Having met many times in my life with citizens of the Republic of Belarus or the Russian Federation, I have had the pleasure of improving my knowledge of #translation# not only of intricate and difficult technical, legal and business texts, but also of proverbs. In my earlier blog from March, I quoted those proverbs that stuck in my memory the most, but after some time, I decided that this topic is worth continuing and therefore I will provide more Russian proverbs and their translation.
How should proverbs be #translated# in such a case? This is the question translators ask themselves when accepting an assignment. Should they translate them literally or look for an equivalent in Polish? This varies. Here I will use a few examples where proverbs should be translated literally:”Ищи ветра в поле”-This can be #translated# literally “Look for the wind in the field”; “Как постелешь, так и выспишься”-which we translate as “Jak sobieścieścieście, tak się wyśpisz ; “Кто кому яму копает, тот сам в нее попадает”-which we translate as: “He who digs holes under whom, falls into them himself”; “Кто ищет, тот найдет” – “He who seeks, finds”; “Лучше поздно, чем никогда” – literally translated: “Better late than never”.
The next proverb I will quote differs from the previous ones in that we do not #translate# them literally, but the equivalent Polish proverb should be adapted: “Про волка речь, а волк на встречь” – which we translate as “O wolku mowa”; “Ложь на глиняных ногах ходит” – the equivalent of our proverb: “A lie has short legs”; “Людей судят по внешности” – in this case #translates# almost literally: “As they see you, so they write you”.