Important problems in translation of English verbs into Russian
Translating of phrasal verbs is a very important part of the translation science as it is impossible to provide a correct English-Russian translation without correct translating of the phrasal verbs.
It is clear that in order to provide an adequate translation, the translator must be able to sense nuances in the semantics of both texts. Such English phrasal verbs as give up, break in, fall out and the like are of great interest in this respect for they possess quite a number of semantic, grammatical and stylistic peculiarities, and sometimes their accurate translation into Russian presents some difficulties to a translator. Of course, when translating such lexical units, the translator can consult the appropriate bilingual dictionary, but how can the translator know why this or that phrasal verb is translated only this and not any other way?
The consideration of conceptual features of English phrasal verbs is the first step to understanding their semantic nuances. Theoretically phrasal verbs are referred to idiomatic combinations of a verb and an adverbial particle.
In translation from English into Russian, the meaning of the English adverbial component of the phrasal verb is mostly conveyed by using the Russian prefix reflecting the character of the described action or state most accurately. To a greater degree, this refers rather to nuances of semantics than grammar.
If we deal with translation of phrasal verbs or pre-analysis of their adverbial elements’ meaning, we should always bear in mind their polysemy that sometimes borders on homonymy. Let’s compare the following meanings of phrasal verb take in extracted from Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs: 4 - to receive smb in one’s home with welcome, as a guest and 12 - to deceive smb. It holds true for Russian prefixes as well, the same ones rendering different meaning shades in different uses. That is why it seems almost impossible to create a consistent rigid system of lexical correspondences between English adverbial particles and Russian prefixes, without encountering a pretty number of arguable problems.
Nevertheless one can’t but agree that the proper translation of phrasal verbs mostly depends on the context in which they are used, which suggests the appropriate interpretation of the action under description. When the specific characteristics of the action denoted by a certain phrasal verb have been stated, we can seek a Russian counterpart prefix, which is the closest in transferring the same idea and meets the lexical, grammatical and stylistic requirements of translation.
Translating problems and difficulties studied in this article don’t exhaust the all variety of complications in translation to Russian. They reflect only the fundamental, the most typical situations. The translator should pay special attention to the translation of the phrasal verbs and work hard with each phrasal verb. As English and Russian lexical systems are quite different they need the special approach to translating of each verb in accordance with its contextual meaning.
This article is devoted to a very actual problem of English-Russian translation of phrasal verbs