Thread: Difficulties of translating. English / Russian

Well, the aptitude children have for obtaining their native language dries up before puberty, normally. Some people are lucky enough to retain it, you send them into a foreign country for six weeks and they return talking like a native. At university, I had a professor with that talent. He spoke the usual languages plus Arabic, Gaelic... But that didn't make him any less boring as a teacher.

I recently read that kreol languages, which develop from pidgin languages after one generation*, tend to develop a system of perfective vs. imperfective verbs just like Russian has, even if the languages which were parents to the pidgin don't have that feature. That means such a feature seems to be part of the innate grammar we are all born with. Well, the way I am having a hard time with Russian perfective verbs shows me I have not retained that talent from childhood.

* Does that need some explaining? Don't want to wast more off-topic space if everyone knows what that means.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

kreol languages

hehehe, the only place I have heard Creole (as us American's spell it) is in Florida!

In that case it's a specific language, but it is also a linguistic term for a type of language. A pidgin language is what people use who have different native languages but are forced to communicate. During the time of slavery and colonization it happened quite a lot in various places of the world. There were the languages of the various slaves or subjugated people, and the language of the 'masters'. Invariably, the pidgin created from such languages is relatively free of grammatical structure. Pidgin is the word for such a language, which borrows words from all the various languages but usually has no discernible grammatical patterns all speakers of this language share.

However, speakers of pidgin have children eventually, and among them grammar spontaneously comes into being. They structurize the pidgin spoken and instinctively give it common features and patterns which form a grammar. The pidgin language becomes a creole language.

Rockzmom, Bitpicker, of course, you are right when you are speaking about the conditions of learning. I suppose, if detach a person from the conditions, then a success of learning of languages depends on two ingredients.
The first is your aptitude (your memory, memory, memory and a bit of logical thinking). It is 20% of the success.
The second is your willpower. It is 20%.
Of course, it is not all. The rest are the conditions.
The third is a talented teacher. (this person have to find the best way to your mind. He/She have to choose the right method of teaching for you. This ability is a talent. Not all teachers have one! I know a Russian person who knows English very well, but she cannot explain, and don’t like do the explanation). Instead of or in addition to the teacher are text-books. It is 30% .
The fourth is practice. It is 30%. (The living in foreign country it is the best way of practice )
I know that the numerical values are very roughly. Just, when we learn own languages we have the best ways of all these components. But anyway, every of us have memory and a bit of logical thinking. So every of us have the aptitude. But the another components nobody can cancel

I think it is different for every learner. Each needs to find his or her perferred way or learning. I, for instance, don't have much use for a teacher or standard teaching material such as flash cards, exercises etc.

First and foremost I need to have some reason to learn. This does not only apply to languages, but when it comes to language, the reason I really learned English was because it was so incredibly useful, not because I had to learn it in school anyway. The music I liked was in English, the books I liked were written in English originally, the movies I liked were in English, the role-playing games I liked to play were often available only in English... It was pretty obvious to me even back then that knowing this language would be very useful.

I failed to learn Dutch and French as an adult, even though I tried, precisely because I lacked a real reason to learn the languages. Dutch isn't far enough from German to make it impossible to understand, though understanding spoken Dutch is quite hard. You can handle French texts if you had Latin at school, even if you were the worst student in class, which I was - and I have little use for French as a means of transporting culture (French novels, music don't interest me).

Now Russian is a whole other kettle of fish. I'm learning it because it is a challenge, which is a reason all on its own, but also because I'd love to be able to read Ночной дозор and other modern Russian fantastic literature in the original one day. There are quite a number of native speakers of Russian in Germany (3 million or so), and I have Russian-speaking neighbours the sons of whom are the same age and go to the same school as mine. We get invited to their family celebrations, and the language spoken there is Russian, most of the time. So I see a reason to learn the language, and these eight months of doing so I think I have come quite far; farther than if I had just visited a course in any case. I am already reading a novel in Russian, though not a fantastic one, and never without a dictionary nearby.

I probably have some aptitude for languages, after all, I studied English and German at university; but of course it is hard to assess one's own talent, as you never have a chance to understand how easy or hard learning a language is for someone else.

I follow a German podcast on learning Russian, I think this was very important for the basics. I am also in e-mail conversation with a couple of friends, which is at least partly in Russian. All in all, my approach is immersion and learning by doing rather than following exercises or trying to memorize rules or words.

Robin

I did an exercise to study a using of follow English structure
Verb + preposition + -ing
I met there sentences like that
“The rain did not stop us from enjoying our holiday.”
Word for word translation into Russian is very bulky.
__________________________________________________ ______________
(Attention. When I say ‘word for word translation’ I mean that I take into account tenses, parts of speech (verb, noun, participle, adverbial participle and so on) and their form (case, conjugation and so on). Result of it is not a set of words!!!.)
__________________________________________________ ______________
It is
Дождь не остановил нас от наслаждения нашим отпуском.
The Russians don’t speak like that.

If I wanted to say about it (I’m native Russian speaker) I would use other structure. It is
The rain did not damage of our enjoying from holiday.
Дождь не испортил нам удовольствие от отпуска.

One more example

“Nobody suspected the general of being a spy”
Word for word translation into Russian is
Никто подозревал генерала в бытии шпиона.
To use a “быть шпионом” in genitive case of Russia languages is unmanageable even for me I think this form don’t exist in Russian at all. We don’t speak like that in Russian In this situation we use double negation and noun «шпионаж» So it is
Никто не подозревал генерала в шпионаже.

I feel it offers difficulty. Especially from English into Russian translations.

It is no different if you translate English or Russian to German or the other way round. There are many things which you can translate word for word but the result isn't a normal sentence in the other language. The progressive form (English -ing) doesn't even exist in German at all (nor does it in Russian). Neither English nor German have perfective verbs; neither English nor Russian have a subjunctive form quite like German, nor quite the same ability to concatenate words to form new ones.

And that's just three languages with (in the case of Russian, relatively remote) family ties. It gets worse if you look at non-Indo-European languages. For instance, in spoken Japanese the gender of the speaker is very important, the language is permeated with manners of expression and even words which only women or only men use. Imagine the difference of Russian сказал / сказала were present in every facet of Russian speech.

Different languages are so much more than just different words. And it is incredibly hard to attain a level of mastery where you sound like a native speaker of a 2nd language, even if you know all the rules of the language by heart.

Robin

Originally Posted by bitpicker

And it is incredibly hard to attain a level of mastery where you sound like a native speaker of a 2nd language, even if you know all the rules of the language by heart.

I agree with Robin about knowing the rules and sounding like a native. There are many different levels of mastery.

One of the reasons I came on this forum was so Dmitri could sound like a native. If you remember the types of questions that I ask on this forum... they are all questions that only native speakers know the answers to! And in many of my postings I try to give hints about how "real" Americans speak and explain why I say things or write things the way I do and how I don't follow the "rules" of proper grammar. I speak in run-on sentences all the time, as do all Americans. If I ever want to send my book to a publisher, I will need an editor BEFORE I send it out! Maybe I should post the entire thing on this forum and have ya' all correct the entire thing as an exercise in proper English grammar!

As for my girls, they actually have what is called "radio Spanish." Their spoken Spanish has little to no American influenced accent to it. Here in the states, many kids speak perfect Spanish; yet, their spoken Spanish has a harsh New York or New Jersey accent to it (or an accent from where ever they happen to live) which is not good at all for commercials, tv or films. So, to a true native, say from Spain, they come across as if they speak it like a native, yet sound like a foreigner. And as a side note, many of the kids can't read or write. They can only speak and understand.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

It is no different if you translate English or Russian to German or the other way round. There are many things which you can translate word for word but the result isn't a normal sentence in the other language. The progressive form (English -ing) doesn't even exist in German at all (nor does it in Russian). Neither English nor German have perfective verbs; neither English nor Russian have a subjunctive form quite like German, nor quite the same ability to concatenate words to form new ones.

In Russian the English form verb+ing according to

1.adjectival participles / действительные причастие
A reading girl
Читающая девочка

2. noun formed from a verb / отглагольное существительное (it is like English Gerund)
I like reading.
Я люблю чтение (also you can translate it as ‘Я люблю читать’, but if you make exact grammatical translate, it will be ‘Я люблю чтение’. When I said ‘Word for word translation’ (see my preceding post) I meant situations like this)

3.imperfective verb (like English continuous verb) / глагол несовершенного вида
when she was reading a book ……
Когда она читала книгу ….

I hope this little explanation will be able to help to persons which are learning Russian.

Of course you can translate anything, but (the gerund notwithstanding) as you can see Russian needs two entirely different verb forms to express the progressive aspect of the English verb, depending on grammatical context. We can express the idea in German, as well, but we need additional words for it.

Every idea can be expressed in every language that there is. But languages can differ in what they do to achive that. For instance, let's say you were telling mewhat a female physician said to you yesterday. In Russian, the word врач is used, but I do learn the gender of the doctor from the verb, at least in past tense. In German, the noun for the profession 'Ärztin' has a female marker -in and an umlaut (as opposed to male 'Arzt'), telling me you are talking about a female physician. In English, I have to wait until you use a pronoun to refer to the physician (she, her). I have frequently noticed that the gender of a person in an English novel may remain elusive for lines and whole paragraphs until a pronoun at last clears it up. All three languages transport the information 'female' somewhere without actually mentioning the fact, but they do it differently.

Robin

I remember one episode from “The Da Vinci Code” movie. It was somewhere of the finale. Sophie Neveu has known that she is a descendant of Jesus Christ. She is standing near the water and looking at it with reverie. All dangers which were frightening her before are behind. She is cautiously touching the water with her foot. The surface of the water does not hold her, of course.
Robert Langdon is coming to her and seeing her action. He asks her: ‘What are you trying to do?”.
She replies with a slightly smiling: ‘Oh… I’ve just remembered that HE could to walk on the surface of water as on the ground. I’ve tried to repeat this thing. I could not’
This episode is loved by me. It is so simple and the same time is so thoughtful.
We have one song in Russia which has been popular. This topic sounds from it too. I decided to do the translation of it into English. I have some reason for it.
The music and the lyric are great. The lyric has so few simple Russian words, but has a huge ocean of meaning.
This story (about water and Jesus Christ) are well known and so it will be understood by everybody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogh3GjpS07k
[video:73ah6309]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogh3GjpS07k[/video:73ah6309]

Прогулки по воде
by Nautilus pompilius (more information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_Pompilius_(band))

С причала рыбачил апостол Андрей
А Спаситель ходил по воде.
И Андрей доставал из воды пескарей,
A Спаситель - погибших людей.
И Андрей закричал: "Я покину причал,
Если ты мне откроешь секрет".
А Спаситель ответил: "Спокойно, Андрей,
Никакого секрета здесь нет.

Видишь там, на горе, возвышается крест?
Под ним десяток солдат. Повиси-ка на нём.
А когда надоест, возвращайся назад,
Гулять по воде, гулять по воде,
Гулять по воде со мной".

Но, Учитель, на касках блистают рога,
Чёрный ворон кружит над крестом.
Объясни мне сейчас, пожалей дурака,
А распятье оставь на потом.
Онемел Спаситель и топнул в сердцах
По водной глади ногой:
"Ты и верно – дурак!". И Андрей в слезах
побрёл с пескарями домой.

Видишь там, на горе, возвышается крест.
Под ним десяток солдат. Повиси-ка на нём.
А когда надоест, возвращайся назад,
Гулять по воде, гулять по воде,
Гулять по воде со мной


To walk on the water

The apostle Andrew was catching a fish at a mooring,
And the Savior at the same moment was going on the surface of this river.
And Andrew was taking only some gudgeons from the water,
And the Savior was taking lost people.
And Andrew has cried: "I will leave a mooring,
If you don’t open to me the secret ".
And the Savior answered: "Be quiet, Andrew,
There is not any secret at all in this.

He asked Andrew: ‘Are you seeing a rising cross on that hill?
There is something like a dozen of soldiers around it. Just hang on cross.
And when you are bored with it, come back to me,
We will walk on the water, walk on the water.
To walk on the water with me".

He answer: ‘But, Teacher, the horns of the helmets are shining and frightening,
A black raven turns(flies) over the cross.
Explain to me now, regret the fool (me),
And let the crucifixion of mine will be after.’
The Savior has struck dumb with astonishment and stamped his foot in irritation on the surface of the water.
"You are really a fool!". And Andrew burst into tears
And trudged with his gudgeons to home.

He asked Andrew: ‘Are you seeing a rising cross on that hill?
There is something like a dozen of soldiers around it. Just hang on cross.
And when you are bored with it, come back to me,
We will walk on the water, walk on the water.
To walk on the water with me".

I would be appreciate for help with my English.

It is really difficulties of translations / Вот уж действительно - трудности перевода.
If you are tired from learning of foreign language a little, read this, It will help to encourage you a lot / Если Вы чуть-чуть подустали от изучения иностранного языка, прочтите это. Поможет приободриться.



Secretary: - Mr. President, Condoleeza Rice is here to see you.
George B. : - Good, send her in.
Secretary: - Yessir.

(Hangs up. Condi enters.)

Condoleeza: - Good morning, Mr. President.
George B. : - Oh Condoleeza, nice to see you. What's happening?
Condoleeza : - Well, Mr. President, I have the report here about the new
leader in China.
George B. : - Great, Condi. Lay it on me.
Condoleeza : - Mr. President, Hu is the new leader of China.
George B. : - Well, that's what I want to know.
Condoleeza : - But that's what I'm telling you, Mr. President.
George B. : - Well, that's what I'm asking you, Condie. Who is the new leader of China?
Condoleeza : - Yes.
George B. : - I mean the fellow's name.
Condoleeza : - Hu.
George B. : - The guy in China.
Condoleeza : - Hu.
George B. : - The new leader of China.
Condoleeza : - Hu.
George B. : - The Chinaman!
Condoleeza : - Hu is leading China, Mr. President.
George B. : - Whaddya' asking me for?
Condoleeza : - I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George B. : - Well, I'm asking you, Condie. Who is leading China?
Condoleeza : - That's the man's name.
George B. : - That's who's name?
Condoleeza : - Yes.

(Pause.)

George B. : - Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of
China?
Condoleeza : - Yes, sir.
George B. : - Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the
Middle East.
Condoleeza : - That's correct.
George B. : - Then who is in China?
Condoleeza : - Yes, sir.
George B. : - Yassir is in China?
Condoleeza : - No, sir.
George B. : - Then who is?
Condoleeza : - Yes, sir.
George B. : - Yassir?
Condoleeza : - No, sir.

(Pause. Crumples paper)

George B. : - Condi, you're starting to piss me off now, and it's not 'cause
you're black neither. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. So
why don't you get me the Secretary General of the United Nations on the
phone.
Condoleeza : - Kofi Annan?
George B. : - No, thanks. And Condi, call me George. Stop with that ebonics
crap.
Condoleeza : - You want Kofi?
George B. : - No.
Condoleeza : - You don't want Kofi.
George B. : - No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.
And then get me the U.N.
Condoleeza : - Yes, sir.
George B. : - Not Yassir! The guy at the United Nations.
Condoleeza : - Kofi?
George B. : - Milk! Will you please make that call?
Condoleeza : - And call who?
George B. : - Well, who is the guy at the U.N?
Condoleeza : - No, Hu is the guy in China.
George B. : - Will you stay out of China?!
Condoleeza : - Yes, sir.
George B. : - And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the
U.N.
Condoleeza : - Kofi.
George B. : - All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.

(Condi picks up the phone.)

Condoleeza : - Hello. Rice, here.
George B. : - Rice? Good idea. And get a couple of egg rolls, too, Condi.
Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you
get chinese food in the Middle East? I don't know.

(Door slam. Música.)

That was very funny - I just read it aloud to my colleague.

Ahhh, yes. That is a great take off on the old Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" Here is a short version of the A&C routine that is done very well in Kenetic Typography.
[video:2wa9d31v]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejweI0EQpX8[/video:2wa9d31v]

I know that English language does not have ‘double negation’ grammatical construction.

In English you say:
They are not going anywhere
In Russian we say:
Они никуда не едут (not like in English: Они не едут куда-то)
For expression of negation English use 1 negation form of words (where), Russian use negation form of words for 2 words (куда, едут).

I never meet anyone anywhere
Я никогда никого нигде не встречаю (not like in English: Я никогда встречаю любого где-нибудь).
For expression of negation English use only 1 negation word (never), Russian use negation form of words for 4 words (когда, кого, где, встречаю).
________________

So if you see in English sentence words like

Never
Nobody
Nothing
Nowhere
No one
None of
with “any…” (like anything, anybody and so on) or “any + noun” you have to use negation form of Russian words in your translation.
________________

And one more a slightly smiling thing.
Look at this in following dialog :

Петя: Будешь (хочешь) кофе? / Piter: Do you want some coffee?
Катя: Да нет, наверное. / Kate: Yes, I do not, probably.

What did she mean? Did she say ‘Yes’? Maybe she meant ‘No’ or something else ??????
Actually she meant “No”, but she has been hesitating what she has to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
‘Да нет, наверное’ is soft form of ‘No’. Of course, her answer in English is ‘No, I do not’.
But maybe she did want to say him the sharp word ‘No’

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Ahhh, yes. That is a great take off on the old Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?"

Thank you

Originally Posted by ekaterinak

Of course, her answer in English is ‘No, [s:hopl1tg6]I’m not[/s:hopl1tg6]’.

I don't

Well, perhaps I don't - if you want to express indecision.

Look at the modal verb in the question to 'construct' your answer.

Are you thirsty? - No, I'm not.
Do you want it? - No, I don't.
Have you met him? - No, I haven't.
Would you do that? - No, I wouldn't.

P.S. And... I'd translated the song's title 'Прогулки по воде' as 'Walking on the water'.

Something like this:

Andrew the apostle was fishing at a mooring,
And the Savior was walking on the water.
And Andrew was fishing out minnows,
While the Savior was fishing out dead people.

And Andrew cried out: "I will leave the mooring,
If you [s:hopl1tg6]don’t[/s:hopl1tg6] share this secret with me".
And the Savior answered: "Be quiet, Andrew,
There is no secret at all here.

You see, there on a hill, is a cross?
And a dozen soldiers nearby. Go, hang there a little.
And when you get bored, come back to me
To walk on the water with me.

But Teacher, there are shining horns on the helmets
And a black raven circles above the cross.
Would you tell me now, spare the fool,
And postpone the cricifixion.

The Savior got numb and stamped his foot on the water in frustration
"You are a fool indeed!"
And Andrew in tears plodded home with his minnows.

Originally Posted by ekaterinak

And one more a slightly smiling thing.
Look at this in following dialog :

Петя: Будешь (хочешь) кофе? / Piter: Do you want some coffee?
Катя: Да нет, наверное. / Kate: Yes, it is not, probably.

What did she mean? Did she say ‘Yes’? Maybe she meant ‘No’ or something else ??????
Actually she meant “No”, but she has been hesitating what she has to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
‘Да нет, наверное’ is soft form of ‘No’. Of course, her answer in English is ‘No, I’m not’.
But maybe she did want to say him the sharp word ‘No’

ekaterinak,
If I am following your thought process correctly... than in English the same conversation might go like this:
Peter: Do you want some coffee?
Kate: "Thanks, that's okay." or "Thanks, but I'm good." or "No, not right now."

In the first two, Kate is saying "thank you" which would seem like yes, but she is actually saying no. In the last one, she is saying "no" yet leaving the door open to maybe have some later. BTW, in the second one, the word "but" is often left out when actually speaking.

Let me know if I missed your point here.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by ekaterinak

Of course, her answer in English is ‘No, ....

I don't
P.S. And... I'd translated the song's title 'Прогулки по воде' as 'Walking on the water'.

Спасибо, Рамиль.

Originally Posted by ekaterinak

Петя: Будешь (хочешь) кофе? / Piter: Do you want some coffee?
Катя: Да нет, наверное. / Kate: Yes, it is not, probably.

What did she mean? Did she say ‘Yes’? Maybe she meant ‘No’ or something else ??????
Actually she meant “No”, but she has been hesitating what she has to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

In this case the word «да» does not mean “yes”. It’s like a parenthesis or even an interjection here. Compare with «Да, ну!», «Да брось», «Да я не знаю» etc. In these sentences «да» has no meaning, it’s “a set of sounds”, the way to delay an answer only, but not “yes”. Do not believe Zadornov.