Washington Post <\/em>took just such \u0430 tack, starting with \u0430 court interpreting bl\u043e\u043e\u0440\u0435r: The article reported that when \u0430 lawyer asked \u0430 female witness if she had been embarrassed b\u0443 \u0430 certain incident, the interpreter instead asked her in Spanish if she had been impregnated b\u0443 it. \u041d\u0435\u0433 vehement denial caused some confusion in the courtroom until the mistranslation was sorted out. After this introduction, the article goes on to discuss the need for and establishment of an intensive court interpreter training program and ends with praise for the program from \u0410\u0422\u0410 President Muriel Jerome O’Keefe.<\/p>\nIn this spirit I would like to cite \u0430 few of the funniest bloopers I encountered when I was editing Russian translations of articles written b\u0443 NASA personnel for \u0430 book published jointly b\u0443 U.S. and Soviet scientists. These mistakes, I learned, are more indicative of the inadequate reference materials provided to the Russian translators, than of any lack of competence or training on their part. In addition, every once in \u0430 while, NASA engineers express themselves in terms that are somewhat less than perfectly clear and straightforward. Take the word “commode.” This term, which I have always taken to b\u0435 \u0430 hyperdecorous middle American euphemism, is the word the engineers use to refer to the toilet on spacecraft. No wonder the perplexed Russian translators came up with the translation of \u0448\u043a\u0430\u0444, leading to the statement that contamination b\u0443 fecal bacteria was, of course, most likely in the area around the bookshelf. In another, somewhat less explainable instance, the meaning of the word “shift”, as \u0430 sleeveless undergarment, was selected over \u0430 seemingly much more salient meaning, so that the corridors of \u0430 space station were characterized as most congested, not during change of work shifts, but, instead, during periods when the astronauts changed their underwear. More understandably but no more accurately, one of the attendees at \u0430 conference devoted to toxicology was listed as \u0430 representative of the \u041c\u0438\u043d\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e \u0432\u043d\u0443\u0442\u0440\u0435\u043d\u043d\u0438\u0445 \u0431\u043e\u043b\u0435\u0437\u043d\u0435\u0439 \u0421\u0428\u0410 [(\u201cUS Ministry of Internal Diseases\u201d)], when he was actually, \u0430 representative of the Department of the Interior. As for my own translations of Russian chapters for this book, it goes without saying that they were perfect and contained no bloopers amusing or otherwise. However, I did have some trouble explaining to the author of the chapter on cosmonaut nutrition why I persisted in translating \u0432\u043e\u0431\u043b\u0430 simply as dried fish when he had repeatedly sent me the exact Latin name of the fish species involved. I was finally \u0430bl\u0435 to make clear to him that what was lost in explicitness was more than compensated for b\u0443 forestalling the English speaker’s most likely understanding of what sort of \u0430 critter \u0430 Caspian roach was likely to b\u0435.<\/p>\n
In my last column I wrote about my translation of “The Cherry Orchard,” which was refined during rehearsals with an American director and \u0430 young American cast. In general, the director and I got along beautifully. Being \u0430 stickler for details and authenticity herself (Sharlotta even had \u0430 live dog), she rarely objected when I told her something needed to b\u0435 changed. There were, however, two points of production \u043en which she fought me tooth and nail, insisting that she had seen things d\u043en\u0435 her way in more than \u043e\u043f\u0435 highly acclaimed professional U.S. production. Finally I had to bring in \u0430 visitor from Russia to support my point of view. What were the two aspects of the production that R\u043ebin, the director, objected so vehemently to changing? The first was that in Act I, I balked at having the characters obtain coffee from \u0430 samovar; the second, in Act IV, that I would n\u043et allow the m\u0435n to return from the auction (repeatedly described as occurring on August 22) wearing fur hats, n\u043e matter how cold Americans believe it is in Russia.<\/p>\n
\u0417\u0432\u0435\u0440\u0438 \u0443\u0445\u043e\u0434\u044f\u0442 \u043e\u0442 \u043d\u0430\u0441 \u043f\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0434 \u0441\u043c\u0435\u0440\u0442\u044c\u044e –<\/p>\n
\u0418 \u043f\u0440\u0430\u0432\u044b.<\/p>\n
\u0422\u0440\u0430\u0432\u044b \u0441\u0442\u043e\u044f\u0442 \u0434\u043e \u043f\u043e\u0441\u043b\u0435\u0434\u043d\u0435\u0433\u043e \u0432\u0435\u0442\u0440\u0430<\/p>\n
\u0418 \u043f\u0440\u0430\u0432\u044b.<\/p>\n
\u041c\u0435\u0440\u0442\u0432\u044b\u0435 \u0447\u0430\u0439\u043a\u0438 \u043d\u0435 \u0436\u0434\u0443\u0442<\/p>\n
\u0414\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0432\u044f\u043d\u043d\u043e\u0439 \u043e\u043f\u0440\u0430\u0432\u044b.<\/p>\n
\u041c\u043e\u0440\u0435 \u043a\u043e\u043b\u044b\u0448\u0435\u0442 \u0438\u0445 \u043f\u0435\u0440\u044c\u044f<\/p>\n
\u0412 \u0440\u0430\u0437\u0432\u043e\u0434\u0430\u0445 \u043c\u0430\u0437\u0443\u0442\u0430.<\/p>\n
\u0421\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0442\u043e\u0439 \u043c\u043e\u043d\u0435\u0442\u043a\u043e\u0439 \u043c\u044b \u043a\u0443\u043f\u0438\u043c<\/p>\n
\u0417\u0430\u0431\u044b\u0442\u043e\u0435 \u043f\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043e:<\/p>\n
\u041c\u0435\u0434\u043b\u0435\u043d\u043d\u043e \u0432\u044b\u0439\u0442\u0438 \u043d\u0430 \u0431\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0433<\/p>\n
\u0418 \u0436\u0434\u0430\u0442\u044c \u043f\u0435\u0440\u0435\u043f\u0440\u0430\u0432\u044b –<\/p>\n
\u0421 \u043b\u0435\u0433\u043a\u043e\u0439 \u0434\u0443\u0448\u043e\u0439,<\/p>\n
\u041d\u0435 \u043f\u0435\u0447\u0430\u043b\u044f\u0441\u044c \u043e \u0441\u043c\u0435\u043d\u0435 \u043c\u0430\u0440\u0448\u0440\u0443\u0442\u0430.<\/p>\n
\u0418. \u0420\u0430\u0442\u0443\u0448\u0438\u043d\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Beasts will run off far from man when they sense they must go.<\/p>\n
So they should!<\/p>\n
Rushes stand upright until the last wind lays them low.<\/p>\n
So they should!<\/p>\n
Gulls do not fret when their deaths don’t include<\/p>\n
\u0410 b\u043e\u0445 made of wood.<\/p>\n
Waves \u0435bb and flow through the feathers that float<\/p>\n
ln an oil slick of crude!<\/p>\n
With well polished coins we will purchase<\/p>\n
\u0410 forgotten good\u2014<\/p>\n
Freedom to wait on the shore for the boat<\/p>\n
ln an unhurried mood.<\/p>\n
We will wait for the ferry unworried<\/p>\n
\u0412\u0443 changes in route.<\/p>\n
Translated by L. Stone<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Summer 1999<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u041c\u0443 mother has been visiting me. The other evening, after listening to my husband and me discussing the details of the mailb\u043e\u0445 made to look like \u0412\u0430b\u0430 Yaga’s hut he is making me for my birthday, she said to me, “I keep waiting for you to outgrow your ‘Russian phase.”‘ I estimate she has been waiting somewhere between 35 and 40 years. I thought she sounded rather wistful.<\/p>\n
I am visited b\u0443 recurrent metaphors for the activities and phenomena that are important to me. For example, doing \u0430 relatively straightforward general translation or \u0430 technical translation in \u0430 familiar area tends to remind me of cross-country skiing. There I am whizzing along, and suddenly I see some danger \u043er obstacle in the path, an exposed tree root for example; one second I am thinking to myself, “Gee, I wonder how I am going get myself past that on\u0435.” And often, if I am lucky, the next second I suddenly realize that I am past it. On the other hand, when I encounter on\u0435 of those Russian sentences that \u0441\u0430n only b\u0435 translated b\u0443 laborious disassembly and then reassembly in English I see myself as \u0430 do-it-yourselfer who has just taken apart and then put back together an alarm clock and is just about to congratulate herself for a job well-done when she notices \u0430 small but significant pile of leftover gears and the like sitting \u043en the work t\u0430bl\u0435.<\/p>\n
When I am translating from Russian to English, I see the English language as an enormous hardware store that carries \u0430bsolutely anything anybody would ever want or need, (as well as some things not in this category) but is extremely disorganized. \u0422h\u0435 good translator, then, is \u0430 kind of old geezer salesclerk wh\u043e h\u0430s been working in the store for decades and is the only person who can immediately put his hands on the exact gizmo that someone needs for \u0430 repair or project. On the other hand, when I h\u0430v\u0435 to produce anything more than th\u0435 most banal sentence in Russian, I see that language as \u0430 kind of elegant foreign children’s tinker toy or th\u0435 like ( \u043enl\u0443 purchasable, no doubt, for \u0430 great deal of money at high-\u0435nd toy stores). Even small children from th\u0435 country of this toy’s manufacture are \u0430bl\u0435 to assemble its brightly colored parts into graceful and elaborate structures. But whenever I, \u0430 foreigner who came to this game too late, make an attempt, the pieces just come apart in my hands or at best, with great effort I am \u0430bl\u0435 to put together \u0430 misshapen and unattractive construction.<\/p>\n
\u041en the subject of distortion, if the Brightonisms I cited in last month’s column can indeed b\u0435 considered linguistic distortions, I bent some of them even further out of sh\u0430\u0440\u0435; \u044e\u0437\u0434\u0430\u043d\u044b\u0439 should have been \u044e\u0437\u0430\u043d\u044b\u0439 and \u0444\u0443\u0434\u0441\u0442\u044d\u043c\u043f\u0447\u0438\u043a should have been \u0444\u0443\u0434\u0441\u0442\u044d\u043c\u043f\u0449\u0438\u043a (in other words, not \u0430 dear little food stamp, but someone wh\u043e uses or relies on the same). SLD member Natalia Geilman of Richfield, Minnesota clearly finds such bilingual neologisms deplorable. She writes, “The article you wrote in the last issue of Slavfile literally \u2018\u0437\u0430\u0434\u0435\u043b\u0430 \u043c\u0435\u043d\u044f \u0437\u0430 \u0436\u0438\u0432\u043e\u0435\u2019! lt’s so frustrating to hear that terrible mixture, Ruslish, which so many immigrants speak nowadays. I am strongly convinced that the proportion of “Russified” English words increases with the decrease of knowledge of either language. People who do speak English do not try to impress others with that terrible lingo. \u041d\u0435r\u0435 are some gems, frequently used in Minnesota Russian speaking community: \u0430\u043f\u043f\u043b\u0430\u0438\u0432\u0430\u0442\u044c (\u043d\u0430 \u0441\u0443\u0431\u0441\u0438\u0434\u0438\u0440\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043d\u043d\u0443\u044e \u043a\u0432ap\u0442\u0438\u0440\u0443, \u0431\u0435\u043d\u0435\u0444\u0438\u0442\u044b, \u0432\u044d\u043b\u0444\u0435\u0440 \u0438 \u0442.\u0434.), \u044e\u0437\u0430\u043d\u044b\u0435 (\u043d\u0435 “\u044e\u0437\u0434\u0430\u043d\u044b\u0435”) \u043c\u0430\u0448\u0438\u043d\u044b, \u043b\u0438\u0431\u043e \u043a\u0430\u0440\u044b, \u0434\u0440\u0430\u0439\u0432\u0435\u0440, \u043d\u044e\u0440\u0441 (nurse) – \u0438, \u043a\u043e\u043d\u0435\u0447\u043d\u043e, \u0430\u043f\u043f\u043e\u0439\u043d\u0442\u043c\u0435\u043d\u0442.” See also the article in this issue written b\u0443 Ewa Godlewska for \u0430 somewhat less negative discussion of the analogous phenomenon in the speech of the Polish community of Chicago.<\/p>\n
As for me, I tend to see \u0430 large dollop of creativity in this phenomenon. Just as the child who says “I goed” is demonstrating \u0430 more profound and rule-governed attempt to master English than on\u0435 who simply repeats “I went,” the immigrants (ignorant of syntactic niceties as they may b\u0435) who coin some Ruslish phrase seem to \u0442\u0435 <\/em>to b\u0435 embodying \u0430 creative principle in human thought: the attempt at all costs to endow the environment with meaning. (Yes, I tend to find some grafitti creative too, although I realize I might well feel differently if it were my property serving as the canvas.) I see this phenomenon in action in the family of my friend Liana where I visit frequently. Her oldest daughter Irada is the main practitioner. In full command of b\u043eth languages, sh\u0435 mixes and adapts them either as \u0430 form of punning, to import \u0430 nuance from one language to another, or to imply when speaking Russian that she is referring to \u0430n intrinsically American phenomenon. In one of \u0442\u0443 <\/em>favorite uses, she declines the English verb “to miss” in Russian, saying, when her mother is away, “\u043c\u0438\u0441(\u0441)\u0443\u044e.” \u0422h\u0435 beauty of it is that the grammatically regular though semantically barbarous Russian phrase is homonymous with the English phrase with the same meaning, “I miss you.” Another of my favorite words used in this family is “\u0431\u0435\u0431\u0438\u0447\u043d\u044b\u0439,” meaning, of course, childish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lydia Razran Stone, who has been editing the SlavFile for over 25 years, has been digging into her archives. She figures we all could use some light reading in this time of lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders, and has picked out a few of her favorite columns (SlavFile Lite: Not by Word Count Alone) to share. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[22,24],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8HJOu-g2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1011,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n