(no subject)

[throughblueeyes.livejournal.com]

how do you translate "aprovdatsa" into english?

Comments

[mricon.livejournal.com]

"Opravdatsa" = "оправдаться".

Means "come up with an excuse."

[throughblueeyes.livejournal.com]

i dont mean it in the sense as like to make an excuse but when people explain themselves sort of..

[http://users.livejournal.com/_amaya_/]

Justify (oneself), maybe? I think that would be a suitable English equivalent.

tanya.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

It's interesting the words that other languages have that don't occur in English, like оправдаться or познакомиться in Russian — or the Latin adjective I always forget that means "celebrating a holiday".

[oryx_and_crake]

Are you saying that in English people neither excuse themselves nor get acquainted?
:-)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, Americans tend to be rude. ;)

But we have longer constructions for those: 'get acquainted', 'excuse themself', rather than just one word.

[oryx_and_crake]

In most cases you shouldn't translate word for word anyway. If you do, you will get some unreadable mess at the other end. This goes for most languages that are not too close in structure (e.g. word-for-word approach could more or less work between English and French, much worse between English and Russian, probably hopeless for English and Chinese etc.)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Yeah ... English and Spanish works quite well like that, though.

[oryx_and_crake]

Sure, because they are both Romano-Germanic.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

erm, sorry, there's no such thing as a Romano-Germanic language. Languages are either Romance, like Spanish, or Germanic, like English.

[oryx_and_crake]

I did not say that there was any such language. English and Spanish both belong to Romano-Germanic group or family, or branch of languages - call it what you want, - thus being closer to each other than each of them - to Russian or Chinese. Furthermore, Russian, being a Indo-European language (and please don't tell me that there is no such thing either) is closer to English than Chinese.

[wire-shock.livejournal.com]

zhp is right, English belongs to the Germanic family of languages, while Spanish belongs to the Romance family. Both these families are Indo-European but they are not thought of as one family.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>Languages are either Romance, like Spanish, or Germanic, like English.

I'll tell you more: to one's surprise, there are also Slavic, Ugro-Finnish, Turkish, Semitic and many, many other groups of languages! ;-)

[zhp.livejournal.com]

>I'll tell you more: to one's surprise, there are >also Slavic, Ugro-Finnish, Turkish, Semitic and >many, many other groups of languages! ;-)
Hard to argue with that!:))
What I meant was that these two groups shouldn't be lumped together. Romance , Germanic and Slavic languages are all Indo-European and related to each other in more or less the same way.

[oryx_and_crake]

To my Slavic mind, Romance and Germanic languages are MUCH closer to each other than to Russian. That was my original pont, in fact.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

dunno... English and French - definitely, but there are lots of reasons for it. as to something less mainstrean, my guess would be that,let's say, Danish and Romanian are no more similar than Russian and English...

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

I know you're kidding, but I think Americans tend to be more polite than people from many other cultures. Haven't you ever noticed how we say, "THANK YOU" for everything? We go to the store, buy groceries, and tell the cashier, "Thank you!" And for what? She/he wasn't the one who put the food on the shelves, and she certainly didn't pay for our purchase.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

My thoughts on the matter are: people like being thanked. If I can get a cashier to smile, then I'll be happy.

[hound-lancer.livejournal.com]

explain away? or maybe prove yourself right?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>prove yourself right

To prove oneself right is оказаться правым, not оправдаться.