Thread: Мне нравится, что вы больны не мной...

Please, can anyone translate this phrase into English:
"Мне нравится, что вы больны не мной,
Мне нравится, что я больна не вами..."

It's from a famouse russian song. The lyrics is by Marina Tsetayeva and the song was first introduced in 1978 in the movie "Ирония судьбы или с легким паром!". By the way, what's the english for "с лёгким паром!"?
Thanks in advance.

"I like it that you're heartsick not for me,
I like it that it's not for you I'm heartsick"

Or something like that. It's hard to translate directly, I think. Or maybe I'm just dumb.

And the English title of that film is, I believe, "The Irony of Fate; or Enjoy Your Bath!" C лёгким паром is what you say to someone when they're going to the banya; again, I don't think it translates directly very well.

heartsick... like "once loved, but i don't love you anymore", or like "in love with someone"

Thank you for you help. 'Heartsick'? I was going to use 'sick' instead, so thanks again!

Originally Posted by Garfunkel

Thank you for you help. 'Heartsick'? I was going to use 'sick' instead, so thanks again!

It is interesting to note that where Americans use sick for not feeling well, that in UK English the word has the connotation of feeling nausious. In UK
"I feel sick" is not the same as I am not feeling well - or - I am feeling ill!!!! Although the word "homesick" (тоска по родину - по дому) like heartsick are more to do with the тоска-sentiment))

Originally Posted by Линдзи

"I like it that you're heartsick not for me,
I like it that it's not for you I'm heartsick"

Heartsick? In my book, it means something like "very sad, depressed" etc. Am I wrong?

I think "Вы больны не мной" means something like "it's not me who you are madly in love with" or "it is not me who is under your skin" (as in the old song by U2 or whoever sang it).

Isn't a more literal translation 'I like it that you're not sick of me, I like it that I'm not sick of you'?

[quote=translations.nm.ru]

Originally Posted by "Линдзи":34ag4l8x

"I like it that you're heartsick not for me,
I like it that it's not for you I'm heartsick"

[/quote:34ag4l8x]

Heartsick? In my book, it means something like "very sad, depressed" etc. Am I wrong?
quote]

Heartsick is a word usually associated with love (or love lost - yearning for a lover to come back.. hehe).

Can I translate those lines like this:
"I like it that you're not sick for me
I like it that I'm not sick for you..." ?

Originally Posted by Marat Safin

Heartsick is a word usually associated with love (or love lost - yearning for a lover to come back.. hehe).

(Making a mental note) Thanks!

This is a little confusing to me without the whole context. But I'd say

I'm glad you're not sick of me
I'm glad I'm not sick of you.

But the construction with не мной (instead of вы не мной больны) at the end might suggest smth like

I'm glad it's not me you're sick of.
(because the new information comes at the end of the phrase in Russian.)

which kinda suggests some other person in this equation.

I hope some native speaker will pop in here and clarify the issue.

To be sick of something means to be fed up with something, to have enough of something.

So what about "sick for"? What does it mean?

sorry about ressurecting this old thread, but I hadn't looked into this forum before.

Given the intensity Tsvetaeva put into her relationships, I think heartsick it too weak here. High school girls get heartsick when they break up with their boyfriends.

Am I right in assuming that this sounds very strong in Russian, and is not a usual thing to say? If so, maybe something like "I'm glad that your disease isn't me, I'm glad my disease isn't you". Or is that too much? I think she really is trying to say that being in love with someone is not a good thing. (Before the romantic period in Europe, intense passion was considered a calamity, not an ideal, e.g., Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet).

It's a sad sign of the times that one thought that occurred to me was "I'm glad I didn't infect you, I'm glad you didn't infect me."

Originally Posted by begemot

Am I right in assuming that this sounds very strong in Russian, and is not a usual thing to say? If so, maybe something like "I'm glad that your disease isn't me, I'm glad my disease isn't you".

It doesn't strike me as something very unusual. Tsvetayeva is not the first poet to compare love with disease. For example, Pushkin wrote once, "Но узнаю по всем приметам болезнь любви в душе моей". Mayakovski: "Я прекрасно болен". I think this metaphor is rather commonplace in Russian poetry.

And it certainly doesn't mean a calamity. To me is means something like "Being very much in love (perhaps to the point of insanity)". I think "obsessed" is as close as you can get to it in English.

"It is not me that you're obsessed with". How does this sound to you?

By the way, in this poem you can find examples of what it would be like to be "больным кем-то" (or at least what it meant to Tsvetayeva).

"Что никогда тяжёлый шар земной
Не поплывёт под нашими ногами"

"И не краснет удушливой волной,
Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами".



On a little different note, Tsveatyeva was, in my opinion, the best Russian translator of Garcia Lorca's poems. It is a shame that she translated so few of them. I guess she felt a kindred spirit in him. All those gypsies in FGL's poems and Tsvetayeva's "Цыганская страсть разлуки! Чуть встретил - уж рвёшься прочь!"

Obsession works great in English, but is that a little too far from "больна"?

Sick for, as was suggested, would mean having a strong longing or intense desire for. A literal translation of "Sick with" is an acceptable English phrase (sick with fever). What poem are these lines in, by the way?

"И не краснет удушливой волной,
Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами".

what does this mean? Best I can make of it is

not to blush with a suffocating swell
when sleeves lightly brush

Originally Posted by begemot

Obsession works great in English, but is that a little too far from "больна"?

Sick for, as was suggested, would mean having a strong longing or intense desire for. A literal translation of "Sick with" is an acceptable English phrase (sick with fever).

The problem is, as I see it, that "I am sick for you" sounds too much like "I am sick with you". As to obssed being too far from sick, well, a good translation translates concepts, ideas rather than words. It is all about, does the translation communicate the same thing to speakers of the target language as the original expression to speakers of the source language? A direct translation sometimes communicates a very different thing.

What poem are these lines in, by the way?

"И не краснет удушливой волной,
Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами".

what does this mean? Best I can make of it is

not to blush with a suffocating swell
when sleeves lightly brush

Well, it is in the same poem where is "Мне нравится, что вы больны не мной"

Your translation is correct, if literal. I don't know if you had this experience--in your teen years, perhaps--when you brush shoulders or elbows with someone you are secretly in love with and feel a hot wave of blood surging to your face