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What would be the best way to render this sentence in Russian so that it doesn't become clumsy and tautological?

This is one of the main services and features of the product.

The problem here is that services and features (the way they're translated) are of different genders in Russian so the numeral one must agree with each of them in gender.

The most straightforward way of rendering it would be

Это один из основных сервисов и одна из основных функций изделия

but the structure один из... isn't usually repeated in relation to the same object, and that makes the sentence unnecessarily pleonastic.


In a movie "Контрабанда" (1974) there's a phrase affected with a similar problem of disagreement, although a bit more forgivable

Одна из самых аккуратных и дисциплинированных членов нашего экипажа.

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    I would not say "сервис" is a full-fledged Russian word, but rather a lazy non-translated (transliterated) remnant. Why not "одна из основных служб и функций" например ? IMHO in this context "service" can be translated a s "функция" and "feature" is more like "способность", "возможность", "умение"
    – Arioch
    Apr 24, 2018 at 9:17
  • @Arioch well the question has very little to do with the accuracy of the translation, the sentence has been presented for illustration, we can think of other cases where the same problem could emerge Apr 24, 2018 at 10:57
  • Then if you can not pick same-gender synonyms then I believe one should go with single "один из", of the default neutral-masculine gender. The original text is "1x(A&B)" and your translation makes it "1A + 1B". The different idea. The split between A&B which was not in the original text. But frankly, this is perhaps a case, where one should go level up, from translation to retelling, and even the whole paragraph in the end might get restructured. Thus, no one size fits all universally-true solution can be possible on this level.
    – Arioch
    Apr 24, 2018 at 11:20
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    @Arioch if i understand correctly you suggest to have the numeral agree in gender with only one object like один из основных сервисов и функций, and if so this construction wouldn't sound particularly euphonic, something i was seeking to avoid, it could work at a pinch without the intervening adjective, but not otherwise Apr 24, 2018 at 18:44
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    @Arioch it's an interesting logic, this would save the day, but i guess this is not the current norm in Russian and therefore still sounds odd Apr 28, 2018 at 13:58

2 Answers 2

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Indeed repeating "один из" makes the sentence clumsy. Additionally, the word "сервис" in Russian sounds odd to my ear. I would replace it with old-fashioned "служебная функция". Then both words become of the same gender.

Это одна из основных служебных функций изделия.

Alternatively,

Это одна из основных служебных функций и характеристик изделия.

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It is possible to use a similar clause where the different genders don't matter. As for the meaning of 'service' here, without a context I can only suppose that 'main service of the product' could be something like 'serving for some task' or 'serving as some specific appliance'.

Это можно отнести к числу основных применений и возможностей изделия.

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