Translating Poetry

Hello, guys! If you are studying Russian and you want to read something at leasure... I am here for you! I have translated this poem a month ago. This verse is considered to be a challenge for translators as the metre is a bit irregular and the rhythm requires a special approach. Don't be too strict :)

“The Road Not Taken”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could 

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair, 

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay 

In leaves no step had trodden black. 

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference.

by Robert Frost

My translation:

На распутье

Разбежались в лесу две дороги врозь.

Растерявшись, стою на развилке

Предо мной два пути и хоть жребий ты брось

Не в обход же идти, и никак наискось

Лишь сомнений мелькают картинки.

На тропу я ступаю, сжав волю в кулак

Как надеюсь, что я не ошибся!

Пусть травой поросла, но ведь это пустяк

"Ты здесь первым пройдешь" - мне сулит этот знак

Я с другою тропинкой простился.

А ведь обе дороги тем утром в лесу

Мне казались так странно похожи!

Но ни шагу назад я уже не ступлю

И желанье вернуться в себе преломлю

Чтобы душу зазря не тревожить.

Спустя годы поведаю этот рассказ

Юных лет прецедент пресловутый

Две дороги опять пред глазами тот час...

Та тропинка в лесу провела без прикрас

На ладони судьбу мне как будто.

Перевод Вики Никитиной

Vocabulary Notebook SUK3 Part1 Hendrik

With exams approaching, it is high time to revise all the material and pay particular heed to the vocabulary. People say: "Learn how to learn," - I totally agree with this statement. Actually, I use vocabulary.com as we all now about the convenience of this on-line sourse. 

The best way (in my modest opinion:)) to enrich your vocabulary effectively is to learn each and every single word in the appropriate context. In such a way, you, literally speaking, are killing two birds: you know the meaning of the word and you will use it with confidence as you can extract the peculiarities of its usage from your own sentence. 
In addition, I often assign different categories to certain words. For example: 1st group: geometry, rectangle, angle, exponent - Math; its subgroups: odd, integer - numbers; decimal, vulgar - fractions.
One more, you can form these groups according to the semantic сriterion: fade away, diffuse, spread; converse, talk, confer, speak, discuss, dispute - synonyms. Importang thing here is to discern the slight differences and shades of meaning. Well, your words can fall in certain groups according to the style/register. Good idea, huh?

I am currently working on the "Porter 7-11 list" (for obvious reasons:) which contains 329 words. 
Many of them are familiar to me and I can even say that they are an integral part of my active vocabulary. That is why, I am doing my best to improve my pronunciation and spelling (using "spelling bee"). If this or that word is hard to remember, I make up a simple sentence or devise a curious connotation :)

My Pecha Kucha Experience SUK3 Part1 Hendrik

Frankly speaking, I have never used this presentation technique before. What is more, I didn't even know how to pronounce this mysterious word-combination: Pecha Kucha ;)

For now, I am ready to share my experience!

Ella and I (we were working together on this project) decided to focus our attention on the Russian language status in the EU. In order to make the statistics and relevant data more attractive, we made an attemt to create a mini-cartoon, based on the famous Russian animation. The process of adjusting the screenshots to our presentation was a bit time-consuming, but so interesting! 

What is more, I am sure that Pecha Kucha presentation format is really helpful. I have learned how to condense information effectively according to the 20 seconds timing. Also, the automatic slides setting is very convenient for obvious reasons! 

The feedback from our groupmates inspired us to perform even better! 

Proceeding with the Pronunciation Practice SUK3 Part1 Hendrik

Having received a feedback on my recording, I decided to focus on my pronunciation more carefully. According to the recording, I keep making mistakes which can be explained simply: I am an eloquent example of Ukrainian English. But let's not get distracted.
My mistakes are as follows:

1. flip > fleep
2. board [bôrd] > bort
3. bound [baund] > bond
4. working ['wɜːkɪŋ]> (almost) walking

I'd like to comment on them in detail.

1.  So, the word flip should have been pronounced as [flɪp], with a short [ɪ], not ee - [iː]: flee. Messing this sounds up caused misunderstanding.
2. In the word "board" the last letter shouldn' sound indistinctly, like [t]. Moreover, the "oa" [ô] diphthong is different from simple "o".  In order to practice more, I have found several websites with tongue-twisters. Here goes: 

• http://www.twisterking.com/d.php - to practise [d]-sound;
• If a big old toad jumps on the boat as we row 
  across the moat, the boat won't float. So don't 
  row close to the big old toads as you row across 
  the moat, and the boat will float.  - this one is really helpful while working on the "oa"- [ô]

Finally, I have found several pronunciation rules, improving my [з:]-sound:

Reading Rule:

• /ɜ:/ - er/ir/ur/ear (within a word, not at the very end!): her, term, herd, fir, firm, circle, fur, burn, thirst, turn, shirt, skirt, early, earn
• /wɜ:/ - wor: word, world, worth, worse

Why not to entartain yourself with a couple of tongue-twister challenges? I also need to improve my "th" pronunciation:

TONGUE TWISTERS WITH “TH” 

http://www.heathermeloche.com/AP%20Tongue%20Twisters.htm

To cut the long story short, I'd like to remind you about my idea ti acquire the British accent. Ella recommended me to pay attention to famous verse "The Chaos". This poem demonstrates the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation (written by Dutch writer, traveller and teacher Gerard Nolst Trenité)

I am looking forward to record myself - that's a good challenge, after all!

  

My Pronunciation Hendrik SUK3 Part1

Hey :) Let's discuss pronunciation, shall we?

"Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction by now should be antique!" - says a famous character from the movie "My Fair Lady" (you can enjoy his song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAYUuspQ6BY)

How can I improve my pronunciation? Firstly, I'd like to mention that British pronunciation is my ultimate dream. It hard to acquire it, though! I really hope, it all boils down to practice...

For now, my "weak points" are:

• intonation (try to imitate the narators here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/ and here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk/ ).
• BrE vs AmE (sometimes it's hard for me to see the difference in pronunciation. It seems subtle, but still!) For instance:
  research [rɪ'sɜːʧ] - BrE
  research ['rēˌsərch] - AmE

There is a useful link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nAnT3PASak
These women step by step explain the peculiarities of both pronunciation variants and give useful recommendations.

Thanks for your attention!

How is my Academic Paper Project Going? SUK3 Part2 Hendrik

Hello, everyone!

      As a matter of fact, I had been working on my essay (topic: "Euroclubs in Ukraine") for a couple of weeks when I realised that the political situation in my country is a really burning issue for the EU. That is why, I decided to change my working title ("Ukraine at the Crossroads: Russia or the EU?") .

      Therefore, my paper is supposed to be a modest attempt to shed the light on the disputable issue: what is the idea of the Ukraine-EU Agreement? Who is interested in this Document to be signed? What do Ukrainian people say about their anticipations? In order to achieve these goals I decided to come up with a

questionnaire. I placed it in the popular in Ukraine social network (vkontakte). My idea about it was to see, what my peers (mainly students from NTUU "KPI") think about it.

     Thus, my mini-survey "What are you battling for joining the Euromaidan"* helped me to enumerate different causes of revolutionary movements in my country.

________________

*Euromaidan - is an allusion to the name of the main square in Kyiv - Maidan Nezalezhnosti: Europe+Maidan

P.S. Thinking about structure & style of my paper:

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/style-and-usage/academic-writing-skills.html

SUK3 Part3 Before and After Summary Henry

            BEFORE:

This article by Ambrose Evans-Pitchard represents the deflation crisis in Europe.

Due to the monetary contraction policy implemented in Britain after Seven Years War and the US agrarian revolt, Europe is plunged into economic depression.

With the 300% GDP debt deflation becomes lethal and Eurozone risks to face “the Japan syndrome”. It turned out that debt stabilizing by increasing the primary budget surplus (as it was done in Italy) caused unemployment rates going up. Thus, the debt rate keeps rising in Italy, Spain and Portugal as an expected result of “denominator effect”.

Moreover, the private debt shows the sign of the same vicious dynamic. Companies have only added to their debt volumes proving the Japanese-style deflation to be a disaster for real assets.

Therefore, the private debt ratios are rising steadily in Europe while America is deleveraging rapidly.

Eventually there is the only possible solution, according to the author: accept the deflation’s drifting up with rising wages in Germany. As a result, the private loans are shrinking at 2% rate and economy is recovering gradually.

That sounds counterintuitive but Germany, being an anti-inflation taskmaster is soon to face the risk of deflation itself. Fortunately, the perspective is not really dangerous.

AFTER:

This article by Ambrose Evans-Pitchard, published in the Daily Telegraph (23 Oct 2013) represents the deflation crisis in Europe.

The author analyses the reasons of a deep economic depression in Europe.

With the 300% GDP debt deflation is becoming lethal and Eurozone is facing “the Japan syndrome”. It turned out that debt stabilizing by increasing the primary budget surplus (as it was done in Italy) caused unemployment rates going up tremendously. Thus, the debt rate keeps rising in Italy, Spain and Portugal as an expected result of the “denominator effect”.

Moreover, the private debt shows signs of the same vicious dynamic. Actually, companies have only added to their debt volumes proving the Japanese-style deflation to be a disaster for real assets. Therefore, the private debt ratios are rising steadily in Europe while America is deleveraging rapidly.

Eventually there is the only possible solution, according to the Evans-Pritchard: accept the deflation’s drifting up with rising wages in Germany. As a result, the private loans are shrinking at 2% and the economy is recovering gradually.

That sounds counterintuitive but Germany, being an anti-inflation taskmaster is soon to face the risk of deflation itself. Fortunately, the perspective is not really dangerous.

198 WORDS, NOT INCLUDING THE TITLE