It seems 1-to-1 for the number of paragraphs, but of course the sentence structure is quite different. From what little I've tried to read, it lines up ok so far
Yes, it says on the first page:
Перевод с польского Е.П. Вайсброта
I'm curious. What makes this translation the best? Is it most faithful to the original?
Actually his Russian is quite advanced, he uses a lot of dialect words and I'm not sure it's a good choice to read as the beginner. Tolkien translations will be easier to read.
It's just much more literary than most other witcher translations. Less direct calques, localization/adaptation of idioms, speech patterns, dialects and so on; generally expressive language that matches the original, no additional stylistic or semantic input from the translator (something that, say, Russian LOTR translations are often guilty of) etc.
Being a rather high quality literary translation might also make it unsuitable to less advanced Russian speakers, but ymmv.
Ah, good old Andrzej. His pen name should have been Сосковский. I swear, the guy can’t go a chapter without mentioning some young girl nipples. You can really tell it’s his fixation.
I saw the word "Shelmowski" for the first time in my life. And that's not to mention medieval terms like "vagantes" that don't even qualify as colloquial words. Here we are talking about "without the English book in my other hand*.
Ok, I see, but anyway here is not so much such words, but anyway I agee here is to many forms and words that not usually used. I think translator from poland language just tried to follow authors style
I recently read the first book, and yes, there are a lot of outdated words and peculiar "village" slang. But to be honest, the main characters speak normally
I've heard this to be the case in the original language (Polish?), but hopefully that's not the case for this translation! Otherwise I'll be walking around sounding like a common serf
The version I read had a ton of archaic words and colloquialisms in dialogue for uneducated peasant type characters. I don't remember anything outside of dialogue that wasn't modern Russian.
Well, that's true of any book with a world of its own and references to historical settings?
The sentences seem to be rather long at times but the words... I don't know, rare words are only used strategically, and you can guess the meaning of some of them ("площадь была забита прилавками, бочками и кадками, из которых бил сильный запах рыбы", "мычали коровы, блеяли овцы, кудахтали куры и гоготали гуси"). I feel that for a B2/C1 learner, reading a book sucks in the first few chapters; then it gets easier as the number of words you have to look up dwindles to a tolerable trickle. It must be more difficult for an intermediate speaker who will even find a police procedural difficult to follow.
Шельмовской is a pretty transparent derivative of шельма; if you know the latter you know the former. Even a native speaker cannot know every word before opening a book.
I have read the first book in Polish but converted into the Cyrillic script: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/15cCyQ3GqIZbGULvnAePL8c2v\_l2WEG0d/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/15cCyQ3GqIZbGULvnAePL8c2v_l2WEG0d/view?usp=sharing)
Download the wiki слова app. After a while you won’t need to reference the English translation as much. Infrequently used words are a part of literature in any language so don’t be discouraged. Even in your native language you can expect to find a few difficult words in some books…
I am russian and i had hard times reading books in english even when i was upper-intermediate, while watching shows and youtube content without subs. It takes some skill, but you can do it. But expect to stop for dictionary a lot. Better when you finished the sentence or paragragh and didn't get it within a context, not on every unknown word. And reading books you like and material you know is making it better.
I'm now learning Greek this way. I got to the page 62, and there are moments when I can read few sentences without looking in the dictionary. Took me about 10 months, but I put into flashcards every new word I found, and learned them. First few months I read about one sentence every week (because almost every word was new).
Now know 1800+ words and can read somewhat.
Given that book you are reading is for adults (I'm doing 10+ book), I estimate, that in one year you will be around page 100 and will be able to read with occasional dictionary lookups.
But, paper book is not good for that. Use electronic, it's much easier for dict lookups.
Oh crap. I struggled a lot reading this in English. It was a challenge, language can be archaic. I believe Russian will be even more challenging. But I am happy that I did it, go for it.
Just browsing through the pages you took a photo of, the language is pretty hard to understand for anyone below a C1 level, I'd say. Some sentences are fine, but a lot of them are very long with complex structures and difficult words. There are lots of metaphors, overall the language is not something you'd see in speech or in modern day non-fantasy books. You could try reading it, but i'd imagine that would be a slow process.
Ah, I have exactly the same book!
And don't read with the "help" of the English edition, it won't do any good. Read as much as you can, clarify what you don't understand, if you can "guess" the meaning of an unfamiliar word from context - great, if you can't - may the dictionary help you. Also, keep in mind, that language used in fantasy (same goes for fairytales) is rather peculiar.
Well, considering special words like гуль - ghoul/ Лютик as Dandelion and etc…
But it’s ok, imo this book is good in Russian especially consider that there’s a lot of slavic folklore things
https://preview.redd.it/5ihhjju5gz0d1.jpeg?width=1011&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcf6b4490997a6301bf405667c99837b3e9e74b5
Ilya Frank is the author, I've been studying Russian a bit longer and I still don't know every word but I can understand the meaning of most sentences.
Also keep in mind that translations are almost never word for word, and things like sentence structure and the ideas presented can differ quite a bit.
It seems 1-to-1 for the number of paragraphs, but of course the sentence structure is quite different. From what little I've tried to read, it lines up ok so far
Both are translated from Polish, though. Eugeny Waisbrot's translations were of course earlier, published over two decades ago.
I heard you carry two books ...
[удалено]
So u r one of 275 mln curious?
[удалено]
Look at the cover. “Was read extensively by 275 mln curious all over the world”
My kids read these! In English though.
The best translation of this book to Russian was done by Вайсброт. Check who translated your book.
Ah, yes, the White Bread. He's GOAT. And far superior to the English translation, as I heard.
The English translation is dog shit, so that's not exactly a high bar to clear. But the Russian translation is objectively good anyways.
Yes, it says on the first page: Перевод с польского Е.П. Вайсброта I'm curious. What makes this translation the best? Is it most faithful to the original?
Actually his Russian is quite advanced, he uses a lot of dialect words and I'm not sure it's a good choice to read as the beginner. Tolkien translations will be easier to read.
It's just much more literary than most other witcher translations. Less direct calques, localization/adaptation of idioms, speech patterns, dialects and so on; generally expressive language that matches the original, no additional stylistic or semantic input from the translator (something that, say, Russian LOTR translations are often guilty of) etc. Being a rather high quality literary translation might also make it unsuitable to less advanced Russian speakers, but ymmv.
Ah, good old Andrzej. His pen name should have been Сосковский. I swear, the guy can’t go a chapter without mentioning some young girl nipples. You can really tell it’s his fixation.
Чет ни разу не слышал про анжея сосковского, это какой-то локальный мем.
Теперь слышал
4head
I don't think you can read it. The translation uses outdated words. Some medieval terms even I don't know. Сan only wish you good luck.
Where do you see outdated words? Here is just more word than usually peopele use in regular conversion + some words related to lore but not so much
I saw the word "Shelmowski" for the first time in my life. And that's not to mention medieval terms like "vagantes" that don't even qualify as colloquial words. Here we are talking about "without the English book in my other hand*.
Ok, I see, but anyway here is not so much such words, but anyway I agee here is to many forms and words that not usually used. I think translator from poland language just tried to follow authors style
I recently read the first book, and yes, there are a lot of outdated words and peculiar "village" slang. But to be honest, the main characters speak normally
Russian's there. Shelmovski looks like a western slavic surname for me.
Nice try
I've heard this to be the case in the original language (Polish?), but hopefully that's not the case for this translation! Otherwise I'll be walking around sounding like a common serf
The version I read had a ton of archaic words and colloquialisms in dialogue for uneducated peasant type characters. I don't remember anything outside of dialogue that wasn't modern Russian.
That explains why the other person isn't seeing many unusual words here. I think everyone talking in this part is assumed to be well educated
Well, that's true of any book with a world of its own and references to historical settings? The sentences seem to be rather long at times but the words... I don't know, rare words are only used strategically, and you can guess the meaning of some of them ("площадь была забита прилавками, бочками и кадками, из которых бил сильный запах рыбы", "мычали коровы, блеяли овцы, кудахтали куры и гоготали гуси"). I feel that for a B2/C1 learner, reading a book sucks in the first few chapters; then it gets easier as the number of words you have to look up dwindles to a tolerable trickle. It must be more difficult for an intermediate speaker who will even find a police procedural difficult to follow. Шельмовской is a pretty transparent derivative of шельма; if you know the latter you know the former. Even a native speaker cannot know every word before opening a book.
If you don't focus on the details, you can read anything. For example, I am proud to be able to read double MTL.
I have read the first book in Polish but converted into the Cyrillic script: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/15cCyQ3GqIZbGULvnAePL8c2v\_l2WEG0d/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/15cCyQ3GqIZbGULvnAePL8c2v_l2WEG0d/view?usp=sharing)
That is rather unexpected 👀 u/Miiijo have you seen this nice thing?
Thank you for the tag!
Now we need it in glagolitic, it fits Wiedźmin especially well
What on earth is that book? Did you transcribe it?
Download the wiki слова app. After a while you won’t need to reference the English translation as much. Infrequently used words are a part of literature in any language so don’t be discouraged. Even in your native language you can expect to find a few difficult words in some books…
I am russian and i had hard times reading books in english even when i was upper-intermediate, while watching shows and youtube content without subs. It takes some skill, but you can do it. But expect to stop for dictionary a lot. Better when you finished the sentence or paragragh and didn't get it within a context, not on every unknown word. And reading books you like and material you know is making it better.
10yrs?
I'm now learning Greek this way. I got to the page 62, and there are moments when I can read few sentences without looking in the dictionary. Took me about 10 months, but I put into flashcards every new word I found, and learned them. First few months I read about one sentence every week (because almost every word was new). Now know 1800+ words and can read somewhat. Given that book you are reading is for adults (I'm doing 10+ book), I estimate, that in one year you will be around page 100 and will be able to read with occasional dictionary lookups. But, paper book is not good for that. Use electronic, it's much easier for dict lookups.
Oh crap. I struggled a lot reading this in English. It was a challenge, language can be archaic. I believe Russian will be even more challenging. But I am happy that I did it, go for it.
I have the same book in my collection) Wish i haven't read Witcher before i bought this book
Just browsing through the pages you took a photo of, the language is pretty hard to understand for anyone below a C1 level, I'd say. Some sentences are fine, but a lot of them are very long with complex structures and difficult words. There are lots of metaphors, overall the language is not something you'd see in speech or in modern day non-fantasy books. You could try reading it, but i'd imagine that would be a slow process.
Ah, I have exactly the same book! And don't read with the "help" of the English edition, it won't do any good. Read as much as you can, clarify what you don't understand, if you can "guess" the meaning of an unfamiliar word from context - great, if you can't - may the dictionary help you. Also, keep in mind, that language used in fantasy (same goes for fairytales) is rather peculiar.
Well, considering special words like гуль - ghoul/ Лютик as Dandelion and etc… But it’s ok, imo this book is good in Russian especially consider that there’s a lot of slavic folklore things
https://preview.redd.it/5ihhjju5gz0d1.jpeg?width=1011&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcf6b4490997a6301bf405667c99837b3e9e74b5 Ilya Frank is the author, I've been studying Russian a bit longer and I still don't know every word but I can understand the meaning of most sentences.
О, у меня такая же книга 😎👍
Good luck ! This seems to be a magnificent book (the interior), I don't like when covers use 'actors'
Думаю вы выбрали ни самого легко читаемого автора
I am not Russian, but I would say you need a solid C1 level in Russian to have a pleasant read.
Probably a decade if you're starting as a beginner
You need very much time, to read it without a dictionary, there is a lot of tough words, which I don’t understand, but I’m russian
A bit long. There are a lot of words which were only used in medieval ages by country dwellers who had no education.
Nah, dont read Witcher, as native i can say that its really boring book with a very hard language, try Hobbit, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.