New Translation

This time its actually not for me, but for my friend Jon who wants to write a somewhat sentimental message to his Russian friend that lives in Connecticut. I'm not sure what her name is, and he's trying to find out the Russian form of her name, anyway, but he gave me the rest of it. I told him about this site, so he might actually ask all of you himself on here shortly.

Anyway, here goes:

Your friendship came along at a very important time in my life - a time when I was losing sight of who I was. You somehow set me back on track, and for that I will be forever grateful. You never knew it, but if not for you, I would have soon lost sight of God forever. The gift you gave me is one not so easily repaid, but if I listen carefully, I can hear you telling me that the best way to do that is to live my life in Christ. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Oh - also what is the Russian form of Johnathon? :P

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Originally Posted by tirednemo

Oh - also what is the Russian form of Johnathon? :P

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Джон-а-тон! (see also: Rollerball (2002)

Godawful film, by the way.

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Originally Posted by tirednemo

This time its actually not for me, but for my friend Jon who wants to write a somewhat sentimental message to his Russian friend that lives in Connecticut. I'm not sure what her name is, and he's trying to find out the Russian form of her name, anyway, but he gave me the rest of it. I told him about this site, so he might actually ask all of you himself on here shortly.

Anyway, here goes:

Your friendship came along at a very important time in my life - a time when I was losing sight of who I was. You somehow set me back on track, and for that I will be forever grateful. You never knew it, but if not for you, I would have soon lost sight of God forever. The gift you gave me is one not so easily repaid, but if I listen carefully, I can hear you telling me that the best way to do that is to live my life in Christ. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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How about:

твоя дружба появилась при очень важном времени в моей жизни - во время, когда я забывал, кем я был. ты как-то обратила меня на путь истинный, и за это, я буду вечно благодарен. Ты никогда не знала, но без тебя, я бы скоро потерял из виду Бога навсегда. трудно ответить на тот подарок, который ты мне дала, но если я вслушиваюсь, я слышу, как ты мне рассказываешь, чтобы ответить на твой подарок, надо жить Христосом. Благодарю тебя от дна моего сердца.

Eeek..Im not feelin too good about this one...

Here's my go at it:

Your friendship came along at a very important time in my life - a time when I was losing sight of who I was. You somehow set me back on track, and for that I will be forever grateful. You never knew it, but if not for you, I would have soon lost sight of God forever. The gift you gave me is one not so easily repaid, but if I listen carefully, I can hear you telling me that the best way to do that is to live my life in Christ. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Твоя дружба появилась в очень важное в моей жизни время, время, когда я забывал, кто я. Каким-то образом тебе удалось вернуть меня на путь истинный, за что я буду вечно благодарен тебе. Ты никогда не знал, но, если бы не ты, я бы вскоре потерял веру в бога навсегда. Я не знаю, как (=Сложно) отблагодарить тебя за подарок, который ты подарила. Но, вслушиваясь, я слышу, как ты рассказываешь мне, что лучший способ сделать это - жить Христосом. Благодарю тебя от всего сердца.

Argh, why do people always come in here asking for sappy translations. They are always Americans as well.

Cause this forum's called 'translation help'. Would you like Americans to ask for first-rate translations? :roll:

жить Христом
"Христосом" не звучит.

I could never say anything that sappy! Besides, your friend will only tell you to thank God, not him!

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Originally Posted by Zaya

жить Христом
"Христосом" не звучит.

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I would use "жить во Христе".

LoL - neither would I. But it's not from me, it's from him. I'm just trying to get the translation from the email he sent me with the content.

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Originally Posted by ReDSanchous

Твоя дружба появилась в очень важное в моей жизни время, время, когда я забывал, кто я. Каким-то образом тебе удалось вернуть меня на путь истинный, за что я буду вечно благодарен тебе. Ты никогда не знал, но, если бы не ты, я бы вскоре потерял веру в бога навсегда. Я не знаю, как (=Сложно) отблагодарить тебя за подарок, который ты подарила. Но, вслушиваясь, я слышу, как ты рассказываешь мне, что лучший способ сделать это - жить Христосом. Благодарю тебя от всего сердца.

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A very good translation, as if it was a native speaker writing... :lol: There is only one mistake, I hate to point out mistakes, but shouldn't it be:

Ты никогда не знала

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A very good translation, as if it was a native speaker writing... There is only one mistake, I hate to point out mistakes, but shouldn't it be:

Ты никогда не знала

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I'm very happy that you liked my translation. I'm actually bi-lingual. Half-Russian, half-English, so it's no wonder that my translation was, like you said, as if it was a native speaker writing. As if... I'm kidding...

As for the mistake you pointed out, I think I should have taken another look at the initial post by tirednemo. I agree that that sentence should be translated as "Ты никогда не знала". Thanks for pointing out the mistake! :wink: I really appreciate that!

бога should be Бога with a cap.

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Originally Posted by ReDSanchous

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A very good translation, as if it was a native speaker writing... There is only one mistake, I hate to point out mistakes, but shouldn't it be:

Ты никогда не знала

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I'm very happy that you liked my translation. I'm actually bi-lingual. Half-Russian, half-English, so it's no wonder that my translation was, like you said, as if it was a native speaker writing. As if... I'm kidding...

As for the mistake you pointed out, I think I should have taken another look at the initial post by tirednemo. I agree that that sentence should be translated as "Ты никогда не знала". Thanks for pointing out the mistake! :wink: I really appreciate that!

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Well, I knew you were russian, but didn't know you were half-english! Well that explains your superior command of english! Cheers matey!

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Ты никогда не знала

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Well, you write so many requests for having love-letters translated that we have gotten used to these postings and translate mechanically as love-letters everthing you post. :)

Whatever Russias invented, a new version of Kalashnikov rifle would come out anyway. :)

I quite agree with Mishau that most of the Russians here are used to correcting such romantic translations caring only about Grammar and style. That's why I made that mistake.

kalinka_vinnie, well, like I said, I was joking. I'd really like to be half-Russian, half-Enlgish 'cause in this case I could be fluent in both Russian and English. At present, I'm fluent only in Russian. Can't say anything about your Russian 'cause you hardly ever write in Russian on the forum. Thanks for praising my English anyway!

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Originally Posted by ReDSanchous

kalinka_vinnie, well, like I said, I was joking. I'd really like to be half-Russian, half-Enlgish 'cause in this case I could be fluent in both Russian and English. At present, I'm fluent only in Russian. Can't say anything about your Russian 'cause you hardly ever write in Russian on the forum. Thanks for praising my English anyway!

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What! I write more russian on this forum than anyone else (of the non-russians)! :cry: But I guess extremely little is more than absolutely nothing :wink:

But I wasn't fishing for compliments of my Russian, just making an observation that you, in fact, write good English!

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Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

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Originally Posted by ReDSanchous

kalinka_vinnie, well, like I said, I was joking. I'd really like to be half-Russian, half-Enlgish 'cause in this case I could be fluent in both Russian and English. At present, I'm fluent only in Russian. Can't say anything about your Russian 'cause you hardly ever write in Russian on the forum. Thanks for praising my English anyway!

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What! I write more russian on this forum than anyone else (of the non-russians)! :cry: But I guess extremely little is more than absolutely nothing :wink:

But I wasn't fishing for compliments of my Russian, just making an observation that you, in fact, write good English!

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Maybe, you're right that you write more Russian than anyone else on this forum. I meant that it would be a lot better if you wrote more often :wink: I just want to impel you to write more Russian, a lot more Russian than you do now! Could you do that? :P

I didn't mean to offend you in any way.

The problem with writing Russian in this forum is that the only people who would understand ше is the Russians. а я хочу включить весь мир!!! :wink:

Ага, вовлечь весь мир! А вот на форумах по аглицкому весь мир пишет по-аглицки и в том числе русские, ибо, пиши они на русском, их бы мало кто понял. Наверное, истина, как всегда, лежит где-то посередине, райт?. :)

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The problem with writing Russian in this forum is that the only people who would understand ше is the Russians. а я хочу включить весь мир!!!

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I don't think that the only people who would understand you if you wrote Russian here are the Russians. Since people come here to learn Russian, ask questions about Russian and practise Russian they'd be interested in reading what you write in Russian. People will be interested to read your posts in Russian unless your Russian is too bad and very hard to understand. I guess you share my opinion that it's boring to read cr@p Russian.
Зачем, кстати, ты хочешь "включить" весь мир? :wink:

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Ага, вовлечь весь мир! А вот на форумах по аглицкому весь мир пишет по-аглицки и в том числе русские, ибо, пиши они на русском, их бы мало кто понял. Наверное, истина, как всегда, лежит где-то посередине, райт?.

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Верно. Ведь редко когда кто задаёт вопросы о русском на русском здесь :idea:

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Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

The problem with writing Russian in this forum is that the only people who would understand ше is the Russians. а я хочу включить весь мир!!! :wink:

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I understand!! But, I don't usually write in Russian because it's faster and easier to say what I'd like in English. The problem is that my vocabulary is not very big, so it takes a long time (and some clever explanation) to get my point across.

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...it's faster and easier to say what I'd like in English...

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if one's afraid of diving, she'll never see how wonderful the underwater world is. The question is how much easier and why still so much.

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so it takes a long time (and some clever explanation)

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That's why this forum is. Try your best. Avoiding it you miss an opportunity to advance significantly in the language.

good luck

ну, зависит от чего хочешь сказать. Это как-то странно говорить по-русски тем, которые говорят по-английски. Я не буду выразить себя правильно по-русски (потому что это не мой родной язык), и они не будут понимать точную мысль (потому что это не их родной язык). Легче выразиться по-английски, но я согласен, что когда обращусь к русским, надо говорить по-русски... попытаюсь... :)

Time to rip :D . I admire your balls though, this language is a bitch. It'll get better with practice.

ну, зависит от того, что хочешь сказать. Это как-то странно (not really sure what you mean exactly) говорить по-русски тем, которые говорят по-английски. Я не смогу выразить себя правильно по-русски (потому что это не мой родной язык), и они не поймут точную мысль (потому что это не их родной язык). Легче выразиться по-английски, но я согласен, что когда обращаешься к русским, надо говорить по-русски... пытаться...

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Originally Posted by adoc

Это как-то странно (not really sure what you mean exactly) говорить по-русски тем, которые говорят по-английски.

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What he means is, "It's somehow strange." I say this all the time which causes confusion. :?

Gotcha. Then the whole sentence has to go like this:

Несколько странно говорить по-русски с теми, кто говорит по-английски.

I see :) Life is hard.

Yeah, what I meant is: It's kinda strange to speak Russian to English speaking people.

The funny thing is that I can read "good" russian and "bad" Russian equally as well. Actually I can't tell the difference most of the time.

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It's kinda strange to speak Russian to English speaking people.

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Китайцы с удовольствием говорят друг с другом по-английски в чатах по изучению английского языка, таких как englishbaby или еще что-то. А на этом сайте, в чате, русские с удовольствием говорят с русскими на английском, я обратил на это внимание . Так что ничего странного здесь нет. Я тоже могу обратиться к русским на английском, вот например:

Hi, folks!

хотя английский и не наш родной вовсе, но это кончено фо хум хау. :)

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Originally Posted by mishau_

Hi, folks!

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:D

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Originally Posted by DDT

The funny thing is that I can read "good" russian and "bad" Russian equally as well. Actually I can't tell the difference most of the time.

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The reason for that is all these tricky nuances that are lost once you literally translate the paragraph into English. For example, Это как-то странно means that something specific identified by "Это" is strange. That would correspond not to "It's kinda strange", but to "That (specific object) is kinda strange". "буду выразить" is plain wrong while "буду выражать" or "смогу выразить" are both fine (выразить once versus выражать repetitively). "не будут понимать точную мысль" does not sound natural since "точную мысль" points towards a single complete action. You can however say "не будут понимать меня" or "не будут понимать, что я хочу сказать", since it would be a continuing action. "обращусь" means to address once, which does not make sense in the context, since a general statement was made: "Every time I talk to people who dont speak Russian, etc." Also, the future tense does not work well here.

If I had to learn all that i'd shoot myself.

On the other hand, if you look at the corrections again, it's clear that the vocabulary and the choice of words are not a problem for KV. Putting the verbs in their correct form is a different matter.

One of these days, Russian Language, I will learn you наскрозь!

Thanks, adoc, for explaining the goof-ups :D

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Originally Posted by adoc

If I had to learn all that i'd shoot myself.

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Me too.