An interesting issue of translate equivalence

[John Dunn]

за недавние пару лет – This phrase also caused me to pause.  I suppose one could posit a rule that feminine sg. agreement is used when пара is a noun and pl. agreement when the same word is a quantifier, but I cannot remember coming across the plural agreement before.  My questions to the native speakers of Russian on this list would be: Are they happy with this usage?  Is it in general possible to qualify пара with an adjective when it is used as a quantifier?  If the answers are 'no', what alternative translations would they propose?

There is, however, yet another translation issue here which is in some ways more interesting than how to render 'utter pants', and this relates to the different devices used to avoid the repetition of 'Arsenal'.  The writer of the English original uses the generic term 'club', while in the Russian we find a translation of the club's nickname (The Gunners – канониры), even though it might be thought that this would be less familiar to Russian readers than to their British counterparts.   In part the issues arises from the difficulty in dealing with the preposition and the definite article, but it does offer some support for a view I have held for some time, which is that Russian, and especially journalistic Russian, tends, like Italian, but unlike present-day English, to resort to nicknames and standardised circumlocutions as one of its principal means of avoiding repetition.  It is a device that can make Russian texts difficult to understand and to translate.
    
John Dunn.

________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Jules Levin [ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET]
Sent: 13 January 2012 21:06
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] An interesting issue of translate equivalence

On 1/13/2012 7:57 AM, John Dunn wrote:
> Occasionally the reporting of foreign news stories can throw up some interesting issues relating to equivalence in translation.  The site newsru.com today reports the unimpressed reaction of one British commentator to the news that Andrei Arshavin, the captain of the Russian national football team, who also plies his trade in London with Arsenal FC, has been elected Russia's sportsperson of the year for 2011.  In Russian translation this reads as follows:
>
> "Может быть, я действительно чего-то не понимаю, но полагаю, что даже самые предвзятые фанаты "Арсенала" согласятся с тем, что за недавние пару лет игра Андрея Аршавина в составе канониров не выдерживает никакой критики." [http://www.newsru.com/sport/13jan2012/imp.html]
>
> A handily-placed link directs us to the original:
>
> 'Maybe we are all missing something here, but even the most strident Arsenal fan will admit that Andrei Arshavin’s performances for the club, over the past year or so, have been utter pants.' [http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/arsenal/105284/russian-sport-hits-new-low-andrei-arshavin-voted-athlete-of-the-year.html]
Glad to have the Russian version of obscure Brit slang, but I have
another question.  Re the phrase

за недавние пару лет, I understand the logic, but wonder what the grammatical norm would be now--why not 'nedavnyuyu paru'--is that considered a) correct but stilted, b) obsolete, c) incorrect, d) other...?

Jules Levin
Los Angeles

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