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Thread: Please help to translate

  1. #1
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    Please help to translate

    Hello everybody!
    Who can help my to translate correctly the turn of speech "for a while". I tried to look up answer in my vocabulary and it found out there were a lot of meanings (it depends on context). Is there any rule how to use this turn of speech?
    Thank you all in advance.

    P.S. Please correct mentioned above. Thanks.
    What you think is what you get!

  2. #2
    tim
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    несколько часов. is the best translation since in russian grammer.
    things never translate literilly. and it also depends how you use it,
    you can also use долго, довно.


    a while later- несколько часов спустя.

    I wated a long time - я долго ждал.

  3. #3
    Завсегдатай
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    This is assuming that "a while" refers to "a couple hours." It can change, depending on the context, though -
    "Wait a while, and we'll mail it to you" - days
    "Wait here a while, I'll be right back" - minutes
    As tim said, you can translate it a number of ways depending on the context. I can't think of anything that you could use in all cases where we'd use "a while", maybe некоторое время or something like that.

    About how to use it in English, use it when you want to express the idea of some undefined amount of time(usually not too long). It goes without saying that you should not say "Wait here a while" if you intend to return several hours later. "A while" is longer than "a bit" or "a moment"; if someone told me "Wait a bit", I'd expect them to be back within a minute or two, but if I was told "wait a while", I'd expect them to return within 5-10 minutes.


    Hello everybody!
    Who can help my to translate correctly the turn of speech "for a while". I tried to look up answer in my vocabulary and it found out there were a lot of meanings (it depends on context). Is there any rule how to use this turn of speech?
    Thank you all in advance.

    P.S. Please correct mentioned above. Thanks.
    Did you mean to correct your English? If so:

    Who can help my - my is like мой, me is like мне.
    the turn of speech - обороты indeed. This is actually proper English, but the term "turn of speech" is used much less than it is in Russian. I would rather say "expression" or something like that.

    I tried to look up answer - the definite article is needed here

    it found out - who found out, you or the vocabulary?

    Is there any rule how to use - it doesn't sound quite right. Perhaps "are there any rules about how to use this."

    mentioned above - this means you are referring to one specific thing. Otherwise, just say "please correct what was written above" or "please correct this post."

  4. #4
    N
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    немного

    подожди немного (это могут быть минуты, часы, дни и т.д. - всё относительно)

  5. #5
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    Thanks to all!

    Thanks a lot for explanation!

    2 Pravit
    I`d like to thank you especially for detailed answer.
    Who can help my - my is like мой, me is like мне
    It was just an unfortunate misprint
    I tried to look up answer - the definite article is needed here
    I tried to look up THE answer - Is there a more correct way to say it?
    it found out - who found out, you or the vocabulary?
    I just wanted to say Оказалось, что

    Thank you for correcting my sentences
    What you think is what you get!

  6. #6
    Завсегдатай
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    I tried to look up THE answer - Is there a more correct way to say it?
    You could say "I tried to look up AN answer", but in this case THE is probably better.

    Оказалось, что - "it turned out that"

    Thank you for correcting my sentences
    No problem, feel free to ask some more

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