Literary translation from English into Russian is a complex art. All its subtleties, of course, cannot be summarized in one article. However, there are a few simple rules that every translator should know.
Instructions
Step 1
Decide what will be the main thing for you in the source code. Translation, the purpose of which was to preserve the accuracy of the wording (for example, in a popular science or philosophical work), is very different from a translation, the author of which sought to convey the poetry of the word and the melody of speech.
Step 2
Be sure to use a dictionary. If you do not know the exact translation of a word, do not try to guess its meaning from the context. Sometimes this guess can be correct, but more often it is wrong.
Step 3
The rules of the English language require obligatory qualifying pronouns, for example, “He nodded his head”. In Russian, qualifying pronouns are used only when the situation becomes uncertain without them. The above phrase should be translated not as “He nodded his head”, but as “He nodded his head”, or even better “He nodded”, since the Russian verb already implies with which part of the body the action is performed.
Step 4
Words of different languages, similar to each other not only in meaning, but also in sound or spelling, are called "friends of the translator." However, much more often there are "false friends of the translator": words that sound or are spelled similar, but mean different things. For example, the word babushka, borrowed by the English from the Russian language, is translated into Russian not as “grandmother”, but as “headscarf”.
In the public domain, you can find whole dictionaries of "false friends of the translator." Check with them whenever you think that a particular English word is similar to Russian.
Step 5
In cases where the dictionary gives several meanings for an English word, check the final version according to the context. For example, the adjective Caucasian can mean both "Caucasian, belonging to the Caucasus" and "belonging to the white race, Caucasian".
Likewise, the adjective Georgian, depending on the context, is translated as "Georgian", "located in the US state of Georgia" or "dating back to the era of King George in England." In the latter sense, it is often used in relation to the style of furniture.
Step 6
In English literary works, it is very common for several synonyms to be used together to reinforce meaning. For example, in the exclamation “I hate you, I abhor you!” the verbs to hate and to abhor mean "to hate." When translating such phrases, it is possible, depending on the context, to use similar Russian synonyms or to rephrase the sentence while retaining its intonation coloring.
Step 7
It is sometimes difficult for a translator, especially a beginner, to keep in mind the context of several sentences, let alone paragraphs. Therefore, be sure to re-read your work in order to identify and correct stylistic and factual errors: repetition of the same words, translation without taking into account previous events, etc.
