Words meaning social and political and scientific notions

Such words are understandable to everyone speaking a foreign language and there is no necessity in stylistic synonyms. Scientists agree to rate among this group the international words which mean social and political and scientific notions, phenomena. The meanings of such words in two or more compared languages coincide.

For example:

Russian English

Революция Revolution

Республика Republic

Конституция Constitution

Демократический Democratic

Культура Culture

Территория Territory

Математика Mathematics

Диаметр Diameter

Центр Centre

Металл Metal

As a result of science and technology development foreign languages saw the appearance of some Russian words.

Russian English

Спутник Sputnik

And the Russian language got such foreign words as:

English Russian

Computer Компьютер

The Internet Интернет.

Words meaning general notions and notions of special character

Into the second category of international words we put the borrowings which are in the vocabulary of the given language to define the lexical units with a more specific character. In the Russian language along with the borrowed international word we can find its synonym which is normally of a pure Russian origin but with a more extensive meaning mainly used in oral speech.

Borrowings get into the language to denote a new notion in the field of science, culture and everyday life with the help of one word without describing this notion (using a few words).

An unskilled translator often translates “industria” as “индустрия”, “industrial” –“индустриальный” in any context though the Russian language has more habitual lexical units-“промышленность”, “промышленный”.

An international word is used in speech most often in its narrow meaning. So it’s better to translate the word “comfortable”-“удобный” but not “комфортабельный”, “person”-“лицо, человек” but not “персона”.

It should be noted that for being understood by most people it’s necessary to translate using, if possible, simple expressions and words. The exception is special material oriented to a certain circle of people (political, economic, scientific, etc.)

“False friends of a translator”

A group of words known as “false friends of a translator” are reckoned among international words (pseudo cognates). These lexical units have got such a name for the reason of being similar to Russian words in graphic (exterior) form but their translation can lead to a serious mistake and even distort the sense of the sentence if rely on Russian words close in sounding.

Historically “false friends of a translator” are the result of language interaction, which can appear as a casual coincidence but in a limited number of cases. In kin languages they are based on cognates originating in common prototype in basis-language. Firstly the term “false friends of a translator” was introduced in 1928 and meant the results of inadequate and poor translation based on sound similarity of words in foreign and native languages. For example, the English word “bucket” (“ведро”) has the Russian homonym “букет” and is a false equivalent for having a different meaning.

Hereby “false friends of a translator” are lexical units, close graphically and phonetically in the original language and in the target language but different semantically which may mislead a translator. Overwhelming majority of foreign words can be automatically reckoned among “false friends of a translator”. At the same time internationalisms as a rule are not “false friends of a translator”.

At present there are four types of “false friends of a translator”:

• Words and expressions meaning different things in both languages (application-анкета кандидата на должность; аппликация- in Russian; anecdote-случай из жизни; анекдот- in Russian)

• Words and expressions which are partially similar in meaning (apartment- квартира; апартаменты- in Russian; auditorium- зрительный зал; аудитория- Russian)

• Words and expressions similar in meaning but different in style and in sphere of using (cable- канат, трос; кабель)

Words and expressions similar in meaning in both languages but in some expressions their meanings become completely different (experience- ощущение; опыт. Но: проводить опыты; mystery- тайна, загадка. Но: загадать загадку).

Comparing Russian and English it’s possible to find out a considerable amount of words similar graphically and phonetically. These borrowings happen mainly from one language to another or, what is more often, two languages borrow something from the third one: as a rule it’s from Latin, Greek, French (parliament, diplomat, method, theory, organization, etc.)

However being borrowed by another language a word can get new meanings, it’s semantic structure can be completely changed. At first it may seem that “false friends of a translator” can mislead only people having poor knowledge of a language or have recently begun to learn it. In fact the contrary is the case: the basic number of “false friends of a translator” may mislead those who have a good command of language though haven’t reached the level of an adequate unmixed bilingualism and as a result make false identifications of certain units of foreign and native languages.

It’s impossible to disagree with the opinion in some publications that it happens among translators to justify their mistakes and unwillingness to analyze multiple meanings of English words by the existence of “false friends of a translator”. Almost any English word can be considered a “false friend of a translator”. The German language is more monosemantic. The poorer the knowledge of a language the more often a translator catches at a straw at a graphic similarity of words.

But at the same time it’s no good to consider definitely that any mistakes of this kind indicate poor knowledge or carelessness of the speaker while a perfect command of language guarantees no mistakes. Knowledge of the second language in most cases can’t be perfect and fluent speaking two languages is possible only in theory. Hereby, overwhelming majority of people speaking foreign languages make mistakes in translation and using words (though to a different degree). The main sources of such mistakes are the correlations of functional and sound similarity or seeming identity of lexical units in both languages. Particularly in the field of lexicology these are “false friends of a translator” which disorient translators most often. So the word “ammunition” (“заряды, боеприпасы”) is quite often translated as “амуниция” which in Russian means “снаряжение военнослужащего” (except arms and clothes).

Important place among “false friends of a translator” is occupied by the cases of interlanguage homonymy and paronymy. Interlanguage homonymy may arise in the process of interaction and comparison of languages (for example, “mark”-марка or “family”-фамилия. Fully homonymous in modern using).

The differences in object-logical content of English and Russian “false friends of a translator” in a number of cases are connected with the difference in the life of peoples itself. In this case it will be useful to pay attention to the commentaries on the actuals without which any language comparisons are defective. For example, for the right translation it’s necessary to know the following meanings of the word “academy”: 1) специальные школы для взрослых (academies of music, of riding, etc.); 2) училища, занимающие промежуточное положение между средней и высшей школой (military, naval academies); 3) в прошлом- частные школы для детей богатых родителей. That’s why it’s not right to use this word to speak about our institutes of higher education which it is sometimes better to call “colleges”.

Besides it’s necessary to take into consideration possible differences of stylistic characteristics of associating words. These differences can accompany partial semantic differences but can occur in the words with the same meanings. So it’s impossible to understand and use the word correctly without knowing its functional-stylistic and emotionally-expressive shades. The differences in functional-stylistic shades occur most often in English-Russian comparisons. For example, even in the similar meaning “совещание специалистов” the English variant “consultation” and the Russian one “консультация” are not quite similar as the first word is stylistically neutral and the second word has a bookish shade. Stylistic difference makes a lot of words absolutely incompatible in translation.

The essential type of stylistic differences are the differences in evaluative and emotionally-expressive shades. If the English word “compilation” (собирание, составление) is quite neutral here but the Russian word “компиляция” has a shade of disapproval meaning the work based on the materials of other authors. Emotional shades often become apparent in figurative meanings: let’s take, for example, the using of such Russian words as “субъект”, “тип”, “фрукт”, “элемент”, “экземпляр” in the meaning of “человек, личность”.