Natalia Shakhova. Who can predict

Who can predict
Natalya Shakhova

Publication date: March 28, 2000

- Can you play the violin?

- I don’t know, I haven’t tried it, but I’ve seen it many times and I think it will work.

For some reason, everyone laughs at the ambitions of a violinist candidate, but if the art of music is replaced by the art of translation (I, they say, have read a lot of translations and think that I can be a translator), then the statement seems more plausible. Apparently, many people do not consider translation an art. I'll try to explain why I think differently.

In ancient times, there were practically no language barriers, because people communicated mainly with their closest neighbors. With the development of navigation, other means of transportation, and later - means of communication, the need arose to talk with speakers of other languages, read works of their literature, etc. This is how the need for translators arose, and then they themselves.

Depending on the type of activity, translators can primarily be divided into oral and written. The first group, in turn, is divided into consecutive and simultaneous translators, and the second into translators of technical and fiction literature. From an everyday point of view, many people think that anyone who knows two languages ​​can work as a translator, and that every translator is capable of performing all types of translations.

In reality, everything turns out to be much more complicated. First of all, the opinion that anyone who knows two languages ​​can translate from one of them to the other is as far from the truth as the statement that anyone who knows how to write can be a writer. In fact, in order to convey information received in one language by means of another, you need, firstly, to understand this information and, secondly, to be able to express your understanding. It is quite obvious that neither one nor the other skill comes automatically with knowledge of the language. After all, even in their native language, not everyone can understand the report of a mathematician, chemist, or philosopher. And the ability to present information coherently, unfortunately, is not given to everyone. It is known, for example, that many outstanding scientists were lousy lecturers, and some even had to invite co-authors to present their results in writing.

Exactly the same myth is the idea of ​​the interchangeability of oral and written, artistic and technical translators. It also cannot be said that translations of one category are obviously easier than translations of another, and that anyone who can cope with some will also cope with others. Arranging translators by rank is as pointless as ranking doctors of different specialties. It is unlikely that anyone would argue that nephrologists are more qualified physicians than urologists. Just as a cardiologist would be baffled by a request to fill a dental canal, in the same way Pasternak would have experienced difficulties if he had been asked to translate a radio textbook. At the same time, a radio engineering specialist will most likely not be able to cope with the translation of Hamlet. And if simultaneous interpreters are often amazed at the ability of consecutive interpreters to retain in their memory a five-minute fragment from a speaker’s speech in order to later present this fragment in another language, then the ability of simultaneous interpreters to speak simultaneously with the speaker obviously leaves everyone else in awe.

It seems that different types of translation require different abilities and temperaments. An interpreter must be able to compose himself: his task is to convey information as fully as possible here and now. As a rule, he does not have the opportunity to rummage through dictionaries or consult with specialists. He must make a rabbit stew, even if he only has a cat at his disposal.

Let's take, for example, the notorious "Kuzka's mother." Can you imagine how difficult it is to translate such a phrase impromptu? I don’t know what the translator of that historical speech by Khrushchev did in his time, but in a less senior audience, another translator in a similar situation said: “The speaker joked, using a completely untranslatable play on words, and I think he will be pleased if you all now you'll laugh." As you can guess, the desired effect was achieved.

They also told me about an English translator who was invited to dub the film during the screening. After the show started, it turned out that the film was in Arabic. The translator, completely unfamiliar with Arabic, hesitated for a second, and then began to explain what was happening to the best of his intelligence, imitating translation. The audience, without noticing the substitution, was completely satisfied, having received a complete picture of the film. But isn’t this the purpose of translation?

These funny (although they hardly seem so to the characters themselves) stories demonstrate what qualities are necessary for an interpreter: resourcefulness, the ability to overcome gaps in their knowledge with the help of common sense and general erudition. Plus artistry, the ability to transform into a speaker, without which it is difficult to convey all the information to listeners.

A translator of fiction may be completely deprived of all this. He may be shy and slow-witted, may be afraid of public speaking, stutter and mumble. But at the same time, masterfully master literary skill, the ability to imitate the style and style of the original source. After all, where an interpreter can make do with one word, using it - as often happens in oral speech - many times, a translator will have to choose a bunch of synonyms: you must agree, it would be strange to see the word “beautiful” seven times in a row in a description of, say, a sunset !

Qualified technical translators most often specialize in one fairly narrow area. Advertisements like: “I translate technical, legal, economic, medical, and any other texts” arouse mistrust among professionals - it is extremely doubtful that such a translator can really do the job efficiently. This is as unlikely as the ability of a school teacher to teach Russian, mathematics, geography and drawing equally well. Of course, such people also exist, but very rarely.

Most often, technical translators specialize in the field in which they received their education. That is, lawyers who know a foreign language begin to translate legal texts, and physicists begin to translate physical texts. At the same time, many people think that it is enough to be a good specialist in your field to become a good translator. The logical inconsistency of such a conclusion is well illustrated by the following anecdote-dialogue:

- Doctor! Will I play the violin after the operation?

- You will, you will.

- Strange... I haven’t played before.

Indeed, if a person does not know how to express his own thoughts well in his native language, then he will not be able to express others’ thoughts either, that’s the problem! In my opinion, of the three pillars on which technical translation stands: understanding a foreign language, proficiency in a native language and knowledge of the subject area - the underdevelopment of the first animal does the least harm. Even if a non-specialist, through common sense and a good knowledge of grammar, understands a situation that is completely new to him, then without knowing the necessary terminology, he will not be able to convey his understanding to a specialist reader. And the consequences can be the most dire. After all, if during translation we call “hard disk” instead of “hard” “hard disk”, then this will only cause a smile, but if in an algebraic article we translate “prime ring” with the words “primary ring” and not “primary”, then this is ( take my word for it!) will make the theorem incorrect, since there is also a “primary ring”, but it corresponds to the English “primary ring”.

If the translator understands everything correctly, but is tongue-tied, this can make reading no less difficult than incorrect terminology. For example, how much time will it take you to understand the following phrase: “There are no telecommunications networks in Russia yet and there won’t be any soon”?

At the same time, a good specialist can fill gaps in knowledge of a foreign language by understanding the essence of the matter. Let him, for example, not know the intricacies of using the preposition “within,” but he knows exactly what the relative position of the objects being described is and how it is customary to talk about it in Russian. One mathematician I know even translated an entire monograph from English, although he never studied this language. He simply perfectly understood all the theorems presented in the book and their proofs and could, looking at the formulas in which everything is clear without translation, reproduce the contents of the book in Russian. Although the only, relatively speaking, literary fragment - the preface - is quite difficult to read in his presentation.

Many people think that the most important thing for successful translation is to know a lot of words in a foreign language (or at least have a bunch of dictionaries at hand). Unfortunately, this is not enough. Although experienced translators, as a rule, do have a large vocabulary, knowledge of words in itself does not guarantee high quality translation. The trouble is that there is no one-to-one correspondence between words in different languages. It very rarely happens that a word from one language is always translated into another language in the same way. As a rule, you have to choose one of several options based on the context.

Let's take the word "table", familiar from school days. Anyone who has devoted at least a year to the English language knows one of its meanings - “table”. Most people also know the second one - “table”. But how many people know the verb “to table”? Moreover, it also has many meanings, including “put off” and “put up for discussion.” And if it is often easy to distinguish a table from a table based on context, then it can be much more difficult to understand whether a question has been postponed or put up for discussion! This word also denotes a table setting, a company gathered at a table, in palmistry - a palm, etc. At the same time, if you decide to use it to translate the combination “desk” into English, then the English are unlikely to understand without additional explanation that we are talking about an object that they call “desk”. And there are also such wonderful words as “defeat”, which as a noun is translated by the word “defeat”, and as a verb - by the word “win”!

That is, knowing the meaning of words is necessary, but not sufficient to understand the text. Like the pieces of a children's mosaic, words make it possible to put together completely different pictures from the same set. (“The father’s teacher entered the room” and “the teacher’s father entered the room” - do you think it’s easy for a foreigner to comprehend the obvious differences in these phrases? Not to mention the famous “execute cannot be pardoned,” where the meaning depends on the placement of the comma.) And sometimes even identical phrases will be translated completely differently depending on the context. (It’s easy to understand that in some cases the phrase “take it for yourself” will correspond to the meaning “I’m giving it to you,” and in another - “I don’t need anything from you.”) And don’t think that this is a rare situation, some kind of that is linguistic exoticism. To one degree or another, the problem of ambiguity constantly faces the translator. And the choice of one of several options is based on his common sense, erudition, and understanding of the situation. The following three examples illustrate how serious a role poor choice of words can play.

Recently, the Finnish Ambassador in Oslo addressed Norwegian journalists with an unusual petition. He urgently asked the pen and microphone workers to use a different name for the caps with slits for the eyes, in which Norwegian robbers are in the habit of going out fishing. The fact is that since the war of 1939, such hats have been called “Finnish hoods” in Norway, because during that frosty winter, compassionate Norwegian women knitted the Finnish soldiers - those whom we used to call White Finns - hats of exactly this style. “We don’t want Finns to be associated in Norway with every robbery,” the ambassador explained with an embarrassed smile.

Even under Soviet rule, I was on an excursion in a small Transcarpathian town. Among other attractions, we were shown the tree of Russian-Ukrainian friendship planted on the top of the hill. Unfortunately, a few years earlier, the tree was struck by lightning (and lightning, as you know, likes to strike trees standing alone on the hills), but a shoot was taken from the dead trunk and planted. However, stubborn lightning struck again in the same place, so the seedling that appeared to our eyes had a very pitiful appearance. This story, in addition to the obvious physical and botanical mistakes, is also associated with a linguistic embarrassment (in Stalin’s times, all this would have been called the machinations of enemies of the people) - a linden tree was chosen as the tree of friendship.

During her visit to the Middle East, Hillary Clinton found herself in an unpleasant situation that, according to the Times, could seriously damage her plans for election to the Senate. The Americans really didn’t like the fact that Hillary remained silent when, in her presence, Arafat’s wife accused the Israelis of poisoning Palestinian women and children. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Hillary blamed the translator, saying that she was unaware of the severity of the attacks until she read the printed text of the speech.

Everyone has to choose their words carefully from time to time, but translators do this from morning to evening, day after day. The whole meaning of their profession, the prestige of which has fallen sharply in recent years, comes down to the correct choice of words. We all grew up listening to English folk songs in Marshak’s translations, read Heine in Blok’s and Lermontov’s translations, and didn’t even think about what language the musketeers used to communicate with each other. Now the reader has to keep his eyes open. For example, to understand this dialogue:

- I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.

- Yes, she presses a little! -

you need to know that the characters in the translated novel originally spoke English, and in English the Russian idiom “to be in someone else’s shoes” corresponds to the idiom “to wear someone else’s shoes.” Only then does this conversation make sense.

Previously, the volume of translated literature (as, indeed, everything else) was strictly regulated by the competent authorities, so that it would not inadvertently become clear that Soviet literature constituted a smaller part of the world literature. And there were only a very few foreign films worthy of release on Soviet screens. Therefore, the best of the best graduates of language universities were allowed to translate. In addition, many major writers and poets (Akhmatova, for example) often had no other opportunity to publish and, among other things, to earn a living other than by translating foreign authors.

As a result, in Soviet times, the translation of novels and dubbing of films was carried out at the highest level, and the invisible work of professionals carefully conveyed to us the thoughts and images of the source text. (If you do not take into account those distortions that were deliberately introduced according to the instructions of the censors.) Now everything is different: on the one hand, the volume of translations has increased sharply (the stacks of detective stories and romance novels alone are worth it!), and on the other hand, they pay less for them than for computer typing (another Russian economic anomaly). Therefore, crowds of amateurs replaced professionals. All those whose health does not allow them to unload the carriages and whose appetite forces them to translate fifty pages a day. The wave of hackwork that has swept the country has led to the fact that the reader, and even more so the viewer, is often left alone with the mysteries of a foreign culture.

For example, thoughtful fans of television action films (there are probably such people?) may have noticed how often the name Roger appears on the screen. “I'm on target, Roger,” one pilot reports. “I’m heading for you, Roger,” the other one answers. Moreover, in other episodes of the film these characters have different names, they may even be women! What's the matter? It’s very simple: Americans use the word “Roger” in cases where we say: “I understand, I’m moving to the reception.” But the hack translator doesn’t care about this: Roger means Roger, names are not translated.

In fact, the translator’s task is much broader than selecting verbal equivalents. With regard to fiction, it is more or less obvious that a literal translation will in many cases distort the author's intention. For example, if, when translating a love story, instead of the phrase “with all her flesh she felt the masculine nature piercing her,” we write specifically - as in the original - what pierced what, then such a literal translation may alienate romantic readers who are not ready to be sweetly transfixed by medically naturalistic sketches.

It is less obvious that a similar situation arises with technical texts. It would seem that a TV is a TV in Africa, so the translation of instructions for it (or for any other device) should be as literal as possible. However, everything is not so simple. The fact is that different countries have their own standards for the presentation of all kinds of information, and deviation from these standards leads to unpredictable consequences.

For example, number formats and units of measurement are a common source of confusion. If you indicate in a letter to an American that the meeting will take place on April 5, then there is a chance that you will miss him by a month: for us we are talking about April, and for him it is about May. A book listed at $2,500 will not cost you two and a half dollars. An inscription on a can of whitewash stating that the contents are enough to paint 5 square feet will not tell the Russian consumer anything, and a warning that antifreeze liquid for wiping car windows in winter cannot be used at temperatures below zero will simply shock him . A friend of mine was fined by the police several times before she realized that Russian road signs indicate the speed limit in kilometers per hour, while the speedometer of her foreign car indicates the speed in miles. It’s good that the miles were American (they are a little more than 1.6 km), and not Danish (equal to seven and a half kilometers) or - even worse - Swedish (equal to ten kilometers)!

However, the amounts wasted by a fast driver or an unlucky buyer of foreign white cannot be compared with the losses incurred by NASA due to the same inconsistency in units of measurement. One mission to Mars failed due to poor international cooperation. The equipment for this flight was prepared in Europe, using the metric system, and the software was prepared in America, where only feet are used. As a result, the spacecraft, approaching Mars, began to change course, estimating the distance in feet, while the instruments gave data in meters. You can imagine what came of this!

But the point is not only in the difference in numerical characteristics: style, manner of presentation, and form of presentation of the material play an equally significant role. For example, one Norwegian translator said that when translating American press releases, she has to discard half of the adjectives and somewhat reduce the overall enthusiasm of the presentation, otherwise readers will perceive the news message as advertising. And the Swede said that in Italian tourist brochures the smallest attraction is presented as the eighth wonder of the world, which is completely unacceptable for the Swedish reader.

It turns out that a detailed German user manual is very difficult to translate into Norwegian without the reader feeling like they are being treated like a child. After all, if the user perceives the instructions as a manual for idiots, he may stop reading it, rashly stick a plug into the wrong socket and burn everything out.

There are even special rules here. For example, in Canada, instructions are supposed to be drawn up for an eighth-grader, and in the United States, for a fifth-grader. (Remember some of our “Personnel Evacuation Scheme in the Event of an Emergency.” For its literal translation, an American translator can simply be fired!)

Or such a moment as an illustration. It would seem that they can be left alone during translation. No matter how it is! For example, in some countries the use of images of body parts is considered offensive. For them, all the palms and pointing fingers that often decorate instructions have to be removed. And recently, the Japanese company Nintendo completely innocently came under fire from anti-fascists. The board game released by the company for the domestic (Japanese) market contained a card with an image of a hieroglyph, which has long symbolized good luck and prosperity in Eastern cultures. However, the game was brought to America and bought by a little Jewish boy who saw a swastika in this hieroglyph and was horrified. Although the Nazi swastika is a mirror image of this hieroglyph and Nintendo did not supply the game to the American market through official channels, the company felt it necessary to apologize and remove the ill-fated card from the set. (It’s a shame that just a decade and a half of the fascist regime, which captured an essentially insignificant part of the globe, completely erased the centuries during which this symbol was used throughout the Eastern world for peaceful purposes.)

In general, ignorance of language specifics can greatly harm when introducing goods to the international market. For example, several years ago, when offering an American tourist the drink “Pshit”, which was popular at that time in France, local sellers learned to pronounce the initial sound very carefully so that the Americans would not hear the word “shit” (shit), and still the drink was not in particular demand among English-speaking population. In the same way, it is not clear who came up with the idea of ​​importing coffee to Russia under the attractive name “Mysore”?!

In principle, a good translator must take all these nuances into account in his work. How to use a pie recipe if the ingredients are in pounds and the temperature is in Fahrenheit? Can such a text be considered a translation? Of course, it all depends on the definition. Therefore, recently translation has been replaced by a broader concept: localization. It is most often used in relation to computer programs. Indeed, in this area the need for some additional changes - beyond the translation of words from one language to another - is especially obvious. The simplest example: Russian words are on average longer than English ones, so when localizing an English-language program (adapting it to Russian conditions), you first have to increase the fields intended for entering words or reduce the font. And when localizing a diary program, you often need to change the templates for recording time (13:45 instead of 1:45 pm) and telephone numbers (123-45-67 instead of 123-4567), otherwise such a program will be inconvenient for a Russian user. Then we need to remove all these countless “pleases”: well, don’t use them in our instructions! (And when translating in the opposite direction, “please” must be added, otherwise it will turn out too rude.)

By the way, about politeness. One of my Russian acquaintances wrote computer programs for a Korean customer and often encountered the fact that seemingly accepted work turned out to be rejected. Moreover, he understood this only after several exchanges of messages. Having read the standard complimentary beginning of the letter, he skimmed over its content, not realizing that it left no stone unturned in his work. In the same way, if you start your letter to a foreign partner with a literal translation of the phrase “we invite you to find an opportunity to pay for our trip,” it is easy to lose this partner. (The Russian addressee may not like the idea itself, but if in Russian letters such turns of phrase are found all the time, then in English they look completely wild.)

In a broad sense, localization is necessary not only when translating computer program texts. They say that localization of products was once necessary even in the manufacture of galoshes. The fact is that this type of footwear is very popular in many eastern countries (at least it was popular during the events described), where they are worn as street shoes over soft leather boots with thin soles. The Soviet Union decided to find a new market for its mighty rubber industry and delivered a batch of (new and sweet) galoshes to one of the Islamic countries. However, for some reason local buyers avoided them. The reason for this boycott turned out to be quite unusual: it turned out that the green lining of these rubber products was completely unacceptable to the Islamic world. Soviet exporters unexpectedly showed flexibility: the next (and, it seems, all subsequent since then) batches of galoshes had a red lining, and proud Islamists were able to symbolically trample the now banner of the damned atheists.

Most people tend to overestimate the role of words. They don't understand how much is conveyed, for example, by intonation. By the way, this is one of the reasons why the statements of Russians often seem impolite to foreigners. We all understand perfectly well when the phrase “you go get some bread” sounds like an order, and when it sounds like a request. But a foreigner sees in both cases only the absence of formal signs of a request (please, I ask you, etc.).

Gestures convey even more information. Everyone can easily imagine with what colors the absolutely neutral phrase “look at him” can be colored by choosing certain gestures in combination with the appropriate intonation!

But most of all the supporting information is hidden in life experience. For example, in a trolleybus a girl says to her mother: “Let’s ride in the driver’s cabin.” Mom begins to explain that this is impossible, but the girl indignantly points to the advertisement: “The cost of travel coupons from the driver is 2 rubles 50 kopecks.” To correctly understand this intricate text, you need to know that no one rides in the cab except the driver and that the driver sells subscription coupons. When talking with children, you often realize that in order to correctly perceive our words, they lack a lot of information that seems obvious to us. When talking to foreigners, they rarely think about this. Usually we simply are not aware of what basic information we need to have in order to understand what sometimes seems like a completely elementary text. For example, I told an American who speaks Russian the following joke-dialogue:

- Ivanov!

- I!

- What a rare surname!

- Yes, sir.

The American smiled politely and complained that Russian humor had always been a mystery to him. I began to explain the situation in detail: they say, this is a roll call in the army, the surname Ivanov is very common in Russia, so the phrase “What a rare surname!” causes confusion in the listener. All this was clear to my American interlocutor. The word “sir” turned out to be a stumbling block for him. Not knowing the rules in the Russian army, he did not realize that this word takes the conversation abroad and leads to an unexpected turn in the plot.

With jokes, of course, there are especially many difficulties. One translator, having received a seemingly easy order to translate a batch of greeting cards, complained that she had absolutely no idea how to translate the text of a postcard depicting cats and dogs falling from the sky: after all, the English idiom “rain of cats and dogs” corresponds to the Russian "it's raining cats and dogs". What can I recommend here?

A simple translation of a text - without taking into account realities - often does not convey to the reader all the necessary information. For example, when I first read (in Russian) “Life on Borrow” by Remarque, I was puzzled by the characteristics of one of the characters. Let me remind you a little of the plot: towards the end of the novel, its hero - the racer Clerfe - has an accident and dies. Before this, he manages to draw up a will in favor of the woman he loves. However, then his sister, with whom relations were broken off long ago, appears and begins to fiercely fight for Clerfe’s inheritance. So it was said about this sister that she was dressed in a custom-made suit. I remember wondering for a long time how this characterizes her: as a person with a non-standard figure, or what? I recently re-read this novel again. In the new translation, the woman was dressed in a well-tailored suit. And everything fell into place: Remarque wanted to emphasize that she was well provided for and that it was not extreme need that forced her to commit immoral acts. The translator understood this and managed to express the spirit of the original in Russian, perhaps deviating somewhat from its letter.

Due to cultural differences, the same characteristic of a person may be perceived as positive by speakers of one language and as negative by speakers of another. (In particular, my Russian friend was amazed to learn that in Sweden Carlson is considered a negative character.) Therefore, with a literal translation, it is possible, for example, to distort the author’s attitude towards his character. I fully admit that Iznurenkov is from “The Twelve Chairs” with his wild gestures and endless exclamations like: “Ah! Ah! High class! This cat is extremely fluffy!” - will evoke in Italians completely different emotions than Ilf and Petrov were counting on. (What an Italian translator should do in this case is a big mystery for me personally!)

In general, the difference in cultures poses insurmountable problems for the translator of fiction. Moreover, if we have at least a general idea about the difference in formal norms (let’s say everyone knows that when entering an Orthodox church a man must take off his headdress, and when entering a mosque - his shoes), then we often don’t think about emotional, ethical differences at all. After all, what serves as an expression of extreme indignation among the reserved English may seem like a friendly comment to the same expansive Italians. A flowery compliment that will please a Russian can offend an American, and in Saudi Arabia you can even go to jail for it.

Why, for example, the standard American "Shit!" When dubbing films, they usually translate "Damn!"? Some will say: for reasons of decency. May be so. But it seems to me personally that the word “damn,” while not corresponding to the word “shit” in meaning, is more consistent with it in emotional intensity. Nobody will say: "Shit!" - hitting himself on the finger with a hammer. In Russian, “shit” is a more rude and, so to speak, “targeted” curse. But from Lynn Wisson’s book about Russian-American marriages, I learned that our harmless “Ugh!” can cause family conflict: “Why are you spitting on me?” - the American asked his Russian wife with offense. It is clear that a literal translation of curse words is useless. Here it is important to understand the speaker’s emotions and find an adequate expression for them in another language.

To summarize, we can say that the most important thing in a translator’s work is living at the intersection of two (or more) cultures. Constantly faced with the characteristics of these cultures, he must have a good understanding of their differences and be able to convey information as accurately as possible from the bearer of one culture to the bearer of another. This is the specificity of the translator’s profession.

It is known that many professions leave their mark on a person. It's hard to imagine a careless archivist or a chauffeur with a slow reaction time. Moreover, if in the first case a person faces dismissal, then in the second the danger is much more serious. Therefore, perhaps, we are not talking about how his profession affects a person, but, on the contrary, about what kind of people can do this or that business. That is, a kind of natural selection occurs, and in some cases - as with drivers - in the literal sense of the word.

I had a hypothesis that a quality common to all translators could be increased sensitivity. After all, people who are professionally engaged in the selection of equivalents of words, concepts and expressions of one language in another, inevitably become imbued with the idea of ​​​​the possibility of different approaches to the same phenomenon.

For example, a Russian person knows from childhood that a knife is masculine and if the knife falls, then, according to a sign, one should expect a man to visit. We will not argue about the reliability of such forecasts, but to a German, for example, the very idea of ​​a connection between a knife and a man is completely alien, because in German the word “Messer” is neuter. If the Germans had a similar sign, then it could connect the fall of the knife with the arrival of a child, since the word “Kind” is also neuter (no matter how strange it may seem to us!). Understanding that a knife does not have to have a masculine gender in all languages ​​leads to a revolutionary revolution in the mind.

All these similarities and differences, which ordinary people do not think about, are the source of daily worries for translators. Due to the nature of their activity, they constantly have to translate similar words in completely different ways, or vice versa - to convey different expressions with the same equivalent. Questions that sound completely natural to a translator often cause confusion among other people (as one American translator put it: a monolingual person simply won’t understand this).

One of my clients, a Taiwanese company, develops computer programs that, as programs often do, ask people questions (in writing) and expect answers from them. So, the Taiwanese translate these questions, answer options and various valuable messages displayed on the computer screen into all languages ​​of the world so that not only the Chinese can use their programs. They send me texts in English so that I can translate them into Russian. And the same problem always arises. In order to translate a message like "not defined", I need to know what exactly is not defined: a function, a parameter or a value. The Russian reader understands that I need to select the desired option from a whole arsenal of possibilities: “not defined”, “not defined”, “not defined” or even “not defined”. For the Taiwanese, I write entire linguistic treatises to explain the not idle nature of my curiosity. Moreover, the questions I have are different every time. Let's say about the word "display" I want to know whether it is a noun or a verb, and if it is a verb, then in the imperative mood or not. Since neither I nor my interlocutor speak English as a native language, asking these tricky questions and getting comprehensive answers takes a lot of effort.

And when I translated a book with a large number of names of real people, I unsuccessfully tried to get the author to decipher the initials. "What's this John C. Brown's middle name?" - I asked. “I don’t know, no one uses it,” the author answered. The idea that Clifford and Charles should be designated differently in the Russian translation was completely alien to him.

Speaking of Charles! Do you know what the long-suffering Prince Charles will be called in Russia if he does become king of Great Britain? King Charles III! This is a typical situation when the same words, traveling along winding paths around the world, end up turning into different ones. Not all Englishmen can correctly name the river on the banks of which the Kremlin stands. They know that the Kremlin is in Moscow, but they don’t remember what the river is called. Why? But because they call the city Moscow, and the river Moskva. These words don't have much in common! Why do we call New Orleans New Orleans and New York New York? What's the logic here? For example, the country of Côte d'Ivoire used to be called the Ivory Coast, and then suddenly demanded from the international community that its name stop being translated into other languages. And they renamed it - where can it go?

In general, attempts at directive control of a foreign language seem completely unnatural to me. After the collapse of the USSR, many former republics are trying to impose their own rules on the Russian language: either Tallinn is required to be written with two “n”s, then the pretext for Ukraine is changed (they say, the form “in Ukraine” is an expression of Great Russian chauvinism!), or they are forced, breaking the tongue, to pronounce "Kyrgyzstan" or "Ashgabat". Just like teenagers in adolescence: don’t call me Masha anymore, I’m Maria. It’s good that not all countries have such painful pride. The French, for example, are not bothered by the letter “w” we inserted into the name of their capital (but they too could have struck a pose: what are you hinting at?), and New Zealand, fortunately, does not require that it be called New -Zeland.

So, returning to my hypothesis about the character traits common to translators: it is quite possible, I reasoned, that translators (on average, of course) are more tolerant, accommodating and sensitive people than people of other professions. Every day they try to adapt, strive to understand someone else's point of view, to look at the situation from the other side. It would be surprising if this did not leave its mark on a person’s personality.

However, this theory of mine about the special mental organization of translators does not seem to have stood the test of practice. The fact is that modern technologies in the form of the Internet provide a unique opportunity to create international interest clubs that unite fishing enthusiasts, football experts, jigsaw specialists or virtuoso violinists. These clubs are called newsgroups, forums, or mailing lists. Naturally, translators also have their own teleconferences. One of them, Lantra, unites more than a thousand translators from around the world, so this mini-community can be considered as a kind of testing ground for testing different assumptions. So, watching his members, I began to seriously doubt my theory.

In principle, Lantra is designed so that everyone can ask a question related to translation activities and receive an answer from competent fellow workers. However, over the long years of the existence of this international team, many of its members have become acquainted in absentia or in person, entered into informal relationships (sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile), and messages sent to Lantra are not only business ones. As a result, quite often very violent altercations arise.

If the events in Yugoslavia naturally caused heated debates, then it would seem, how could New Year’s greetings lead to a scandal? However, this is exactly what happened before my eyes. The fact is that according to the Jewish religion, the New Year is celebrated in September. Accordingly, one Israeli wished everyone a Happy New Year in September. The German responded with a humorous remark: “Then Merry Christmas too!” - implying that the Christian New Year is not soon. As a result, an extensive correspondence ensued, which involved many participants accusing each other of Zionism, anti-Semitism, fascism and other sins. These are the consequences that a completely harmless congratulation can cause. One will inevitably wonder whether translators are really that tolerant and sensitive.

These observations forced me to introduce the following amendment to my law, which can be called the magnet rule. Just as each of the halves of a magnet divided in half immediately acquires its own positive and negative pole, so human society in any sufficiently numerous cell reproduces the same standard structure with its brawlers and hooligans, peacemakers and preachers. Another thing is that the villains in the camp barracks may turn out to be more serious than the troublemakers in the mathematical institute, but the general tendency towards the distribution of the same standard roles among the members of the team is likely to persist regardless of the nature of the team itself.

A discussion of my hypothesis in Lantra showed that, compared to other groups of people, the translator community is still more peaceful and tolerant, as those who participate in several different mailing lists said. For example, recently one member of a forum for ski enthusiasts was prohibited by a court order from sending any messages to this list. Can you imagine what passions were boiling there if the case went to court?

I don’t know what problems skiers solve over the Internet, but for translators the Internet is a powerful working tool. For example, an Englishman, translating Bryntsalov’s statement “The priest’s last wife!” from Russian, naturally turned to his Russian colleagues for help. What would a translator do in such a situation 10 years ago? Would you like to look in dictionaries? Being the happy owner of hundreds of dictionaries, I personally did not find this proverb. Would you interview your friends by phone? Do you have many friends who can answer this question? And it’s not so easy to contact the right specialist at the right time (at night, for example). The main thing is that when turning to a specific person, you feel awkward: is it convenient to burden him with your requests? How can you repay such a service?

A conference is a completely different matter. It operates around the clock, because when Japanese translators go to bed, American translators wake up. So you can ask a question at any time of the day or night, without fear of waking anyone up: only those who want to read it will read it. And the one who wants and is able to answer will also answer. At the same time, respondents enthusiastically compete in reaction speed and depth of knowledge. The questioner does not feel like an exploiter - he does not force anyone to solve his problems. Anyone who is busy or moping simply skips a turn.

Thus, the Internet allows you to get a quick answer to the most unexpected questions: what words do Spanish teenagers use to express their contempt? What form of musical notation is used in Canada? What temperature is the home heating system set in Sweden? All these are things that are difficult to learn from books, and for those who build cultural bridges between different countries and continents, such information is absolutely necessary.

Usually, translators are remembered only when the translation is bad. The skill of a translator lies in the ability to become invisible: you read a book and forget that it was originally written in another language; watch the film and understand all the dialogues, the characters’ remarks are interconnected, not a single remark confuses you. Therefore, if you liked the translated novel, remember that this is the merit of not only the author, but also the translator (it is practically impossible to like a book in a bad translation), and if the dubbed film gave you pleasure, then thank - at least mentally - the translator.