translation of a sentence: что это за ёлка?

[nominals.livejournal.com]

Hello all of you wonderfully helpful people. Can you help me with a translation? I don't know what this means exactly: А что это за ёлка? Does it mean "What's behind the fir tree??

Here it is in context:

Вова: Завтра Новый год, у нас ещё нет ёлки и, скорее всего, не будет. Папа поехал ха ёлкой утром. Уде шесть часов, а его ещё нет. Наверное, ему не повезло. Тебе хорошо, Белка, тебе ёлка не нужна...
Саша: Лена, ты не замёрзла?
Лена: Нет, мне совсем не холодно.

Вова: Что, Белка, в чём дело? Ой, Саша, Ленка, это вы! Я вас не узнал. А что это за ёлка?

Саша: Эта ёлка – подарок от фирмы.

Нам её подорила фирма, в которой мы работали.

Вова: “Кто мы?”

Лена: Мы с Сашей! Мы сегодня весь день работали.

Comments

[orloffm.livejournal.com]

A quite weird text.

поехал ха - поехал за
Уде - Уже
подорила - подарила
“Кто мы?” - Кто "мы"?

"А что это за ёлка?" means "What kind of fir tree is this?" Actually Vova wants to ask about the origin of the tree. In that case it's much better to say "А откуда эта ёлка?", literally "Where is this fir tree from?"

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

Actually Vova wants to ask somthing like "what a fir tree is this?"

[cema.livejournal.com]

What's up with the fir tree?

"Что это за" is a fixed phrase, "за" here does not have the meaning of behind/beyond.

[mricon.livejournal.com]

"Что это за" could also mean "what kind of a" (fir-tree is this?) E.g.:

Ни игрушек, ни гирлянд, что это за ёлка!

Though not in this context -- here yours is the correct translation.

[cema.livejournal.com]

True.

To be complete, "что это за" can sometimes be translated as "what's behind", as in "Что это за ёлкой?" :-) Of course, the object is in a different case then (here, "ёлкой" versus "ёлка").

[insaint.livejournal.com]

cema pretty much covered it, but I want to give you an example of how "what is behind the fir tree?" would be translated.

In the same situation, if there was something placed behind it, you'd say "А что это за ёлкой?"

I'm really bad with names for various forms of a noun, so I'm not even gonna try to classify it, but you can see that in this case the form of "ёлка" indicates the meaning of the entire phrase.

[miram.livejournal.com]

(Что это за) ёлка -- "ёлка" is in Nominative: what's this fir tree?
(Что это за) ёлкой -- "ёлкой" is in Instrumental: what's (that that's) behind the fir tree?

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

I remember Hachalo! Good luck!

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

Oh, geez. Nachalo. Serves me right for being lazy. :)

[nominals.livejournal.com]

Haha. Yeah. Did you know it was from Nachalo from the names Vova and Sasha? I'm sorry that it's stuck with you :(

[nymphatacita.livejournal.com]

I did. :c)

[nominals.livejournal.com]

Thanks all.

[russiandude.livejournal.com]

An almost literal translation, given the response might be:
"And what is this fir tree?"
"This fir tree is a present from the company."

The point of the question is to obtain more details about this specific fir tree.

The translation of "What kind of fir tree is this?" is technically correct, but does not fit the context. I feel that the first translation encompasses the second translation.

For example, if the question was about an animal, instead of a fir tree, the "What kind of animal is this?" translation is correct, but "What is this animal?" gets the point across almost as well and is a more versatile translation for this phrase.

[miram.livejournal.com]

I' like to make a fragment of your dialogue sound more natural:

Саша: Эта ёлка – подарок от фирмы.
Нам её подарила фирма, в которой мы работали.
Вова: Кому -- “нам”?
Лена: Нам с Сашей! Мы сегодня весь день работали.

Perhaps even "Кому это -- “нам”?"

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

Here, "А что это за ёлка?" is used in a sense: "And where did this one fir-tree came from?" literally: "What for the fir-tree is this?" The idea is, Vova is desperately looking for a fir-tree, he sees one and so he asks what is this tree doing here, may be hoping that his friends would give it to him. "что это за" has nothing to do with "behind", it is used to clarify something (origin, the reason for beging here, etc) about the named object.

Anothing example:
"Что это за девушка тебе звонила?" "The girl that called you, who is she?" - is a sort of question you could ask your BF if some unknown damsel gives him a call and it was you who happened to be around :)