English-Russian Translation Problems
What words or phrases do you know that translate badly, or not at all, from English to Russian or Russian to English?
I'll start with a classic that native English speakers have: 'excited'. We have great difficulty translating "I'm excited"!!
What about "challenging"?
i'm at loss to translate "commitment", recently have come across the name of book "Mr. Commitment"?
challenging: Трудно? Затруднительно?
commitment: Целеустремленность?
...but yes, both difficult!
what about "форточка"?
ok? let it be so)) Though, I don't think that in the statement "Teaching is a challenging profession" it can be translated into Russian with one exact word as it has wider meaning. Thanks a lot? anyway))
+ "unchained melody" (you know, that very song by The Righteous Brothers, written by E. Prestley)
+ in the song "Uunintended love" by Muse in the following verse:
You could be my unintended
Choice to live my life extended
You could be the one I'll always love
how would you translate it properly?
2Лима Шаммасова
I saw 'fortochka' in a couple of dictionaries and I heard native Americans saying 'fortochka' while talking to each other. Although later one of them told me that in the States they had AC's so they don't have fortochkas :)
As for me, I think there's no full English equivalent to the Russian word "общение". I burst into laughter a couple of times when I saw "общение" translated as 'intercourse'...
what about 'commuting' and 'commuters'?
Приволье-раздолье, тошно - always hard to translate into English. What is the best way to translate "зануда"? Any ideas?
Александр, what's wrong with translating "общение" as "socializing"?
Will, I think "I'm excited" should be translated according to a particular context. It can be anything from "Я очень взволнован" to "Как здорово".
Настя, I didn't say there's always something wrong with "общение" as "socializing", but will you use it for "Поговори с ним - Мы не общаемся"? I'd say that "общение" has a lot of shades (like every word, of course) but the translation is never the same again. And I mentioned "общение" becases I heard natives use it while talking to each other which is always a signal for me.
As for "зануда", I would use 'He/she is dull, boring' or 'a geek/a nerd', but it depends on the nature of "занудство".
How should I trаnslate "wannа" into russian?
"I wanna be a rock star"(I've recently heard this in a song)
Supposing it's one of the variants of "want", "хотеть";)
Дарья, you're right, "wanna"="want"
wanna - want to
gonna - going to
I find that общение / общаться is one of those really useful words that doesn't translate into *spoken* English. When I'm with English friends who speak Russian, we say общаться-ing, i.e. "Whenever he's общаться-ing with his friends, he pays no attention to me" )))
Will, may I ask you a question, just out of curiosity, do you have many English friends who speak Russian? Just wanna know how many people learn Russian :)
P.S. Sounds really cool :)) Something like коучинг во франчайзинге :))
I mean English friends who live in St Petersburg. There's only a handful of them (4-5), because I prefer the company of Russians when I'm here and Brits when I'm back home! But yes, they all speak Russian.
As for fortochka, it doesn't translate...some British houses have fortochka-style windows, and I would say, for example...
"Открывай форточку!" - "Could you open the little window at the top?"
A bit long-winded, I know.
oh, that was a total discovery for me))) don't you guys really have форточка?))))
Маша, I asked that question. The thing is they have ACs, they don't need fortochkas :))