детективы

[dreadnought.livejournal.com]

Hello all!

If you don't remember me, I'm a third-year kid at university trying to talk coherently about a variety of different subjects.

This time, I'm trying to talk about my relationship with детективы throughout the years. I'm pretty sure the major problems with what I've written are an overuse of verbal adverbs, perhaps sometimes in places where Russians wouldn't use them, and questionable sentence structure (I write in a complex fashion in English, and I'm not sure if the complexity is translating well). I'm particularly concerned about the sentence near the end which starts "Perhaps their charm can be traced..."

Anyway. As always, any and all suggestions are welcomed. If it looks really odd, it's probably a typo, but I still would appreciate my attention being drawn to it. Otherwise, any pointers on making what I'm saying sound more Russian are much appreciated. :)



История любительницы детективов

Мне очень нравятся детективы. Хотя бы, будучи благовоспитанный ребёнок, у меня был вежливый, приучённый образ разговора, который взрослым нравился, я рано познакомилась с насилием. С этим ничего было нельзя поделать. По воскресеньям я разбирала истории Авессалома, который повесил за волосы, и Иаиль, пронзающую Сисару колом в висок; в выходные целые дни проводила, командуя моими воинами на воини моего брата; а уютными зимними вечерами заваливалась под плед с фонариком и читала захватывающие рассказы о войнах, шпионаже и предательстве. Я не была невинной девочкой, но я оставалась счастливо невежественной детективов – я бы сказала тайны, но для меня каждая сказка была тайной, если которая была самая причудливая выдумка или самая сухая история, преследовать с напряжённым удивлением с начала в конец.

Я отступаю. Думаю, что мне уже было шестнадцать лет, когда я нашла мой первый роман Агаты Кристи, но я ловилась для первой копчёной селёдки. От Таинственное преступление в Стайлсе до Занавеска, я весело прыгала с Эркюль Пуаро и Мисс Марпл, смехотворно радовала, когда я сама решала загадку, смешно расстраивала, когда я провалилась. Кристи пожирав, я подыскала Дороти Сэйерс и её идиосинкразические герой - лорд Питер Уимзи – и героиня - Гарриет Вэйн. С Сэйерсом, моё восхищение в хорошем детективе соединялся с моими учёными желанами; в моём самом любимом детективе, Вечер выпускников, дискуссия разговоры интеллектуальной честности жизненно к фабуле.

От хитрой простоти Чье тело? до замечательного окончания Убийство Роджера Экройда, я продолжаю найти смягчающие часы между общеизвестными страницами моих детективов. Возможно их очарование может находил к надобностью для сруба в котором страхи может встретиться, бороться логическо, и в конце отсылать победоносно. В расстоянии два часа, я могу драться психопатную убийцу, отдаю его под суд, и вставлю от моей книги отдохнувшая, омолаживала и вновь уверенная в моих способностах смотреть в лицо мирам. Для этого, за простого наслаждения детективы дают мне, я благодарная.



History of a Mystery-Lover

I am quite fond of detective stories. Despite being a well-brought up child with excellent manners and an earnest, learned way of talking which appealed to adults, my appetite for violence was born early. It could hardly be helped; spending my Sundays in solemn analyses of Absalom being hung by his hair and Jael thrusting a nail through Sisera’s temples, lazy weekday afternoons plotting grand strategies with my portion of the army-men, and cozy winter nights curled up under the covers with a flashlight reading intricate accounts of war, espionage, and betrayal, I was not an innocent child. And yet I remained happily ignorant of detective stories – I would say mysteries, but for me every story was a mystery, whether the most fanciful fiction or the driest history, to be followed with breathless wonder from beginning to end.

I digress. I must have been already sixteen when I found my first Agatha Christie book, but I was hooked from the first red herring. From The Mysterious Affair at Styles to Curtain, I gamboled happily with Poirot and Miss Marple, ridiculously pleased when I myself solved the puzzle, laughingly thwarted when I did not. When Christie had been duly devoured, I discovered Dorothy Sayers and her idiosyncratic hero - Lord Peter Wimsey - and heroine - Harriet Vane. With Sayers, my delight in a good mystery was united with my more scholastic yearnings; in my favorite mystery story of all, Gaudy Night, a debate over the subject of intellectual honesty is vital to the plot.

From the insidious simplicity of Whose Body? to the wonderful conclusion of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I continue to find relaxing hours between the well-known pages of my mystery novels. Perhaps their charm can be traced to the need for a framework in which fears can be encountered, dealt with logically, and in the end dispatched triumphantly. In the space of two hours, I can fight a psychopathic murderer, bring him to justice, and emerge from my book rested, refreshed, and newly confident in my own abilities to take on the world. For this, beyond the simple enjoyment mysteries give me, I am thankful.

Oh, and P.S., the Absalom and Jael part is from the Bible. Just clarifying.

Thank you all very much!

EDIT: It seems that the consensus is that my Russian is very poor, that I must have been using online translators, and that I should stick to simple ideas and structures. I have not been using online translators; every word here is my own, whether I already knew it or whether I looked it up in my dictionary. I already know basic grammar, vocabulary, and concepts actually quite well, even if it apparently doesn't look like it; I came to this community looking for help in how to express more complex ideas and sentences. If I don't write like a Russian yet, it's because I'm not - but I'd like to learn. That was the whole point of this post.

To address a specific complaint, that it's not possible to translate straight from English to Russian - I know. I do know. I'm not trying to find a direct equivalent to the English; the English text is included as a rough guide to what I was trying to say, in case what I'm saying in Russian is entirely unclear. "Но я ловилась для первой копчёной селёдки," which was pointed to as the worst offender of English-speak, does not seem to work in Russian, but "копчёная селёдка" was in a dictionary as being the equivalent of "red herring". I did not know that this term was not widely used in Russia, so thank you for pointing that out.

I guess in general, thank you for your comments, and I suppose I won't bother you again. Thank you for your help in the past.

Comments

[platonicus.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find any correct centence here.

История любительницы детективов

Я очень (or, more colloquial, ужасно) люблю детективы. И хотя я была благовоспитанным ребенком, очень вежливым, приученным разговаривать со взрослыми скромно и чинно, - я рано полюбила читать об убийствах. С этим ничего было нельзя поделать: по воскресеньям я разбирала истории про Авессалома, подвешенного за волосы, и про Иаиль, пронзающую Сисару колом в висок, в выходные целые дни проводила, командуя моими воинами в какой-нибудь компьютерной стратегии, а уютными зимними вечерами заваливалась под плед с фонариком и читала захватывающие рассказы о войнах, шпионаже и предательстве.

... And so on.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

If you can, please try to leave comments that are more constructive; please remember that we are STUDENTS, not native speakers, and harsh comments are discouraging! We're doing our best. Any suggestions and advice (i.e., if you notice a rule consistently being broken or a case we seem to miss) that you could point out would be helpful.

[platonicus.livejournal.com]

You are right. I beg your pardon. You see, I am not a teacher, but just native-speaker and don't know where to begin.
Let's try.

Хотя бы, будучи благовоспитанный ребенок, у меня был вежливый, приученный образ разговора, который взрослым нравился, я рано познакомилась с насилием.
Mistakes:
1) хотя бы means 'at least', here you must use хотя
2) after будучи is used Instrumental case (благовоспитанным ребенком)
3) The main verb and деепричастие must have the same subject (here будучи - you, but был - образ). The right construction would be Хотя я и была …. ребенком, приученным …
4) Приученный is not used without object (e.g. "приученный терпеть боль", "приученный к шуму"). I guess you meaned вежливый.
6) "Образ разговора" is impossible. You may say манера разговора.
5) The logic itself seems strange for me. "Я рано познакомилась с насилием" - I would think you've felt it on your own back or at least have been a witness. You don't mean that, do you?

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Hi there- since this wasn't my entry, I couldn't say what the person meant. The language is a bit melodramatic for sure!

Thanks- I never knew that будучи took Instru. :) So I'm learning things too.

[platonicus.livejournal.com]

:) "Not that you missed at all, but you missed the baloon"

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It looks like your main problem is not the overuse of any particular part of speech, but the fact that you translate from English, rather than writing in Russian. You cannot just translate an English sentence, word by word, and get a nice Russian phrase. That just doesn't work.

[noser.livejournal.com]

"но я ловилась для первой копчёной селёдки" is my favorite. Have you been using online translators?

You should not assume English phrases/proverbs/cliches mean anything close when you translate them literally. E.g., there's no direct translation for "red herring". You'll have to translate it differently, depending on the situation. For a detective story context, I guess "ложный след" could substitute for "red herring", but still... not perfectly. I guess, there's no perfect translation for this phrase that is also short enough not to sound awkward. I'd go with something like "но меня зацепило на первом же подозрительном типе, который оказался невиновным".

Overall. Well... At least you got some declensions right. And you know what "идиосинкразические" is, and I don't :(

[megilla.livejournal.com]

идиосинкразические ~ аллергические

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Be kind, please.

Once upon a time, you were a beginning student of English; imagine how you would have felt if someone had said something like this to you at that time.

[noser.livejournal.com]

Maybe they did, and that's how I became like this :) You're right, of course. But, honestly, I had an impression that she wanted us to make something taken straight out of an online translator look passable. You know, lazy students, deadlines.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Heh. True, and I think we should have something like that in the rules if we don't already. But anyone who tries to post here before a deadline quickly learns that this community doesn't operate that way! ;)

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

What's sad is that you really, IMHO, reacted too strongly to the advice posted here. My Russian is by no means great, and I've gotten my fair share of "this is crappy, try again" here. But please consider the following:

1) You had, at most, four responses; none of which were damning. the first was unhelpful, and I've posted to that extent.
2) Oftentimes you won't get an explanation here. It takes a lot of time to proofread someone's work and figure out what they were trying to say. A lot of users in this community- especially native speakers posting in ENGLISH, which is not always 100% natural for them- can't devote much time, so their responses sound terse.
3) This leads naturally to the third point, which is that internet communication ALWAYS leaves room for hurt feelings.

Really, you shouldn't give up on this community. I find it helpful, and wolk_off's comments for me have been very useful in the past. You may have heard what he's told you before, but it doesn't mean we don't all try to do it...

Keep up your good work. Practice makes perfect, and speaking a foreign language means YOU MAKE MISTAKES. Deal with it, or stop studying the language, 'cause you aren't going to speak perfectly without making a ton. I recommend trying to work with your TA or a Russian-speaking friend when you're writing, and just remember to keep things simple. Studying Russian has made me more fluent in English in that I can think of many, many ways to say things now that I wouldn't have thought about before.

Good luck.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

Don't get discouraged. It's frustrating to have such a well developed style of expressing yourself in English and only being able to use simple sentences that aren't really what you want to say in Russian.
That said, if you've only been studying Russian for 3 years, then you're being overly ambitious trying to express in Russian the very complex sentences you have here in English. What wolk_off was trying to get at, I think, is that when you want to write something, you should start off thinking about what you know how to say in Russian and actually try to write something straight away without first fully formulating the thought in English. That English text you've got there is no 'rough guide' - those are entirely thought out and very complex sentences. Your English writing style (judging from what's written above) is very idiomatic, which will make it harder to try to express exactly what you want to say in English in Russian.
So my suggestion is to start over and take a different approach to writing this essay.
Oh, and better sooner than later to learn that dictionaries can betray you. ;)

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

At first I wanted to comment on the mistakes in the translation. But then I changed my mind and here's why:

1. the post is big

2. more importantly, the density of errors is enormous, hence people don't rush into pointing out each and every mistake, explain why those are mistakes and offer possible correct variants. If you only had occasional mistakes, such big text would still be OK.

3. even more so, your English text isn't simple. The sentenses aren't simple, the grammar isn't simple and the vocabulary you chose isn't simple either. What this means is that it's not as easy to translate close to the original or just convey practically the same information in another language equally well. That in turn means more trouble for you (you can't translate your own stuff) and for those who could help you out but didn't find enough courage to translate the thing for you (and, again, point to your mistakes and provide explanations and possible corrections).

The bottom line is... make it shorter and simpler or you won't get the kind of feedback you'd like or you'd find useful. Find out your weaknesses. Don't try to work on all of them at the same time. Pick a few. Work on these few by providing sample sentenses and questions related to only these handful things. Step by step move on. Also, read and listen as much as you can to absorb the language. You might at first only ask questions like what's that, what does that mean, etc and not speak a word and still be busy only understanding the stuff. Communicate in Russian. Begin with simple things...