Voprosi

[dontstepinside.livejournal.com]

Hey..  I've got a couple of questions:

Do English accents ever have a tendency to sound similar to Latvian/Baltic accents in Russian?  I'm asking this because my Siberian friend told me that I sound Latvian when I speak in Russian, which I find to be somewhat peculiar...

Also, I was attempting to read about the luuuv history of Pierce Brosnan in a ladies mag that I got in Russia a year back, and there was a mention of the film <И целого мира мало>, clearly "The World is Not Enough", but the title seems more like "The Whole World is Not So Much", leaving out the notion of "enough".  Why is this?

Thank you!!

Comments

[idealforcolors.livejournal.com]

i have a professor who pretended to be lithuanian when traveling in the soviet union for less restricted travel. once he switched and pretended to be latvian, which turned out to be wise as there was a lithuanian soldier in the group he ended up traveling with. so maybe so? :)

[noser.livejournal.com]

Мало = not enough.

Any dictionary would give you that answer, if you'd bothered to look.

Concerning the first question, not really. Baltic accents sound funny, but their phonetics is much closer to Russian than that of an English accent. Maybe your friend was trying to make a joke on how slowly you speak (no offense intended).

[yurvor.livejournal.com]

I think, "not enough" is недостаточно. It is a synonym to "мало", but not the same. I suppose, translators use slightly different word in order to preserve rhythm.

[dontstepinside.livejournal.com]

No need to be so caustic! But you answered my questions, so thanks, meanie.

off-topic

[kite-head.livejournal.com]

I love your icon. and your journal is pretty rad as well.

Re: off-topic

[dontstepinside.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's a kind thing to say.

[dalexeev.livejournal.com]

1. I would say Latvian accent has little in common with English one. Geeks can probably point at some similarities, but at least for the most part the answer is no.

2. Translation <И целого мира мало> is not the most precise translation possible. Yours is more precise.

You are right, the word <целого> does not have a match in the original name. If it had, it should be "The whole world is not enough"

Also <И> does not mean anything. It is just a conjunction with some clause, which is missing. It makes the whole sentence sound like a part taken from a song or some lyrics. They do it to movies titles as well as to newspaper headlines. Lyrics often do not obey grammar both in Russian and English. Ignore such things in your studies.

As to "мало", I am afraid, in this case it clearly has the meaning of "not enough". Note that this "мало" is different from that "мало" that means "small" or "little". This one has stress on "A".

Compare (capital letters indicate stress):

1)Сергей мAл - Sergei is little (Sergei is musculine)
2)Татьяна малA - Tatiana is little (Tatiana is feminine, the stress on second A)
3)Taтьяна и Сергей малЫ - Tatiana and Sergei are little (The subject is in plural, the stress is on Ы)
4)Облако малО - the cloud is small (The cloud is of neutral gender, the stress is on O)
5)Денег мАло - The money is not enough or the money is in short supply or the money is limited (the stress is on A, so it is a different "мало").

Moreover, "Денег" is not actually the subject in 5). I cannot say what "денег" is in this sentence, but it it were the subject, it would be in its main form: "деньги". In the movie title the words "целого мира" are not in it is main form as the main form is "целый мир".

Hope it helps.

[noser.livejournal.com]

> Also <И> does not mean anything.

Nope. It does mean something. It's there for emphasis.

The translation is not literal, but it sounds waaay better than the literal "Мира мало". "целого" makes the whole thing sound smoother by disambiguating it. "мир" means both "peace" and "the world" in Russian, "целого" allows only "the world" interpretation, while preserving the original meaning.

[dalexeev.livejournal.com]

I do not feel any emphasys made by that <И>, even though I am a native Russian speaker.

I believe the interpretation of that <И> is more the matter of personal preference rather than that of Russian grammar.

Luckily, we can translate it into English and leave it for dontstepinside to decide what that <И> does.
<Целого мира мало> would translate into
and
<И целого мира мало> would translate into

Does sound stonger than ? Not to me, anyways.

to noser:
Remember, for instance, these titles:
<И дольше века длится день>
<И на камнях растут деревья>
I do not think you say <И> makes any emphasys here.

[temcat.livejournal.com]

"И" bears a clear emphasis in such phrases - it basically means "даже".

[temcat.livejournal.com]

Well, not in "и дольше века длится день", of course. This is a different case.

[dontstepinside.livejournal.com]

Thanks for opening my mind to the myriad uses of мало. I had looked up 'enough' in the dictionary (достаточно), and assumed that 'not enough' would be that with the не at the beginning, because the не + other word in order to create new word seems so common in Russian. I feel bad for gracing this community with an unneccesary question that was spawned from my presumtuous nature. Ah well... Thanks again.

[kefir-na-noch.livejournal.com]

I'm agree.
Sometimes translations of English/American movies names has not exact meaning. They did it for better sounding... "Мира недостаточно" sound little strange.

[surok75.livejournal.com]

No, the accents don't sound similar. But I think very often people assume because you are a foreigner with an odd accent, you must be from the Baltics. I get this comment at least three times a week and I think it's because many Russians, particularly those who have had very little contact with non-Russians, assume that no Westerners speak Russian with any degree of fluency beyond Do svidanyia and other standard phrases.

[detonate-for-me.livejournal.com]

Cute ferret icon!

[bitchinmona.livejournal.com]

I had a similar experience when I was learning Japanese. My instructor cocked her head and looked at me like I was an alien and said "Why are you speaking Japanese with a French accent?"

Considering I'm an unwashed americaine, I didn't really have a good answer.