contemporary school standards.

Is there a little "bump" before the letter "ж" in cursive?

This "bump" is needed to separate letters (the same is between а-я in the first word). Л is ended by the line-up and Ж is started by the line-down, so here is the "bump".

Originally Posted by Hanna

I seem to remember that you were supposed to put a little line above the "m" letter when I did this at school. But it was not in the examples when I refreshed my skills last year. I assumed that I remembered it wrong. But now I noticed that OceanEyes had used it in her example. How should this be done??

When my friend was teaching me Russian cursive, she would always write out the Russian cursive "т" like a cursive "м" but with a line over it. You'll see the slight connection if you know what a capital cursive "т" looks like.
Regardless, it's about personal taste. I prefer the cursive "т" with the line over it instead of the normal cursive "т" that looks like an "m". :]

простите! (I already have a similar post of this in another section, but was hoping for more input and advice)

I talked with a Russian professor a few weeks ago and he said to go with "катаясь во лжи, я жертвую собой" ... But I've been told that "катаясь" essentially means "rolling", which isn't exactly what I want if that's true. I like the rest of it though.

I can elaborate and say"The sacrifice of hiding in a lie" just refers to "One's life is sacrificed when living a lie".

And I've looked into using "кутаться" or even "тепло одеваться" (wrapping oneself?)

Im just trying to make sure the I end up with a translation that keeps the main idea of what Im talking about.






Thank you!
And thanks to those who have already helped me! :]

As I told in another topic, the phrase is hardly intelligible. Neither "катаясь", nor "кутаясь" fit the situation, as well as "жертвую".

"Кутаться" can refer to clothes only, while "жертвовать собой" obviously implies heroism (to sacrifice oneself in the name of high principles or something like) and never anything negative.

My proposal in previous topic was "Утопая во лжи, я гублю себя", which is not literal translation but keeps a sense instead.

Or maybe "Ложь затягивает и губит."

it-ogo, could you better define "Утопая во лжи, я гублю себя" и "Ложь затягивает и губит" for me so that I understand them correctly?

Originally Posted by OceanEyes

it-ogo, could you better define "Утопая во лжи, я гублю себя" и "Ложь затягивает и губит" for me so that I understand them correctly?

Literally they are:"Sinking in the lie, I ruin myself." and "Lie sucks under and ruins." correspondingly.

They are the best approaches to the same idea I was able to think of.

It is always a big problem to translate aphorisms.

я согласен...
And yet again I have another thought: Is 'Утопая' a participle of 'to sink'? Or is it just understood or a different word altogether?
I was under the impression I might be able to use 'жить' (in the right form of course) instead, while still keeping 'я жертвую собой' in hopes of saying "Living in a lie, I sacrifice myself".

Originally Posted by OceanEyes

And yet again I have another thought: Is 'Утопая' a participle of 'to sink'? Or is it just understood or a different word altogether?

It is a participle of verb "утопать", which has a direct meaning "to sink, to drown", but it is used mostly in indirect sense. Google translates it as "wallow".

Originally Posted by OceanEyes

I was under the impression I might be able to use 'жить' (in the right form of course) instead, while still keeping 'я жертвую собой' in hopes of saying "Living in a lie, I sacrifice myself".

Yes, to use "жить" is a good way too. For example "Жить во лжи - себя губить" that means "To live in lie is to ruin oneself" and looks much more like a Russian aphorism. Though "жертвовать" will never work here as there is no way in Russian to give a negative sense to the phrase "жертвовать собой". In Russian "жертвовать собой" means only "to be a hero".

сейчас я понимаю.
All I really need to do now is find a way to express "sacrifice" in terms of me sacrificing myself and learning to live a better life.. but doesnt necessairly depend on heroism, higher principles or being godlike. Still, im not looking for way to convey negativity or even being positive. It's just all about life and understanding... maybe optimism?
Anyway, are there any other words or phrases left that you can think of?

I won't be able to translate, but it may help if you explain exactly what you mean. Is the lie supposed to be a "noble lie" which is detrimental to yourself but told to keep someone else from harm? Is the "sacrificing" the sacrificing of your own soul by becoming tainted by this lie, or is it something else? How can this lie lead to "learning to live a better life"? I'm totally confused.

Also, in cursive Cyrillic, I didn't know that the little downwards stroke was to be used with ж, I only thought it was needed with л, м and я.