(no subject)

[kupa7884.livejournal.com]

Okay, so my Russian professor gave this to my class the other day to translate....but it just seems crazy to me....i was wondering if anyone could help me out:

-У меня эаэвонил телефон.
-Кто говорит?
-Слон.
-Откуда?
-От верблюда.
-Что вам надо?
-Шоколада.
-Для кого?
-Для сына моего.
-А много ли прислать?
-Да пудов зтак пять
Или шесть:
Больше ему не съесть,
Он у меня еще маленький.

Comments

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

It's a kid's poem - sort of silly like our Ogden Nash or Shel Silverstein.

[welgar.livejournal.com]

You're first, you're first!

[kupa7884.livejournal.com]

cool picture

[welgar.livejournal.com]

Thanx. I like it too. :-))

[noser.livejournal.com]

ladybirdsleeps is right - don't help people cheat on their homework. That guy/girl deserved his F or whatever [s]he was going to get from the professor :)

[kupa7884.livejournal.com]

well, i don't have to hand in a translation of the poem, my professor just gave it to us as an exercise....it's just that when you try to translate it word-for-word it comes out a little confusing...after all, russian word order is not very similar to english, and when i translated the poem myself it didn't make too much sense to me

[welgar.livejournal.com]

- My phone rings.
- Who's speaking?
- It's an elephant.
- Where are you from?
- From camel's.
- What do you need?
- Chocolate.
- For who?
- For a son of mine.
- How much of it do you need?
- Some five poods
Or six of them:
He won't eat more,
He is still little.


Pood is 16.38 kg.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It's the beiginning of Korney Chukovski's "Telephone," a very well-known piece of poetry for kids (I think it's the beginning of the 20th century.) Most of Russian parents read this to their 3-4-years-olds (my parents did, and I did, in my turn, as a parent :))). Kids love it. The complete poem (http://skill21.narod.ru/1/Chukovskij/11.htm) (it's about five or six times longer.)

[spinkedzzz.livejournal.com]

you are wrong, Chukovski wrote all his poems and novels in the moddle of the 20th century

[oryx_and_crake]

Are you kidding?

[spinkedzzz.livejournal.com]

nope
Chukovski died in 1968

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

So you think he only wrote when he was an old man, right?
For your information: he started to publish his verses for children in 1916.
If you say something, be sure you can prove it, otherwise why bother?

[spinkedzzz.livejournal.com]

ok
you have said - he wrote his books in the beginning of the century
but actually he wrote them during much longer period - from the beginning till late middle of the century. that's what i mean
if you were talking about only his child poems - you were right

[oryx_and_crake]

Your exact words were "Chukovski wrote all his poems and novels in the moddle of the 20th century"

[spinkedzzz.livejournal.com]

my mistake

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't cheat. We both see what you said. So can you prove that Chukovski "wrote all his poems and novels in the moddle of the 20th century" or not? If you can, I wait for informative links, quotations etc.

[oryx_and_crake]

I know that for a person of your age there is really no big difference between 1910, 1930, 1950 and 1970, since all of them belong to the age of dinosaurs.
But, just for your information: Chukovski was born in 1882 and wrote most of his famous poems before 1930 ("Крокодил" (1916), "Мойдодыр" (1923), "Муха-цокотуха" (1924), "Бармалей" (1925), "Айболит" (1929)).

And I don't know of any novels he wrote, except maybe "Серебряный герб" which is not really a novel - I think that in the collected works of Chukovski it is defined as повесть.

If you don't believe me, please feel free to check it up.

[spinkedzzz.livejournal.com]

ok, granny :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I can prove what I say. Can you?
"Chukovsky's larger reputation rests on his writings for and about children. A number of his verse tales, including Krokodil (1917; "The Crocodile"), Moydodyr (1923; "Wash 'Em Clean"), and Tarakanishche (1923; "The Giant Roach"), are regarded as classics of the form; their clockwork rhythms and air of mischief and lightness in effect dispelled the plodding stodginess that had characterized prerevolutionary children's poetry."
From Chukovksi Family official Web site (http://www.chukfamily.ru/Kornei/Biography.htm)
In "Д.А. Берман: Корней Иванович Чуковский. Библиографический указатель (http://www.chukfamily.ru/Kornei/Biblio/Bibliographia/kniga.rar)" we read that "Телефон" has been first published in a separate picture book in 1926 (which meant that it could be published earlier in Kornei's supplement for kids in Niva Magazine in Petrograd during 1917-1924, but this I could not prove).

Now your turn. Prove your words.

[othila-dagaz.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link. I enjoy reading that poem.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

This community isn't here to help you cheat on your homework. It's fine if your professor doesn't mind you asking for outside help, but if you're supposed to do the work on your own--don't ask us to help you!

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

That's right. That's why I didn't post the translation.

[kupa7884.livejournal.com]

my russian professor is actually the person who recommended this community to me

[strelkan.livejournal.com]

russian professors recomend livejounal as a source of information? unfuckingbelievable

[uncle-becher.livejournal.com]

then you got to be careful using the translations posted here. He'll know you cheated :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

shhhhh! Russian professors are here :))))

[sventhelost.livejournal.com]

Most of my professors encouraged us to work in groups, because it helped us practice the language and we could help each other. Except on exams, of course. :)

[babahkabum.livejournal.com]

Yess!!! I just love it! You are (let me guess) in your late 90-s. And ugly as hell. And you ARE a member of theeese :http://www.livejournal.com/community/vintage_sex/. So go buy your self a nice, vintage, next size vibrator.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

... well, one out of three ain't bad. Yes, I am indeed a member of vintage_sex; am I supposed to be embarrassed about that or something?

P.S. You're banned. If you have some sort of weird issue with me, take it up with me in my journal.

[malaya-zemlya.livejournal.com]

By the way, this poem has been translated:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1558584803/

About от верблюда.

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

You won't find this in your dictionary or textbook, so here goes.

Normally "от верблюда" is a non-sensical non-answer to the question "откуда?" It is roughly equivalent to "not your business" (but not so rude). But here it is used literally in a kind of reverse wordplay.

Hope it makes more sense now.

Re: About от верблюда.

[sventhelost.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's cool! I didn't know that! Yay for learning new stuff! This poem has been a favorite of mine since first learning it. :)

Re: About от верблюда.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

This is because of this poem. That meaning didn't exist befor that :)

Re: About от верблюда.

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

Cool, I didn't know that!

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

By the way your зs and эs are mixed up.

[abridgetoofar.livejournal.com]

I used to do that in my first Semester. Just reading. :$

[sventhelost.livejournal.com]

I've always found poetry to be a bit hard to wrap my brain around. It makes a lot more sense when you have the cases and declensions down pat (which I used to *sigh*), because you can figure out the word order better.

If it helps, this poem is a lot like our Dr. Suess poems. They make sense only to a point, and are as much about the wordplay as anything else.

(I'd post an approximate translation, but someone already did.) :)

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Yay! Telefon! I loved this poem, it's so cute.

[idealforcolors.livejournal.com]

We just read this too (didn't translate, though). And the native speaker in my class was sooo happy. Very cute.

Learning English :)

[a-bronx.livejournal.com]

I tried to translate it and keep some rhyming and metre also - just for subj:

That's my ringing phone.
- Who is speaking?
- An Elephant.
- Where from?
- From Camel's home.
- What do you need?
- A chocolate sweet.
- For whom?
- For my son.
- And how much should I dispatch?
- About five pounds
Or six:
If more he won't manage with it,
He is still little indeed.