One more question...

[quem98.livejournal.com]

Обязательной принадлежностью мужского и женского костюма были цветные тканые пояса кур.

I think it's trying to say that requisite accessories of male and female clothing were colorful belts called kurs.

The subject and verb here are plural, but that doesn't match the singular принадлежностью Is this a mistake on the part of the writer or am I missing something?

Comments

[zcube.livejournal.com]

Цветные тканые пояса кур были обязательной принадлежностью мужского и женского костюма.

:)

[oryx_and_crake]

The singular is perfectly OK here because each outfit had only one belt, I suppose. In fact, if принадлежностью was in plural, I would think that each person had to wear two or more belts at the same time.

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

No, it’s not a mistake. It’s rather hard to formalize, but you need a singular принадлежность here, because a belt is a single requisite. OTOH, you could perfectly well say: «Обязательной принадлежностью мужского и женского костюма был цветной тканый пояс //кур//»

[oryx_and_crake]

Do you really think you have explained anything?

[oryx_and_crake]

Note that костюм is also in singular even in spite of the fact that there were many people and supposedly many outfits.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

*lightbulb*

Ohhh!! I get it!

So it should be:
The requisite accessory of the male and female outfit was a kur, colorful cloth belts.

Still technically incorrect in English...

[oryx_and_crake]

Why are you trying to follow Russian phrase structure in your English translation? It does not make sense to me.

[oryx_and_crake]

Moreover, it can completely kill the meaning, e.g. мужского и женского костюма in Russian implies that they are two distinct kind of outfit, while in English, if I am not mistaken, the male and female outfit would mean that there was only one outfit that both the males and the females wore.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

Force of habit.

I had to pass a qualifying exam to get my Masters degree. If you changed the grammatical structure of the Russian in any way, you would fail.

It's become a failsafe to make sure I understand how all the pieces fit together before I try to make the English sound pretty.

But you're right. In this case, it doesn't work.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

No, not in this case. There were two different outfits that were described in the previous sentences, but the belt was the same for both.

[oryx_and_crake]

If you changed the grammatical structure of the Russian in any way, you would fail.
---
No offence meant but this is the stupidest thing I ever heard.

[whitest-owl.livejournal.com]

"Принадлежность" here is in singular, because it mathes singular of "костюм".

You are correct with translation. But it should be "kur" not "kurs". This is a native name of belt style.

And I would like to point out, that кур is not a russian word. It is translitiration into Russian from (if google doesn't lie) телеут language. Usualy in Russian you would qoute such words, or put them in parantnesses, or seperate it by hyphen from russian part of the sentence...
Something like: цветные тканные пояса называющиеся "кур". Цветные тканные пояса - кур.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

None taken. I wasn't the one grading the damn thing.

[serialcondition.livejournal.com]

English sentences like "sunglasses are the accessory of the season" or "bathing suits are a requirement" seem to be analogous -- you wouldn't say "accessories" or "requirements"