Another translation · 6:56pm Apr 3rd, 2017
So, FoxcubRandy, who did the Russian translation of Well, This is Awkward before, now translated My Roommate is a Murderer.
- Тави?
Октавия оторвалась от любовного романа. Столь длинные фразы были нехарактерны для Винил, особенно когда она проводила в подвале свои музыкальные эксперименты.
- Тави, ты не могла бы ко мне спуститься? - крикнула единорожка. - Прикинь, тут море крови и, возможно, она моя.
Октавия встала. Она хорошо знала о довольно-таки панической реакции своей соседки на кровь. Обычный визит к врачу не обходился без помощи БигМака, необходимого, чтобы не дать Винил сбежать. Простого пореза бумагой было достаточно, чтобы та принялась составлять завещание. На новом листе, конечно.
- Что случилось? - спросила Октавия, спускаясь в подвал. - Ты наступила на штекер?
- Тут кое-что произошло… - сказала Винил непривычно слабым голосом.
- В смысле, произ… - Октавия открыла дверь. - Вот блядство!
“Tavi?”
Octavia raised her head from a romantic novel she was reading. It was unusual for Vinyl to speak a lot. Especially when she was in the basement, playing with her equipment.
“Tavi, could you come down here?” Vinyl shouted. “There’s, like, lots of blood here and it’s probably mine.”
Octavia stood up. She knew well about her roommate’s rather panicky reactions whenever blood was involved. Going to the doctor usually involved asking Big Macintosh for help, to keep Vinyl from running away. A simple papercut could cause Vinyl to write her last will. On another piece of paper, of course.
“What’s going on?” Octavia asked, trotting to the basement. “Did you step on an upturned plug?”
“We have a situation here...” Vinyl’s voice was strangely weak.
“What kind of–” Octavia opened the door. “Oh bugger.”
Trivia: apparently "Oh bugger" is "vot blyat'stvo" in Russian, which probably brings memories in every gamer...
Wait why is Vinyl Винил/Vinil/Veeneel? Shouldn't it be Вaйнл?
Also I do not think блядство means "bugger". I am told it means sluttery and google translate suggests whoredom.
Now I am not a Russian speaker but I think I can recognize liberty taken in that translation:
I am pretty sure that says that Vinyl is conducting a musical experiment in her basement.
4482262
Maybe that's how Russians say it – "veenil" is pretty close to Polish pronunciation of the word. Also, they apparently do spell it Винил in Russian, Though Octavia also got the "ei" sound in her name replaced with "a", which is closer to how it's pronounced here.
Yeah, that's more like a generic exclamation – "bugger", being specifically British, is hard to translate literally (same goes with "bloody" meaning "damn" – I've seen a lot of translators going with things being literally bloody when encountering this word).
Yeah, that's what I got from it too. Guess the phrase just flows better in Russian. Even though I'm a biotechnologist, I also got a bachelor's degree in English and translation was my specialty – some phrases just have to be completely rewritten when changing a language so they work. For example, in Polish it's way too easy to construct long-ass sentences that flow well, but need to be split into at least three sentences (often in reversed order) to work in English. And don't mention translating poetry. That's a nightmare.
4482293 Yeah suppose that would be how you say it if you translate her name. I was writing it how phonetically would be written if you say it as in English. I mean it's like do you say Twilight Sparkle or do you translate Twilight Sparkle? Personally I dislike Noćna Iskra/Ноћна Искра that one of my dub has.
And yeah I know the pain of translating, had to translate historical texts in my case. But I am just unsure if the flow is actually fitting. I mean
"Столь длинные фразы были нехарактерны для Винил, особенно когда она проводила в подвале свои музыкальные эксперименты."
"Such long phrases are uncharacteristic for Vinyl, especially when she is conducting in basement her musical experiments."
"It was unusual for Vinyl to speak a lot. Especially when she was in the basement, playing with her equipment."
Too much reconstructing can cause sentence to be weird or lose meaning. But hey I don't speak Russian, my language is a bit different.
4482318
I once ended up with Iskra Zmierzchu, which sounds like a Native American name... But I generally don't translate names, that just looks weird.
4482332 Yeah Iskra Zmierzchu seems to be literal translation of Sparkle Twilight. Sounds evil to me. Змиержу.
The dub one here took liberty so it is Night Sparkle. Funny though the other dub kept the names. As far as I know we are he only ones that have multiple official dubs.
4482262
For some reason, in all Russian fanfics her name sounds exactly like this. I did not dare to break the tradition
I don't translate exclamations and abusive language literally.
English and Russian have very different swearing words.
4483018 Fair enough, sorry for doubting.
And yes I am aware of Russian's mastery of swears surpasing English. We are all Slavs here...heh one per Slav type.
4483027
In Russian (and, I think, in Slavic languages in general ) most of swears are more expressive (and agressive) that in English.
So, they require more careful use :)
4483031 Actually it is more that English swears have lost their edge because of overuse outside of insulting context. So when English says "fuck you" that sounds childish.
Now if I say носи се у пизду материну it would be slightly different reaction. It is sad how English keeps losing features :<
4483033
So, you are a Bulgarian. Some phrases, like the above, I can understand without dictionary.
But your version of this swearing is stronger, that Russian - We send opponents just into a cunt :)
4483039 Serbian actually. Bulgarian is closer to Russian than my language is.
4483058
Thanks, I'll take note. Perhaps Ukrainian language is closer to Serbian? I can understand Ukrainian, in the main.
4483060 I kinda doubt that Ukrainian is closer that much to me compared to Russian.
Aside from Bulgarian and Macedonian, otger south slavic languages developed diffrently from eastern branch. Like how we have letter "j".
4482293
Yes, it is. The fact is that a phrase "playing with something" in a literal translation sometimes gets an indecent meaning :)
Also, a phrase "проводить эксперименты" meens "to make experiments", not "conduct".
I think, a Vinil's music practice can be called "experiments"
4483031 4483033
I've noticed that whenever an English punk song gets covered in Polish, the cover somehow sounds more aggressive, especially when it involves swearing. Like here:
vs. this version:
Also, I can't help but notice that Polish swears are somewhat less repetitive.
Interestingly, it'd be pretty indecent in English too, if it was "playing with his equipment". Female genitalia aren't usually referred to as "equipment", for some reason.
We have it here too. Q, X, and V, not so much. But we always have ą, ę, ć, ż, ź, ł, and ś – for some reason you can't type this one on fimfic and you have to copy it from elsewhere.
We have пизду here too, though we use Latin alphabet. But still, in case of buying something expensive you didn't really need, you can say that tysiąc złotych poszło w pizdu.
Though apparently, even Latvian, despite not being a Slavic language, still has pizgets. My Latvian friend says that it's because they're too polite to have their own swearwords so they have to borrow them.
4483349 Baltic languages are slavified enough. Also Serbian uses both Latin and Cirilic officially. And our alphabet has been simplified and each letter is one sound so we lack Russian soft/hard sounds and lack Russian version of е, щ, ю and я. But we have ђ-đ, ћ-ć, џ-dž and љ,њ-lj,nj are what is left from soft sound things.
Polish letters are a bit weird to me like why have W and not V. And you have J and Y (which seems to be i)? And no idea what ą, ę, ł are and your ć is my č and unsure which of your ż, ź is my ž. I am more confused how you even say Szczecin. Wikipedia suggest Шчећин/Ščećin to me.
4482293
I think this is because this word has many meanings, it is universal exclamation and swearing :)
4483349
We say "просрали все полимеры", that is modern idiom :)
4483372 Polish is famous language - It has words that no one, except the Poles can pronounce :)
4483372
No idea, but out "w" sounds like English "v" and our "ł" is basically English "w". It's a very important letter, as it's the only thing that differs being merciful to someone (robić łaskę) from giving someone a blowjob (robić laskę). As for the others, "y" is indeed a vowel and sounds similar to i, though not exactly. "ą" and "ę" are like "on" and "en" spoken with a French accent. "Ż", as well as rz is pretty much "ж", while "ź" is its softer version. "Szcz" cluster is like щ in Ukrainian, so basically shtsh.
4483477
Apparently dating to the time when they started to make money out of polimers. And hey, we have a similar word, "przesrać", which is absolutely impossible to translate to English (like, to lose something stupidly, but with added scatological subtext? No idea).
4483493 I thought English W is basically kinda well U. It is just UU/double U. And why have "Szcz" cluster and not say ść?
Ah well as always talking about letters using text and worse, using english, is fool's errand.
4483484 So true. So true. I do say Welsh beat them though.
4483509
ść is also a thing, but mostly at the end of a word. And "ć" sometimes disappears in speech, leading to a pun my boss always quotes: "Jakość? U nich to jest 'jakoś to będzie'" ("Quality? In their case it's 'we'll do, somehow'") based on the similarity between "quality" -"jakość" and "somehow" - "jakoś").
4483484
Given that the name the guy says is "Brzęczyszczykiewicz", you can hear both "ę" and "szcz" cluster in work. Repeatedly.
4483587 Ewwwww silent letters. "Write as you speak, read as it was written" that's our rule that we totally did not stole from someone else. My language is rather strict about it. Then again I guess this is why we removed щ.
4483600
It only disappears in informal speech. Most of the time, letters are supposed to be pronounced in Polish, which is why kids who learn English usually have horrible accents at first. And that's probably a reason why I don't get French that well – it's made mostly of silent letters or at least very counter-intuitive pronunciation.
4483674 Do not speak of French, that is an evil language. And reason why English has silent letters and screwed up spelling is because of French influence. I also love the way french count.
4483698
How do they count? Badly, I guess.
4483738 See in most European languages 83 would be Eighty Three or in some German influenced it would be Three and Eighty.
In French? 83 is quatre vingt trois. Which would be four twenties and three.
4483752
Ah, I've heard about it once. They're weird.