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I've seen the usage of English phrase for what it's worth many times.

However, I still don't know what the most precise translation of this phrase is in Russian.

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  • My three cents, I am pretty sure you will get your question closed at the English usage Q&A if you ask anything related to translating from Russian to English. I believe anything tagged "english-to-russian" should not be allowed here either.
    – Trident D'Gao
    Jun 13, 2012 at 22:35
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    @bonomo: This is not really a translation question per se. I agree about removing the tag english-to-russian, but overall, I believe that the question is perfectly appropriate for RL&U.
    – Philip Seyfi
    Jun 13, 2012 at 22:36
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    @VisioN my English is not perfect so I can't get you the answer. But if you explain this phrase in few sentences instead of few words you will get more correct answer. Until now you have 2.5 different answers :)
    – Putnik
    Jun 14, 2012 at 6:39
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    The question is appropriate, according to the Definition phase questions.
    – Alenanno
    Jun 27, 2012 at 12:52

5 Answers 5

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No direct translation exists. 'For what it's worth' usually means that whatever is to follow is going to be a subjective opinion, which translates well to

  • На мой взгляд (In my opinion),
  • Я думаю (I think),
  • Я считаю (I figure).

If you want to communicate that a piece of information is potentially unimportant for another reason, you could say something like 'Может, это неважно, но'.

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  • 3
    Examples are mistranslated: “на мой взгляд” = “in my view” (“in my opinion” = “по моему мнению”), “я считаю” = “I figure” (literally: “to figure” = “to calculate”; “I think” = “я думаю”), “мне кажется” = “(it) seems to me (that)”.
    – theUg
    Jun 26, 2012 at 7:53
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    @theUg if you take the expression literally, then they don't match perfectly, but if you consider their usage, they are spot on. +1 for alternative translations though, they could be useful.
    – kotekzot
    Jun 26, 2012 at 8:02
  • There is no reason to fiddle with translation, when direct and literal one is available. Otherwise, it is confusing for everyone.
    – theUg
    Jun 26, 2012 at 8:05
  • Another clarification as to why “я считаю” ≠ “I think”. “Cчитать” is closer in the figurative sense to the verb “to opine” (“I opine”) which is more assertive, whereas “I think” is more tentative (“I ponder that…” or “I am not sure, but I think that…”).
    – theUg
    Jun 26, 2012 at 8:10
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    @theUg literal translations don't necessarily carry the intended meaning, "I ponder" is a great example of that. You can ponder something, but you can't say "I ponder" to express an opinion.
    – kotekzot
    Jun 26, 2012 at 8:35
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FWIW is roughly synonymous with my two cents, which can in turn be translated as мои пять копеек

UPDATE: Note that мои пять копеек is highly colloquial and can only really be met online.

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    Just my two cents: I've lived in Russia for 20 years, and I can't recall anyone using просто мои пять копеек in real life, except perhaps a couple of times in tech community where it is common to use loan translation of English phrases, or even no translation at all.
    – Dan
    Jun 13, 2012 at 22:53
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    True, it's loan translation of the English phrase and never used in speech, but it's getting increasingly popular online, even outside of the tech community. The question asked about FWIW, which itself is only used online.
    – Philip Seyfi
    Jun 13, 2012 at 23:09
  • That's a valid point, thanks for elaborating.
    – Dan
    Jun 13, 2012 at 23:41
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    @PhilipSeyfi I beg to differ, it seems to be fairly popular en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_What_It's_Worth
    – kotekzot
    Jun 14, 2012 at 0:54
  • @PhilipSeyfi I bet the guys from Buffalo Springfield in 1966 had no idea about online chatting ;)
    – VisioN
    Jun 14, 2012 at 7:47
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It depends on the context. If you just add some information which value you are not sure about, I would translate it as на всякий случай. If you express your opinion, you can add something like я не настаиваю, но or simply я думаю.

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2

Не знаю, на сколько это важно/полезно, но...

Может быть, это и не важно, но...

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0

"За что купил, за то и продаю"?

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  • Это означает "передаю с чужих слов". А FWIW означает точку зрения с которой собеседник может не согласиться, а может и посчитать полезной.
    – Artemix
    Dec 9, 2014 at 21:07
  • Странно - везде в Интернете (кроме этого сайта) нахожу именно такой перевод.
    – Paul
    Jul 15, 2015 at 10:53

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