How to translate sentences from Russian into English? Brief instructions. How to correctly translate English texts, or How to translate thoughts into words Send a request for a free selection of a tutor

Texting is a jeweler’s work, as it requires the person performing it to know many details. Translation from Russian into English is complicated by the fact that these languages ​​belong to different language families, are constructed according to completely different grammatical laws.

It is especially difficult to cope with this type of work for those who are not associated with philological specialties. If the question of how to correctly translate text from Russian into English remains open for you, this article will help you cope with the problem.

Manual translation is the best way

It would seem that, modern technologies can do almost everything for a person, including text translation.

Manual translation is the most ideal option And many students choose this path, considering it the easiest and most effective.

Indeed, isn’t it tempting to complete a complex task with a few clicks of the mouse?

So, let’s answer, translations made by programs will only make the teacher laugh and will definitely come back for revision.

The fact is that electronic applications translate every word, but grammatical structure is not taken into account, so manual translation is the most ideal option.

Independent translation is impossible without the use of dictionaries; in this case, you need to use modern publications that contain at least 50 thousand words.

Electronic dictionaries will also be good helpers, one of the most famous is ABBYY Lingvo (contains vocabulary from various professional fields).

Work algorithms

You can get a good English text from a Russian source by organizing your work this way:

1. Reading Russian text, determining its type, style, structure. These characteristics must be preserved in translation.
2. Search for translations of individual words. Here it is worth arming yourself with a dictionary, which displays all the meanings and shades of meaning of lexical units.
3. Constructing sentences according to grammatical rules in English. Creating a draft of the translation, indicating unclear places in the text.
4. Clarifying ambiguities and correcting them. At this stage, collections of grammatical rules and dictionaries (vocabularies, phraseology, special terminology) will be useful.
5. Checking sentences for articles.
6. Checking the correct spelling of all words (even one letter can radically change the meaning of the word).

Note! The text must be translated exactly according to its meaning, without adding your own conclusions or thoughts to it.

Some experts advise dividing the text into two large stages:

• comprehension;
• playback

Now you can determine the type of text (reasoning, description or narrative), its style (artistic, scientific, official business, journalistic, epistolary). After this, you should read the text again and build its “English language image”.

At the reproduction stage, the text is translated into English: first the primary one (with problem areas identified), then the full one. At this stage, you need to be careful with the selection of words, remember that their meaning is influenced by context, polysemy, metaphors and idioms.

After reproduction, you must check your work for compliance with grammatical and spelling rules.

What should you focus on?

In the process of translating a text, many nuances arise that the translator must take into account:

Note! It is very important to remember about tenses: if in Russian there are only 4 of them, then in English there are 12 tense forms (each of them has its own formula).

In addition, we must not forget about in direct order words in sentences in English (subject, predicate, modifier, object, adverbial) and the existence of participles and gerunds in it.

How to work with phraseology

Many idioms cannot be translated literally, for example, the phraseological unit “buy a pig in a poke” sounds like Buy a pig in a poke (translation – “buy a pig in a poke”), and “calm as a boa constrictor” - As cool as a cucumber (translation – "cold as a cucumber")

The fact is that phraseology is a special language sphere: it absorbs national flavor, reflects the worldview of the people, their traditions. You can correctly translate the text only with a special dictionary.

Please note that translators translate each word in a phraseological unit, without paying attention to national characteristics idiom.

Difficulties may also arise with the translation of metaphors, because they need not only to be translated, but also to preserve the author’s thoughts, perhaps the national flavor.

Thus, translating a text requires not only the mechanical rewriting of Russian words by foreign ones, but its construction according to the rules of grammar, attention to phraseology and the meanings of words.

In this video you will learn about technical translation:

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1. 1. If you don’t know English well, then you need to improve your level of knowledge. This is done by repeating the main grammatical forms and language constructions.
2. 2. For consultation, you need to select suitable literature. You can purchase textbooks on the practice and theory of translation at a bookstore or borrow them from the library. When choosing, you should pay attention to the orientation of the textbook - practical or theoretical. In general, they complement each other, but if you subsequently need to translate texts that are not complex, then a manual on practical translation will suffice.
3. 3. If you can enroll in a translation course, then do it! This will allow you to immediately understand what to do, because you will have the opportunity to ask questions and have your translations reviewed. Such courses are taught in almost all language schools. Before paying for the course, you should find out whether you can attend such classes for free. In this case, you will be able to understand the specifics of the course and the level of teaching and figure out whether it is suitable for you or not.
4. 4. If you don’t have the money or time for such courses, you should start studying on your own. Practice translating the types of texts that you need. These can be technical, journalistic, artistic texts. If you need to learn how to translate scientific articles on a certain topic into Russian, first you should read a couple of similar materials that are written in Russian. You will understand their stylistic features and will not transfer “tracing papers” into them from English. For example, not everyone knows that first-person speech is not encouraged in Russian scientific articles. Therefore, the translation of the phrase “I received the money” in Russian should sound like this: “The money was received,” or, in extreme cases, “We received the money.”

In order to learn how to translate correctly, we will consider an algorithm for the written translation of text from English into Russian. The entire translation process can be divided into two stages: comprehension and reproduction of the text. No matter how strange it may seem, you first need to work with the text without dictionaries or online translator ov (or with their minimal use).

The Slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts / George Orwell /

And only after that proceed directly to the translation.

The sloppiness of our language contributes to the appearance of stupid thoughts in us (J. Orwell)

So, about everything in more detail.

Minimum translation steps - plan:

1. Understanding the text.

First reading - familiar words - topic - style - type.

Second reading - image of the text

2. Play text.

Translation - word - sentence - paragraph.

And the third reading.

Understanding the text

First reading.Experts in the field of translation advise: “Don’t think about what you are reading in another language, try to abstract yourself and simply understand the meaning of the text.”

Wherein rely on familiar words. Don’t rush to say that you don’t know English very well. Even those who have never encountered in English speech, know several hundred English words. Yes it's true. These are words that came into Russian from English, for example, business, manager, merchandiser and international words that came to both English and Russian from Latin, Greek or French, For example, algebra, geography, museum, radio.

You can also test your vocabulary on special websites.

Link familiar words into a common theme. This will make the translation easier by limiting the vocabulary to a narrow range of words, for example: home, sister, daddy, sweet... - the theme of the text is obviously “family”. Limiting all the meanings of words and phrases to a specific topic will help you in the next steps when choosing the right meaning from dozens of possible ones.

Then define the text type:

narration (a story about any events, actions in time),

description (listing the signs or characteristics of something - an object, phenomenon, place),

reasoning (the main feature of which will be proof of something, indication of reasons, persuasion of the reader or listener).

After that, find out the text style:

scientific (which is distinguished by the presence of terms, emphasized logic of presentation and lack of emotions),

official business (in which information is also important, there are no emotions and evaluation, but fewer terms),

journalistic style (its goal is to convince the reader, influence him now by all means - logic and emotionality),

artistic (where imagery and metaphor come to the fore, and logic and consistency are relegated to the background), and conversational style of text (characterized by simplicity, ease and emotions).

Second reading aimed at forming a mental image of the text - how everything read on foreign language, you can say it in your own way. That is, familiar words associated with the topic, style and type of text form its image.

Playing text

Translation - word. Find equivalents of unfamiliar words or combinations in dictionaries, based on the existing image of the text. The most convenient and popular dictionaries are:

lingvo-online.ru - convenient high-quality search for words, stable combinations with them and specific examples in which this word appears.

dic.academic.ru, which is convenient to search for meanings in dozens of specialized dictionaries, for example, scientific, economic, political and others.

multitran.ru is valued for the fact that translation options for rare words and expressions are left here by professional translators who have already encountered these words in practice. There is a live forum where you can find solutions to difficult translation situations.

For even more advanced translations you can use explanatory dictionaries which decipher and explain the meaning of an English word or expression in simpler English words: more often than others, I use urbandictionary.com - many, including the most recent, slang expressions are explained here.

You can also pay attention to dictionary.cambridge.org, thefreedictionary.com.

The choice of meaning of words and combinations is influenced by:

1) Context.

2) Metaphors, Idioms.

3) Polysemy.

1) Context - the environment of the word or phrase being translated.

For example:

the theory of Einstein - Einstein's theory

the theory of Christ - the teachings of Christ.

One word is translated differently in different environments.

2) Metaphors, Idioms. Words and phrases with a figurative meaning are translated equivalently - you need to look for the whole phrase in dictionaries or try to understand the figurative meaning that the author put into it.

For example: I’ll move heaven and earth to achieve my goal - I will move mountains for my goal. Look: there is no word at all in the original, but we see that the sentence - "I will move heaven and earth to achieve my goal"- does not sound quite Russian and we are looking for something that seems to fall out of the rest of the environment - "I will move heaven and earth". We find that this is an idiom, a phraseological unit, and it has a specific dictionary equivalent to “I’ll move mountains.”

3) Polysemy. This is where the limitation of the topic that we made earlier in the second stage, when we created a mental image of the text, will come in handy. Based on this image, we choose the most suitable one from dozens of meanings.

For example:

Some sort of religious thing? - For religious reasons?

And then he did that odd thing. - And then he did a very strange thing.

Janey looked around the room for the nearest thing with which to hit her. - Janie began to look around the room in search of a heavy object.

By the way, the most ambiguous word in English it is set which has 127 values.

Ignoring these three indicators - context, figurative meaning and ambiguity - can be easily seen. Copy the text into an online translator and get technical translation- a set of words, not always connected and often meaningless. Why? Details.

Translation is a sentence. We move on to the next stage and connect familiar words and equivalents of unfamiliar ones (just found in dictionaries) into sentences.

At the same time, we remember that English has a fixed word order, in Russian free.

Therefore, when choosing the meaning of a word, you need to look at its place in the sentence.

In Russian: Mom washed the frame - Mom washed the frame - Mom washed the frame.

In English: mother washed frame, frame washed mother(changing the order of words changes the meaning).

Particular attention is paid to verbs. Verbs in English have a number of unique features: there are phrasal verbs(get after - to pursue, take after - to be similar, etc.), which are not in Russian.

In English there are 16 tenses (simple, continuous, perfect) - in Russian there are three.

Then we move on to writing sentences into paragraphs to express a larger idea in the text. What could not be said in one sentence, for example, a joke or an author’s metaphor, can be moved to another place in the paragraph, preserving the original idea.

And finally, third reading- now my translation. Read the resulting text, correct all errors (spelling, grammar, punctuation). In addition to the text checking function built into Word, there are online services. For example text.ru.

In the resulting translation pay attention to compliance: the meaning of the text, general theme, type, style, whether the context is taken into account when translating, whether the author’s metaphors and idioms are correctly conveyed and the meanings of polysemantic words are chosen.

Very important. Before reading the resulting translation, you need to take a break from the text for a while. Ideally, have a cup of coffee or take a walk. The third reading should be “from the outside.”

© Obzhorin Alexey, 2015

If it doesn't work, try again.
If you don’t understand the text of the paragraph, re-read it.
I couldn’t translate the text into English - read and translate again.

I remember these simple rules schooling. The school doesn't say that you can change the method or approach. And they continue to feed students with the illusion that if they “suffer for a long time, something will work out”

Albert Einstein said: “Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result is the first sign of insanity.”

Surprisingly, it is still taught exactly according to this principle in almost all schools in Russia.

Let me give you a simple example. How are they taught to translate text at school?

IN primary school Children are taught to translate text like this: you read - find unfamiliar words - translate them - translate the text.

In practice, this process looks like this:

The child begins to read the text when he sees an unfamiliar word, asks mom or dad how it is translated? (because it’s easier than looking for it yourself) If mom or dad don’t speak, then he looks up the word in the dictionary
Continues reading the text.
A new unfamiliar word is a new dead end.
Continues reading.

It often happens that in the middle of the text the child asks his parents for a word whose translation he has already asked.

And at the end of such a reading, he does not understand at all what he read about. In addition, all the same words will be asked again.

And, on the stake, start over. What do they tell the child in this case?

Read the text again and translate it again if you don’t understand the meaning.

When my son entered second grade, we moved to another area of ​​the city and changed schools.

At the new school, children studied English from the first grade. Therefore, they already translated texts and taught poems.

I remember Andrei’s text translation tasks very well. Because it was then that, taking into account my knowledge, I used a completely different algorithm for translating texts with the child.

Which my son really liked, and therefore saved me nerve cells.

Here's what we did to translate texts effectively:

1. At first, Andrey skimmed the text and underlined unfamiliar words
2. In the new text there were sometimes 3, sometimes 10
3. Next, we wrote out new words on separate small cards the size of a business card. On the one side - English word, on the other – translation.
4. Learned words through association or context
5. Knowing all the words of the text, the child began reading
6. And therefore, I had no obstacles in the form of new words, I easily translated the text

Watch the video and 4 steps that teach the correct text translation algorithm:

During the program you:

• Learn 1000 new English words
• Do you want to know how to instill an interest in language in a child?
• Pronunciation secrets English sounds from a speech therapist with the correct setting
• Make and learn a top map of words needed for travel
• Master an effective method of memorizing words (association method and context method)
• What awaits you in the course is not the theory of language, but the development of technology in practice

Also you:

• Learn 8 mistakes that parents and children make when learning a language
• Secrets of preparing translation and retelling of school texts
• What are articles? How to stop confusing articles once and for all?
• Complex grammar in simple language(Times of the English language using the author’s technique of Renata Kirilina “Skyscraper”)
• Modal verbs
• Formation of interrogative, affirmative and negative statements in all tenses
• Remember the important ones set expressions language
• Practice 4 language skills: reading, writing, understanding, speaking

As a result of the course you.

The question of the correctness of the translation may initially be perceived as absurd. Think about it, do you need translation?

Many English teachers have long been inclined to believe that learning English WITHOUT translation can be much better, because in this case you can use communication technique, allowing you to master the language as children do. Of course, people should be divided into several categories here:

• people who professionally translate texts;
• freelance translators;
• interpreters;
• students.

Depending on what category of people you consider yourself to be, let’s consider how to work with text correctly.

So, what do professionals do when translating text? Such work only at first glance seems simple and quite fast. But all this is just a first impression.

What is required from professional translator who might you want to become?

The first place is always to work on the text, its structure and carefully read the source material. The second stage always involves working on words that require additional attention. Next, a draft of the translation is made, indicating unclear places in the text that will be worked on in the future. Of course, you will think that such work is overwhelming. But this is exactly how high-quality translation should be done if this is your main job.

It’s another matter if the translation is performed by a freelance translator in a short time. Some points may be missed, but the main task is to correctly translate the text without adding your own inferences and conclusions to it, because, otherwise, the meaning of the source material may change dramatically. Of course, we are talking about texts related to terminology, production or, for example, business, where any word can literally cost money.

How does an interpreter work? An interpreter is the only person on whom further successful work with foreigners depends. A simultaneous interpreter translates thoughts, not words. He captures the general essence, tone of the conversation and tries to convey information as much as possible, taking into account the peculiarities of the culture and customs of the country. Such a person always has extensive life and language experience and is aware of all kinds of taboos. For example, Germans do not talk about war and Jews. Americans don't talk about problems, politics, religion and lack of money. Therefore, the head of a simultaneous interpreter must contain all the necessary information so as not to put foreigners into a “stupor” and not to disrupt a multi-thousand dollar contract. When we watch films in English, we often notice that the translation is carried out differently than what was said in the original. This point should also be taken into account when different cultures differ. After all, sometimes three words are enough to express your attitude towards a person, but when translating THOSE WORDS will not be enough. However, there are also opposite situations; in any case, it is necessary to focus on the context.

If you still don't lose hope of learning how to translate correctly English texts, here are some useful tips:

• don't translate EVERYTHING unknown words, try to understand the essence of the text;
• pay attention to word forms, remember that there is a participle and a gerund;
• look at the endings of verbs: this will help you understand both the time of what is happening and identify the character;
• use modern dictionaries, which contain about 500,000 words;
• do not forget about the existence of electronic dictionaries, such as ABBYY Lingvo, which contains vocabulary, as well as phrases that are used in professional fields;
• remember the exceptions that occur in the language (swim - swam or die - dying), as well as (put away, put across, put on, put down);
• don’t forget that one word can be both a noun and a verb at the same time, for example, ‘cook’ – cook/cook

Study like a professional and translate texts with pleasure!