Translation Help...

[quem98.livejournal.com]

I need to translate this article from strana.ru into english for a translation course I'm taking. You'd think it would be easy, right? Yeah, not so much. I'm having some issues translating the first paragraph. Have I correctly understood the passage? The English isn't supposed to be pretty, it just needs to convey the meaning of the passage. The bits I'm having trouble with are followed by question marks or parenthetical comments.

По данным Министерства природных ресурсов, рентабельные запасы нефти в России при нынешнем уровне добычи могут исчерпаться уже к 2015. Специалисты пытаются создать такую систему налогообложения «нефтянки», которая стимулировала бы разведку новых месторождений. Если это им удастся, то при благоприятной внешней конъюнктуре названный срок можно будет оттянуть еще на несколько лет. Таким образом, страшилки на тему истощения ресурсов обретают реальную основу. "Нефтяное проклятье" действует не только во время "голландской болезни", когда нефтяных денег слишком много, но и потом, когда кончается нефть.

According to the current minister of natural resources, the profitable stores of oil in Russia under the current level of output could be exhausted already by 2005. Specialists are trying to create such a system of taxation of "oil levees" (The things that extract oil, not the oil itself, right?), which would stimulate the investigation of new deposits. If it is possible for them, then under auspicious international economic conditions, the named period of time can be stretched for another few years. In this way, the scares (?) about the depletion of resources have (the dictionary definition is "find" but that doesn't make sense in this context) a real basis. The "oil curse" acts not only in time for "Dutch Ilnesses" (?), when there is too much oil money, but there's too much even after the oil runs out. (I wasn't sure how to deal with но и потом, когда. Did I get the general meaning?)

Comments

[simonff.livejournal.com]

I hate to sound like an old, er, unsavory odor, but Russian journalism ain't what it used to be, meduim-wise. Its spelling, grammar, word usage and fact checking standards have deterioriated a lot since mid-80s. That's why you are seeing jargonisms like "нефтянка" in a serious article - in most Western papers they will probably stay confined to the editorials pages. I've glanced at the rest of the article and found at least one punctuation error, as well as numerous instances of slightly incorrect word usage or badly flowing sentences. Anagnostes emptor.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Being not only a journalist who entered the media business in the 1980s, but, alas, also a teacher at a journalism school, I would, unfortunately, o my poor profession, tend to agree :((((

[quem98.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that. I showed another article I was translating for this class to a friend of mine from Moscow. He looked at it and said that no educated Russian actually talks like that. Go figure. Still, crap or no, I still have to translate the damn things. :/

[simonff.livejournal.com]

Oh Glittering, Glistening Glorificus, who is the fiend that makes YOU WORK!!!

*squee* Buffy fan!

[quem98.livejournal.com]

Grad school. That's who. I have no one to blame but myself...
Oh sorry! I mean... I think grad school took my key. *looks around for brains*

Random non Russian related note... Is Firefly available in Russia?

Re: *squee* Buffy fan!

[simonff.livejournal.com]

You mean, on DVD? Unlikely.