Timeline for What is the meaning of: "- Отнеси кота на веранду. - Да уж лежит там."
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
25 events
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| Jul 3, 2023 at 22:01 | comment | added | Sergey Slepov | А еще через веранду могла пролегать река Уж: gramdict.ru/search/уж ;-) | |
| Oct 4, 2020 at 23:55 | comment | added | Swift | @PJTraill it's one of many. Homophonic puns were kinda popular. It was time of Stirlitz jokes, most which were nonsensical, but that's the point.Some even translatable to English:, e.g. "Certain italian plumbers are known to have multifauceted personality." (original was многокранная личность). But "Штирлиц выстрелил в упор. Упор упал." is untranslatable | |
| Oct 4, 2020 at 18:25 | comment | added | PJTraill | @Swift: So how did the joke you knew at school go? – With an English explanation, please! | |
| Aug 20, 2020 at 8:10 | comment | added | Swift | @DmitriUrbanowicz in modern Russian we practically stopped to use shortened form of that particle , so it would be "Да уже лежит там". It still used as standalone "Да уж", which should be separated by comma. The phrase is one of many jokes\examples of problematic use of words and punctuation used to be popular. Just like "Казнить нельзя помиловать" (comma placement inverts meaning) and its English analog "He didn't run because he was afraid" (depending if you put in comma or not, phrase changes meaning to near-opposite). | |
| Aug 20, 2020 at 8:00 | comment | added | Swift | @user7808407 ironically it's an original joke of this dialog.Sad that noone today remembers that, it was a joke known in when I was in school ( late 80s- early 90s). Professor is right in some way.. Translation often got many underwater rocks - hidden meanings, connotations, puns which may account for mood, style or period correctness. Sometimes word change meaning over time. Let's take a phrase "box in a gay wrapper" from Mary Cooper's book, just 50 years ago. It was normal one, today it is odd, but translation should use some mundane analog. | |
| Jun 18, 2020 at 8:26 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Feb 11, 2020 at 13:55 | comment | added | Dmitri Urbanowicz | This made me curious. What's the evidence for plausibility of such a dialogue? (— Отнеси [object 1] туда. — Да [object 2] лежит там.) In modern Russian at least, it sounds unnatural, unless said by an irritated person (in which case it better end with an exclamation mark). | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 6:42 | comment | added | Баян Купи-ка | this is not what i believe, but nevertheless it's pretty rare for adults to perfectly master foreign languages especially without living in the environment of native speakers, especially languages belonging to a totally different linguistic group, and every such case amazes me | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 19:35 | comment | added | Mitsuko | @БаянКупи-ка : Okay, I now see you did not mean a racist thing. You seem to merely believe that people cannot fully master non-native languages. My belief is different, and it is based on real examples. It is based on real people I met. | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 18:14 | comment | added | Баян Купи-ка | @Mitsuko it was disappointing for me to see unfounded accusation of racism, i'm not an Englishman but i will hardly be ever capable of mastering English on the level of the native speakers and probably on the level your teacher has mastered Russian... i guess you can accuse me of racism towards myself then... charges of racism is an American thing, they do it all the time on the Web, this is their pet peeve, i would discourage from assuming their cultural peculiarities and bringing them over to our discourse simply because we both communicate in English, cheers | |
| Sep 28, 2019 at 11:58 | comment | added | Ruslan | @Mitsuko I don't think that was a racist comment underestimating capabilities of Japanese. When I read it, I understood it as "Russians often write lazily and thus have lots of mistakes. Was this written by a non-native-Russian but highly-skilled person?" | |
| Sep 28, 2019 at 9:50 | comment | added | Mitsuko | @БаянКупи-ка : >> for all his underhanded tactics his written Russian is impeccable, is he a Japanese? << It was disappointing for me to see a racist comment here, as you seem to imply that Japanese are incapable of fully mastering the Russian language. Trust me, I will master Russian better than anyone else in this Russian SE. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 9:48 | comment | added | user7808407 |
your teacher is wrong. Да can be No, уж can be grass snake but to think that a native speaker would answer to Отнеси кота на веранду. as Да уж лежит там. meaning that a snake is there is nonsense. As a native speaker I am a bit pissed
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| Aug 26, 2019 at 10:39 | comment | added | MolbOrg | Thanks for sharing the response, or else it would stay a mystery. As Баян mention, his russian is impeccable. He intentionally set the trap on all levels and it may be harsh but yeah. | |
| Aug 26, 2019 at 9:33 | comment | added | Alex_ander | @Abakan 'Carry out' has an excessive preposition, the simple 'carry to' would be OK. "Отнеси" (as opposed to "принеси") actually implies a destination, different from the speaker's location. The verb 'to bring' (unlike отнести) fails to narrow down things to a) another place as destination (one could think of 'bringing here to the verandah' as well) or b) method of transportation (walking the cat, etc. can be imagined instead of carrying) - two reasons why that verb usage is not exact. | |
| Aug 24, 2019 at 15:02 | comment | added | Mitsuko | The other side of the coin is that many students in Japan are lazy and best motivated by fear rather than by encouragement, so criticisms are very effective for many of them. I cannot tell whether this is a world phenomenon or a country-specific one, but negative motivation works better here if we are talking about students en masse. Many students learn things just to pass tests and exams, and therefore making tests and exams harsher is the best way to ensure that such students learn more. I am different, but students like me are a minority. | |
| Aug 24, 2019 at 15:01 | comment | added | Mitsuko | @Quassnoi : Thanks a lot for such a detailed explanation. Indeed, students find the methods of this teacher quite controversial. Even a slight inaccuracy in a translation is sometimes enough for him to call the student unprofessional. I personally prefer a more positive approach to teaching. This teacher seems to believe that students should be taught by criticisms and discipline. He is very strict. Sometimes I feel that it makes a pleasure or a kind of sport for him to find flaws and inaccuracies and punish for them. Perhaps he needs it for his self-affirmation. | |
| Aug 22, 2019 at 15:48 | comment | added | Abakan | “Carry out” wouldn’t be correct if you, say, sit in the garden. “Bring” is absolutely correct in this case. "Отнеси" doesn’t imply in/out or whatever. It means just “take it (wherever it is) and bring it (to the other place)”. | |
| Aug 22, 2019 at 0:45 | comment | added | Yellow Sky | What I at once saw as a drawback in your translation was the interpretation of отнеси as 'bring' in the first sentence. It is much bigger a mistake than everything you could have noticed about да and уж in the second one. | |
| Aug 21, 2019 at 21:46 | comment | added | Баян Купи-ка | i did not understand ДА as BUT in this sentence, it means IN FACT/YOU KNOW/YOU SEE: - Take the cat to the veranda - In fact/You know it's already lying there | It's already lying there, you see... BUT has a connotation of contest, dispute which ДА doesn't have | |
| Aug 21, 2019 at 21:33 | comment | added | Баян Купи-ка | for all his underhanded tactics his written Russian is impeccable, is he a Japanese? | |
| Aug 21, 2019 at 19:44 | comment | added | tum_ | the prof points out - it's just a test of not much of a significance. (We had similar "jokes" played on us by professors too, btw. Not on English but on major subjects). I'm not sure where exactly do you see the disrespect? And I'm also curious on why Mitsuko did not elaborate on why she didn't want to contact that professor initially. There maybe something we don't know, so I'd rather not judge the other side without first hearing their view of the situation. | |
| S Aug 21, 2019 at 19:39 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S Aug 21, 2019 at 19:39 | comment | added | Quassnoi♦ | Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. | |
| Aug 21, 2019 at 13:27 | history | answered | Mitsuko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |