Sep 10, 2011 13:08
12 yrs ago
Russian term
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У вас продается славянский шкаф?
Russian to English
Art/Literary
Poetry & Literature
Short story
This is from a short story and is something a wife says to her husband over the dinner table. I suspect she is quoting something from a film - possibly a password and possibly tongue-in-cheek, but I am struggling to find an English equivalent.
Proposed translations
(English)
Proposed translations
7 hrs
Mark Berelekhis
United States
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What's the story, morning glory?
So the spy/password issue really matters little, it simply needs to be a folksy English phrase. I'm offering one suggestion, but there are probably dozens that could work.
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
-1
14 mins
Vasu Valluri
India
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Do you sell a Slavic wardrobe?
The ‘Slavic wardrobe’, meanwhile, conjures impressions both of quaintly stolid reliability and again of awkward bulk, but also of an unglimpsed past of obscure fascination, the Slavic epithet suggesting the faint lure of a fairy-tale exoticism.
39 mins
Dmitry Tolstov
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
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Is it you who sells......?
..
15 hrs
Rachel Douglas
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In London, April's a spring month. (Etc.)
Why not pick any one of the many fairly well-known code phrases, one that isn't too context-specific.
A piece of the first sentence of Orwell's "1984" is used as a code phrase in the video game "Splinter Cell":
A bright cold day in April.
Here's one from a Tom Clancy novel:
I wonder, have you seen any Tuscan bread?
Perhaps better known, these are from James Bond movies:
The snow this year is better at Innsbruck.
In London, April's a spring month.
If your setting is longer ago in history, you could use famous 20th-century real-life code phrases:
Over all of Spain, the sky is clear. (Spanish Civil War)
Climb Mount Niitaka. (Peal harbor)
A piece of the first sentence of Orwell's "1984" is used as a code phrase in the video game "Splinter Cell":
A bright cold day in April.
Here's one from a Tom Clancy novel:
I wonder, have you seen any Tuscan bread?
Perhaps better known, these are from James Bond movies:
The snow this year is better at Innsbruck.
In London, April's a spring month.
If your setting is longer ago in history, you could use famous 20th-century real-life code phrases:
Over all of Spain, the sky is clear. (Spanish Civil War)
Climb Mount Niitaka. (Peal harbor)
Reference comments
1 hr
Reference:
FYI
a quote from a Soviet film
Do you have a Slavic wardrobe for sale? - The wardrobe is sold, but there is a nickel-plated bed with a bedside-table - the password and response.
http://maps.thefullwiki.org/Secret_Agent_(1947_film)
this is what the "Slavic wardrobe" originally is:
Славянский шкаф (точнее “Славяновский”) – один из первых предметов мебели, который производился в России фабричным способом в массовом количестве. Выпускал такие шкафы фабрикант Славянов в конце 19 – начале 20 вв. Шкаф, обычно двустворчатый, состоял из широкого отделения с перекладиной, куда вешалась одежда на плечики, и узкого отделения с ящиками и полками для белья и других мелочей. Идея и воплощение этого шкафа оказались настолько удачными, что актуальны и поныне.
http://www.mebel-status.ru/stati/mebel/mebelnye-materialy
The characters of that movie could have as well chosen a "chippendale chair" (or anything) for the password. I don't think there is a special message behind it. What is the story line of the book you are translating?
Do you have a Slavic wardrobe for sale? - The wardrobe is sold, but there is a nickel-plated bed with a bedside-table - the password and response.
http://maps.thefullwiki.org/Secret_Agent_(1947_film)
this is what the "Slavic wardrobe" originally is:
Славянский шкаф (точнее “Славяновский”) – один из первых предметов мебели, который производился в России фабричным способом в массовом количестве. Выпускал такие шкафы фабрикант Славянов в конце 19 – начале 20 вв. Шкаф, обычно двустворчатый, состоял из широкого отделения с перекладиной, куда вешалась одежда на плечики, и узкого отделения с ящиками и полками для белья и других мелочей. Идея и воплощение этого шкафа оказались настолько удачными, что актуальны и поныне.
http://www.mebel-status.ru/stati/mebel/mebelnye-materialy
The characters of that movie could have as well chosen a "chippendale chair" (or anything) for the password. I don't think there is a special message behind it. What is the story line of the book you are translating?
Peer comments on this reference comment:
| agree |
melanya
: Right film but what's your context?
3 hrs
|
| agree |
Alexander Alexandrov
: Употребляется: как иронический комментарий по поводу нагнетания всякого рода таинственности, когда к тому нет никаких оснований (http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/dic_wingwords/2764/У).
5 hrs
|
| agree |
Daniela Panayotova
: Daniela Panayotova
1 day 11 hrs
|
| agree |
cyhul
1 day 11 hrs
|
Discussion
Крылатая фраза о шкафе - пароль из кинофильма "Подвиг разведчика".
Ответ: "Шкаф уже продан, могу предложить никелированную кровать с тумбочкой".
Славянский шкаф - чисто русское выражение, может быть даже мало кому сейчас известное. Их делали на московской мебельной фабрике Славянова 200 лет назад.
"-Do you sell Slavic wardrobe?
-No. The spy resident agent lives nextdoor."
Helen, if you translate that bit you will be also the proud translator of the joke. This joke illustrates how commonly known and unsophisticated ("простонародный") has to be the password in the translation.
Here is a little more context. The narrator of the story is a pet parrot which watches family life from inside its cage.
Глаша девица с характером: Василий - что бы он ни попросил - она последнее со своей тарелки отдаст, а мне ни за что пока я ей пароль не скажу. И ведь придумала же не что-нибудь простонародное вроде «У вас продается славянский шкаф?», а надо же было так выпендриться: «Телефона, телефона, чукча кушать хочет».
Sure word-by-word translation will not work here.
This is something like the cliche "our man in Havana". To make sense one needs the whole story.