Subj : Anecdotes about translators To : Ardith Hinton From : Alexander Koryagin Date : Tue Oct 12 2021 09:08:02 Hi, Ardith Hinton! -> Alexander Koryagin I read your message from 30.09.2021 23:36 ak>> I am not sure I know the correct word. In Russia we use the ak>> word "a male goat" as an idiomatic sleng word meaning absence of ak>> respect, or when you have a resentment to somebody. AH> When I looked up "twit" in THE FREE DICTIONARY I found quite a lot AH> of stuff you might find useful, including definitions & synonyms. AH> In summary... a twit is a foolish, stupid, annoying, and/or AH> insignificant person. I'm guessing that is more or less what you AH> were thinking of here. Did you use "twit" as "beep" when somebody on TV swears? Is "goat" so indecent? ak>> Does the following story sound funny in English and can it be ak>> improved? AH> Yes, on both counts. Long explanation to follow... [grin]. ak>> Three men from the USA delegation came to Russia and went to a big ak>> plant to sign a contract. The director sees them into his cabinet AH> |private office Yea, there are many words in Russian when we are sure that they mean the same in English. :) AH> Why not use the same verb tense throughout the story? I know we AH> have discussed this issue already... but a tense change in mid- AH> paragraph, unless the logic is obvious to me, still sounds wrong AH> according to what I was taught.: - Q I agree. Although I saw many examples of it in the modern literature. It looks like as if we put the reader into the situation we are telling him. So, we have a kind of innuendo "once upon a time ..." And next we are as if present at the place. Probably this can make the story more vivid. Of maybe it can be considered as a free informal style? ak>> and says to his secretary girl, "Well dear -- AH> |female secretary Although such informal "dear" can be applied to the girl only. ak>> one glass of cognac for me and three tea for these goats." AH> IOW he's such an important person he can drink alcoholic beverages AH> on the job without offering any to persons he regards as inferior AH> to himself... or at least he thinks he is. My sympathies lie with AH> the translator already. :-)) He knows that American businessmen don't drink at work. How foolish of them! ;-) ak>> One man from the delegation says, "two tea, please, I am a ak>> translator." AH> Ah... so this story is not a commentary on the status of women. But AH> to be fair, I'm writing as if the translator could be male or AH> female. AH> On a sociological level, the translator may be thinking s/he works AH> as hard as (and probably gets paid less than) other folk attending AH> this meeting... yet, like the secretary, s/he is a highly skilled AH> individual without whose help these guys would be unable to do AH> their jobs. And if s/he's expected to talk as much as all of them AH> do the need to wet his/her whistle may be greater. I think the story mostly tells us that Russians like to drink alcohol everywhere. So we find out actually that the translator is a Russian and he probably doesn't mind to have a shot too. AH> In English, the translator's response could be a play on words too: AH> * I often hear young servers nowadays saying e.g. "two coffees" or AH> "two teas" when they mean "two cups of [whatever]". Perhaps the AH> translator has noticed this phenomenon as well. Either way, two AH> or more generally --> pluralization of a noun or pronoun. I noted it. :) AH> * When people have more than one variety of tea in stock, they may AH> ask which a guest prefers. My mother-in-law used to offer China AH> tea or India tea. I reckon that in such situations a translator AH> might say "One cup of each, please... I'm bilingual." I see. AH> * Depending on the intonation, and on whether s/he's addressing the AH> secretary or the director, the translator's reply could be heard AH> as "to tease"... an allusion to the director's bad manners. And AH> s/he sets a good example by adding "please", which he didn't do. The boss certainly was not an example of a good person. AH> I see the translator's response as amusing when I think of AH> situations in which e.g. a male teacher nearing retirement AH> disagreed with our principal at staff meetings from time to time. I AH> also notice that the actual words could be interpreted in more than AH> one way, as is very common with jokes in English. Yes. It is not necessary that the translator wanted to drink alcohol. The understanding depends on our feeling of black humour. :) Bye, Ardith! Alexander Koryagin english_tutor 2021 --- * Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0) .