TRANSLATION PROBLEMS: REPLIES

[Andrew Jameson]

Thanks to everyone who contributed. Here is a compilation
of all the contributions on the subject.
Andrew Jameson
Chair, Russian Committee, ALL
Reviews Editor, Rusistika
Listowner, allnet, cont-ed-lang, russian-teaching
1 Brook Street, Lancaster LA1 1SL   UK
Tel: 01524 32371  (+44 1524 32371)
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AJ FIRST MESSAGE
I am looking for linguistic examples for a lecture.
The lecture deals, among other things, with instances
where serious misunderstandings arise (or are
capable of arising) because of the mismatch of
the English and Russian languages and cultures.
These are instances where each side believes they
have understood the other, but are nonetheless at cross
purposes. I would be particularly interested in examples
and anecdotes from real life about these problems.
My examples would be:
natsional'nost' (In the West, loosely used for citizenship;
so a Russian who is a citizen of Lithuania, may well answer
a nationality question "Russian" and later be accused of
giving contradictory or false information.)
bezopasnost' (Used in Russian for both safety and security,
which are as different as chalk and cheese, especially
difficult as Russia largely lacks a "safety culture".)
kontrol' (Used in all European languages except English
for checking and supervising, but in English meaning
"to be in charge of" something.)
The lack of a "real" word for "learn" in Russian makes
it difficult to talk about non-teacher centred learning when
discussing education.
PAUL B GALLAGHER
A good false friend from the technical side is konstruktsiya, which does
not mean "construction" at all; it is much closer to "design" and can
encompass things we would place under "engineering"; it can also refer
to objects that we would call "structures."
Similarly, "proyekt" can mean "plan" or "design" but has only recently
come to be used commonly as "prуject."
DANIEL COLLINS
        I doubt that this counts as a serious misunderstanding, but the day
before yesterday when I was explaining "bardy" like Vysotskii to an
American non-speaker of Russian, I used the term "folk singer" (e.g., Joan
Baez); a nearby Russian objected to this translation.  The problem is, of
course, that "folk singing" in American culture is a concept that has
little or nothing to do with the "folk," and absolutely nothing to do with
"folklore," whereas the Russian understood it in an ethnomusicological
sense as "narodnoe penie."
        "Podruga" tends to be a problematic term for American learners of
Russian, as they want to use it in a romantic sense.
YVONNE BRANDON
Regarding misunderstandings, here's something that has always been
confusing in one way or another - American female students using "drug"
for "boyfriend".  I'm pretty sure all it means to Russians is "friend,"
but I have heard many American women trying to use it to explain that
they have a boyfriend and can't go out with so-and-so.  I remember doing
it myself during my first trip to Moscow, and it never had the impact I
thought it should.  Since Russian men usually begin a conversation with
an American woman with three questions - Where are you from?  How old
are you?  Are you married? - it is necessary to convey that information
nearly every time you meet someone in Russia.  The Americans always try
to explain that they aren't married, but "U menia est' drug."   Five or
ten years ago I listened to a Russian man tell my American roommate at
MGU that he loved her and wanted to marry her, and she kept saying "No u
menia est' drug."  He left very confused, and I'm not sure he really
understood what she was trying to tell him.  I think also among Russians
that there is less a concept of long-term committed relationships that
do not involve marriage.
ANONYMOUS
OK - here are some potentially embarrassing examples which you probably know
already.
Re: sexual education in USSR
"As late as 1990, people still found it embarrassing to buy preservatives"
"And how would a boy find out about pollution?  not from his parents, not at
school... "
My worst experience was trying to help a friend (who didn't speak any
English) to buy a guitar with tremolo box (or whatever it is called - I
STILL don't know!!!!) in Music Ground, when I first visited UK:
"Can I help you?"
"Yes - I am looking for a guitar with a vibrator"
"You what?"
TOM PRIESTLY
One source for linguistic material is a book named something like: Lozhnye
druz'ja perevodchika, published in the USSR in, I think, the 70s or 80s. If
this is not enough bibliographic info for you, I'll try to find it in our
library, where I know that it resides, hopefully under that name or
something very similar.
An amusing aside for your talk would be examples where such
misunderstandings arise among Slavs, speaking languages which are so close
that they assume that similar words will have similar meanings. The most
striking example I know: Russian ponos "diarrheoia" and Slovene ponos
"pride" (even stressed on the same syllable). Imagine a Russian with the
skitters appealing for help in Ljubljana . . .
I look forward to your summary of reponses. I teach a translation course.
MICHAEL DENNER
3) Regarding Prof. Jameson's question about translation problems that result
from "a mismatch of the English and Russian languages and cultures": I can
only speak to the American experience, but I've always had the hardest time
explaining the notion of narod to American undergrads. "National" is a
wretched translation, and "people" simply doesn't work -- as a nation of
plebeians founded by plebeians, all we Americans are, after all, "the
people." We really lack any national consciousness of Volk or peuple or the
connotation and denotation of "people" as I imagine it existed/exists in
England (but maybe not). When I speak of Public Education (narodnoe
obrazovanie) or the People's Will in a culture or literature lecture, I have
to digress for a while on what it meant for someone not "of the people" in
the 19th century - and to a lesser extent in the 20th - to speak of "the
people" and "their" needs. An 18-year-old American has real trouble
imagining this cultural phenomenon. Anyone have any recommendations on
translation of "narod" that would avoid this problem?
EDWARD DUMANIS
> The lack of a "real" word for "learn" in Russian makes
> it difficult to talk about non-teacher centred learning when
> discussing education.
"Protses poznanija bez (kakoj-libo?, znachitel'noj?) pomoshchi (so
storony) uchitelja."
VLADIMIR DUBISSKIY
Some comments on your posting.
I would not say that those differences are the 'translation problems' - they
can hardly be considered as such.
And I doubt the last two examples:
> > kontrol' (Used in all European languages except English for checking and
supervising, but in English meaning "to be in charge of" something.)
What about "quality control" (Eng.) - it has that 'checking' connotation as
well.
> > The lack of a "real" word for "learn" in Russian makes it difficult to
talk about non-teacher centred learning when discussing education.
this is not true - what about the Russian verb "познавать" (познавать мир,
познавать законы
природы, познать принципы управления летательными аппаратами)
I hope this will help your students "познать" Russian.
ROBERT ROTHSTEIN
English does have the European sense of  "control" in such expressions
as "passport control" and (as a warning to drivers) "speed radar
controlled."
IVANA BJELAC
I do not know if you can use the following, as I do not speak Russian.
However, our languages are very close so I encountered this when translating
into my mother tongue Croatian:
'eventualno' - in Croatian it means 'perhaps', 'probably' or 'if the
circumstances alow' , and is not an equivalent to the English 'eventually'.
In Croatian we have also only one term for 'security/safety', it is 'sigurnost'.
FRANK GLADNEY
Ru. _nacmen_ may be an example.  The Soviet dictionaries define it as
'member of a national minority', but in actualy practice, I think, it
denoted a Central Asian Soviet.  I don't think Russians called Latvians or
Ukrainians _nacmeny_.  The noun _dom_ can also be problematic, I think,
e.g., when a _dom_ comprises a number of _korpusa_.
JEANETTE OWEN
        I am not sure whether or not this counts as a translation
problem or not, but the definition of "individualism" in Ozhegov (at
least in the Soviet-era version) was rather limited to the notion of
putting one's own interests over that of others, while some English
(perhaps only American-English) dictionaries places that aspect of
individualism 3rd or 4th, concentrating first on the philosophical
question of individuality.
In a conversation with my Russian friends living in the United States
the definition only stressed the idea that self-definition as an
individual has only the negative connotation of going against the
interests of others. Nothing positive was contained in the term, or
could be construed from the sense of the word as it is used in
Russian. In the end, we had to consult the dictionaries to compare
definitions--they found the idea that there were any positive values
or even a sense of duty and responsibility attributed to the term
absurd. The subject turned to individualism when comparing notes on
when and under what circumstances Americans tend to ask for help and
when Russians do, and how members from each culture respond to pleas
for assistance. My dissertation (on how students of Russian make
requests in Russian) also touches these questions, though only
indirectly.
I just looked at the definition presented by the online OED, and
didn't find this notion there, either.  So based on my notes from a
year or so ago, here is my approximation of the definitions of
"individualism" presented in Ozhegov and Webster's 9th Collegiate
Dictionary:
 From Ozhegov, (year?) The first notion reads: "Nravstvennyj princip,
stavjashchij interesy otdel'noj lichnosti vyshe interesov
obshchestva" and the second notion reads "stremlenije k vyrazheniju
svoej lichnosti, svoej individual'nosti, k protivopostavleniju sebja
drugim."
The Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary (1989?) has:
"1: A doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to
be ethically paramount..." also "Conduct guided by such a doctrine."
2) the conception that all values, rights, and duties originate in
individuals.....
b: A theory maintaining the political and economic independence of
the individual and stressing individual initiative, action, and
interests.... conduct or practice guided by such a theory.
I look forward to your future posting on the topic of misunderstandings.
IGOR SILANTEV
Another two examples would be: prosveshchenije and slovesnost'. I can be
mistaken, but both words seem to have no direct lexical equivalents in
English. Is this right regarding their meaning? Probably not. But in
any case, one have to translate prosveshchenije as 'education', like
obrazovanije, and slovesnost' as literature, like literatura itself.
As far as 'to learn' is concerned, to my mind, it is a reverse case,
and very useful to show the semantic role of derivation in Russian:
both 'to teach' and 'to learn' in their meaning are covered by Russian
uchit' in its various derivative oppositions, among which the most
precise one is 'obuchat (kogo-libo) - 'izuchat (chto-libo)'.
ALINA ISRAELI
My husband in his first life was a political scientist and he dealt with
American-Soviet negociations. So he found in his research interesting
cases: At one point when the negociation were stalling, Americans came and
said something to the effect: "Let's deal with the problem aggressively."
The Soviets left the negociating table for a period of time, and Americans
had to convince them to come back.
"Agressivno" has only a negative connotation in Russian.
>My examples would be:
>natsional'nost' (In the West, loosely used for citizenship;
>so a Russian who is a citizen of Lithuania, may well answer
>a nationality question "Russian" and later be accused of
>giving contradictory or false information.)
Being Jewish is nacional'nost' in Russian. Although in all fairness,
Jewishness is racial (for non-converts into Judaism) as well as religious,
and would be perceived as racial for converts to other religions. The
Christian Pasternak had "nacional'nost'" - evrej, which always bothered him,
according to Ivinskaja, at least.
BUT: nationalitй in France while it should mean 'French', now also means
racial origin, such as Maghrebin, for ex. or Black.
>The lack of a "real" word for "learn" in Russian makes
>it difficult to talk about non-teacher centred learning when
>discussing education.
I must disagree: the fact that Russian has FOUR words, does not mean it has
none. There are other words that have not one word, but may: 'try', 'use',
for ex.
BRIAN LOCKETT
I think you will get a fair number of examples of what you are after by
browsing through the Anglo-Russian & Russian-English dictionary of false
friend (Akulenko et al, Soviet Encyclopedia Publishing House, Moscow,
1969).  But you are probably aware of this.
A more practical & up-to-date collection is contained in a paperback
produced by Gorbachev's interpreter Pavel Paladzhenko:  Vsyo poznayotsya v
spavnyenii ili nyesistematicheskiy slovar'  trudnoctyey, tonkostyey, i
premudrostyey angliskovo v sopostavlenii s russkim  (Moscow, 2000).
LISA TAYLOR
Here are a few examples from many years' experience as an
interpreter:
"Comments"-- Although I've encountered this problem primarily in
written communication, the Russian word "zamechaniia" has a very
negative connotation not implied in English.  An unsatisfactory
(IMO) solution is to use "kommentarii."
Another item that causes difficulties (perhaps not serious) is the
commonplace phrase "I look forward to..."  The closest translation,
"Ia zhdu s neterpeniem..." has an urgency to it not implied in the
English original.
Another problem is caused by the ubiquitous word "facilities,"
which has no real equivalent in Russian--some usage examples are
"facilities will be made available for your use,"  or "inadequate
facilities," etc., all of which may or may not imply different things.
There is also, of course, the difficulty with the word "fun," which
has no equivalent in polite speech.
I disagree about difficulties with the word "kontrol'," however.  In my
experience, the meaning has always been clear, usually indicating
testing or monitoring.  I don't recall a single incident where
difficulties have arisen in connection with its translation.

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