Translation help would be appreciated - Russian Ukrainian Belarus Travel Music Woman Dating News

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Translation help would be appreciated
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Posted by: compucowboy

Hi everyone.

This is my first post here. I have been writing several women from the FSU and have noticed some common phrases that do not seem to translate well. My russian-english dictionary, the online translators, and my pocket translator don't help me. I am hoping that someone can help me out on this one.

Unfortunately, I only speak & write english at the moment. These women are writing me in english, and some of their translations from their native language are naturally quite literal. I enjoy them just the same. Each email is like opening a treasure chest, not knowing what I'll find.

Here is the first one, it is the form of a greeting, but makes no sense:

"hi road (my name) how has passed the working day will come?"

I get the gist of it as a greeting, and asking about my day, but what is with the "road" part? It seems to be used like dear or darling.

The second is a reference to a day of the week or something:

"Yesterday went to be engaged in a sports hall so it is tired, that since morning of fur-trees has risen from bed, ..."

Again, I get the part about going to the aerobics centre for toning after getting up, but the part about the "morning of the fur-trees" has me stumped.

And lastly, I am confused about their descriptions of school. I know they are going to school for a course, but one is talking about 1st rate and the other 3rd rate. Is year being translated into rate? Therefore they would be saying they are 1st year or 3rd year?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Posted by: J60

Hi Comp,
sometimes their translations into english do leave you scratching your head,

I think as long as you can understand the gist of the sentance you can ignore the wayout words,

1st and 3rd could be anything from class, the day split into quarters, to the level of the course,
with some of the words you could try back translation by looking up the word in an english dictionary and seeing if any other definition fits the sentence,

fir tree, how about sleeping like a log till waking, ??

road i'll try when i can find the dictionary i normally keep one near me as my kids say i can't spell for toffee,

John

Posted by: Chrismc

Theres some crackers in there....I cannot offer much, but I did have one lady who wrote to me used to say 'it' all the time instead of she, he, her or him it made me laugh

She was talking about her sister once and kept saying 'it'

Chris

Posted by: compucowboy

morning of the fur-trees... sleeping like a log

I like that never thought of that one. I guess I was thinking that they didn't have that colloquial expression. Goes to show, you just never know. I'll try a reverse translate on that and see how it comes up.

Thanks again.

Posted by: compucowboy

Yes, Chrismc, I get that all the time. Everyone is it. Kinda like playing tag when you're a kid.

I've noticed that the masculine and feminine forms are mostly absent. It seems to be dependent on their level of english. Others seem to write better than some of my friends here!

I've made more use of my thesaurus in the last couple of months than in the rest of my life combined.

Posted by: Chrismc

Quote:

Originally Posted by compucowboy

Yes, Chrismc, I get that all the time. Everyone is it. Kinda like playing tag when you're a kid.

I've noticed that the masculine and feminine forms are mostly absent. It seems to be dependent on their level of english. Others seem to write better than some of my friends here!

I've made more use of my thesaurus in the last couple of months than in the rest of my life combined.

Yes I agree, some of their English grammar etc is spot on, when I get text messages from Iryna she has all the commers, exclamation marks, apostrophe's etc in all the right places. Pretty good in fact she shows a lot of us up. She does get the odd spelling wrong which makes me laugh but what the hell!!

I was typing a letter up for her in English at her office while I was there and she was watching over my shoulder and I had a 'n' after an 'a' eg an, the word after it did not dictate it needed an 'n' just an 'a' and she asked me why I put that in, I told her it is the way I type, I go like a bat out of hell then go back and correct it all after I have written the whole letter. But she picked it up straight away and did not give me chance.

I also used some other terminology that she would not normally use when translating to English and I asked her is she wanted to save the letter and she said yes, I can use some of that!!

They are certainly willing and able to learn.

Chris

Posted by: J60

I was surprised at the colloquialisms that they use, Natalya also mentioned once during a talk about our kids they drive you to bedlam, and i asked her what she meant and she said crazy house,

and bedlam was the name of the first lunatic asylum, started in the 1500's by Henry the eighth so it does show how sayings travel,

I will also thank Tanya as her post also clarified a few things for me,

John

Posted by: J60

Sorry all,

My thanks to Tanya should be in comps other thread on translations, Doe

John

Posted by: compucowboy

It figures that I would find at least one of these out on my own. I'm not sure why it didn't work the first few times that I tried it. Probably because I had it in context before, and this time tried it alone. But hey, at least I know now...

Dear translates into russian as дорогой, and дорогой translates into english as Road. I'm not too sure why...

Go figure anyways. Thanks for our help on that part.

Posted by: bigtrain.

compucowboy, the Russian for road is дорога, not дорогой. дорогой does translate into dear, though. I guess this explains the misunderstanding - they sound very similar.

Not too sure about the fur-tree one though. I know fur-tree is ёлка (yolka) but I can't think of any similar-sounding words that would add any more sense to that sentence...

Posted by: Seventh-Monkey

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigtrain.

compucowboy, the Russian for road is дорога, not дорогой. дорогой does translate into dear, though. I guess this explains the misunderstanding - they sound very similar.

Oh, whoops. I thought "дорога" was the feminine form. I put it in my Christmas cards to my Russian teachers. Should that have been "дорогая"?

Posted by: Hostile_hostage

I think this site will help you a lot :

http://translation.paralink.com/translation.asp

If you received letters written in Russian you could translate them yourself on this site.
The real advantage is that it's FREE !!!

Posted by: Hostile_hostage

and before i forget................ Dear = Dorogoj
Road = doroga

"since morning of fur-trees" = s utra derev'ev meha - ( this translates
into English as 'Since morning of trees of
fur )

Posted by: Keith In Kodiak

I'm sure she means FIR trees, not FUR trees. They make a whispering sound when the wind blows - zzzzzzzzz
So, similar to the English language colloquialism.