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English to Russian translations [PRO] Law/Patents - Linguistics / Grammar
English term or phrase:I would call - I would have called
Conditional Tense - Conditional Perfect Tense
I need you to show me the difference between the two in Russian It's not about "calling", it's about the exact grammar.
I chose Law as a field, because in Arts/Literary some inaccurate solutions still go, but not in law. In law you have to be precise and precisely quote/translate such grammar, because it makes a big difference there.
All explanations/comments in English, please! Thanks!
Explanation: "Я бы позвонил тебе, если бы было время" is a suitable, if ambiguous, translation for both of those sentences. To make them unambiguous, I would offer the following:
I would call you, if I had time. Я бы позвонил тебе, если бы нашлось время.
I would have called you, if I had had time. Я бы позвонил тебе, но не было времени.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-08-21 15:04:42 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Regards "I would call you, if I had time" To be honest, I find this quite ambiguous in English as well. Many people would say it this way even though they in fact meant "I would have called you, if I had had time."
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-08-21 15:04:57 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Regarding* not Regards, sorry.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-08-21 15:27:12 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Assuming I only had the first part to work with, i.e. either "I would call" or "I would have called," and I didn't know what followed these words, I would render it in Russian as follows:
Я бы позвонил, если
vs.
Я бы позвонил, но
Only by replacing если with но can we convey the knowledge of the fact that the condition was NOT met, as expressed by the English "had had."
I agree with Mikhail that it will be "Я бы позвонил (а)" in both cases, but then you could use "но" (in both cases) and an indicative verb in the second part. E.g. I would call you, if I had time - Я бы позвонил(а) тебе, но у меня нет времени. I would have called you, if I had had time - Я бы позвонил(а) тебе, но у меня не было времени.
Secondly, I find it hard to believe that something a person says in court could be 'out of context'. But even then the phrase in question would be translated "Я бы позвонил (а)" and the conditionality (whether present or past) would be obvious from that context. This may be a deficiency but we have found a way to live with it :)))
just to make sure we are on the same page, what do you mean by "the two in Russian"? do you mean the Russian equivalents of "I would call" and "I would have called"? if so, what makes you think that the Russian equivalents of "I would call" and "I would have called" are (should be? must be?) different from each other? do you have the Russian equivalents of "I would call" and "I would have called"? are they different from each other? if you do, give us your Russian equivalents so that we could explain the difference between them.
Dear bochkor please don't forget that English and Russian languages have different structure. The same information can be conveyed through grammatical or lexical means. The essence of translation is to find the appropriate way. Russian language doesn't have equivalent tenses, and we use lexical means to specify them. So technically as Mikhail said to you: Я бы позвонил is correct in both sentences. If you want to emphasize the fact that the speaker hasn't called you should translates it as: Я бы обязательно позвонил тогда, но.... or you can translate the first sentence as Я мог бы позвонить тебе, если бы... Я позвоню тебе, если будет время...obviously depending on the wider context. I think you should read something on linguistics, especially comparative linguistics. It helps a lot.
Bamileke-Dschang has five distinct future tenses, but fewer past tenses so is not as great in total. However, Kiksht, a Chinookan language spoken in the American Pacific Northwest, has the largest number of distinct tenses going in one direction in time, seven past tenses using a combination of different prefixes and suffixes. Is Chinookan language richer than English? They definately love time dimensioning - that's my conclusion.
On the note of what is and isn't possible in a language... Do you realize the Russian translation you're asking for depends on whether the speaker is male or female? And that without knowing the speaker's gender, it is impossible to provide an accurate Russian translation? Where does that leave your theory about precise 1-to-1 relations between languages?
Taking this point further, is English richer or poorer than Russian, considering that it cannot incorporate gender into verbs like Russian (or any Slavic language) can? Why are translations for "Я бы позвонил" and "Я бы позвонила" the same in English? Shouldn't it be ABSOLUTELY possible to translate this into English DIFFERENTLY, with no ambiguity and no any additional context? Hrm...
I wasn't making fun of Russians or the Russian language. I just pointed out a deficiency in Russian, which has given me a headache for quite some time, so I brought it up and asked. However, a deficiency in this Conditional issue is now an established fact and of course, I have the right to compare languages with each other and draw my conclusion, that I thought, Russian was richer, but it is not. This is a very serious deficiency, period. And I'm sure, it causes many translators and interpreters a headache. For good reason. So of course, I'm disappointed, that not even a native Russian could give me anything better, than just describing around it.
So basically you're here to comment on the inferiority of Russian grammar and lecture people on what should and shouldn't be possible to do in that language, did I get that right?
I could make fun of the way Hungarians say "100 apple" instead of "100 apples" but that would be... so immature and wrong, wouldn't it?
You ARE losing the conditional form in the IF clause and not just by replacing "если" with "но", but also by saying "не было времени = there was no time". In my original BOTH clauses kept their conditional form, so it's not okay in Russian to keep the conditional only in one of the clauses.
So basically, if this cannot be said precisely in Russian without distorting the quote, then in this case the English language seems to be richer, than the Russian. So if "я бы позвонил" is the translation for both, then it simply can't be done, because the Russian language lacks some very necessary distinction. And absolutely it should be possible to translate this accurately WITHOUT the additional context of an IF clause (which leads to description rather, than translation), because if "I would call him" or "I would have called him" was ALL, what the client said in court, then THAT has to be translated precisely, AS IS, for an accurate record. So sometimes, like in this case, there is no context to give, yet it should be possible to translate something literally = out of context, too.
I've had this experience also with other Slavic languages, such as Polish. They don't have it, either.
You said, "It's about accurately quoting someone who said this." That's what I assumed in my additional comment. Real-life spoken language can at times greatly differ from "Queen's English." But let us by all means restrict ourselves to formal grammar. I have no problem with that.
Regarding your "Regards" paragraph, I totally disagree. People would not say that instead and they actually do use "I would have called", when they need to. On the other hand, let's not discuss here some people making mistakes and incorrectly using their English, because the correct English is very clear!
You're completely missing my point. There is no way in Russian to indicate "if I had had time" using tense alone. Moreover, there are no TWO DIFFERENT conditional tenses like in English, but only one. The additional meaning is conveyed via other means. I.e. in my second sentence, I'm not losing the conditional despite replacing "если" with "но" because the conditional IS present in the first part (я БЫ позвонил).
I'm sorry, but I'm looking for DIFFERENT translations for both. I'm not looking for the SAME translation for both, only with additional twisting of the IF clause by translating "if" as "но", which means actually "but", not "if". I understand, that you did this to indicate the past in the second sentence. However, that already deviates from the original meaning of the sentence, that omission of "если" already changes the sentence. In other words, the CONDITIONAL form must be kept for accuracy and without "если" you're losing it. Again, it's not about describing a situation, it's about accurately quoting someone, who said this sentence.
Please provide additional context for each phrase. On the surface, they may both be translated as "Я бы позвонил". In English, the usage of "I would have called" is quite clear but that of "I would call" may vary. For example "When we went to college I would call my mother every Sunday" is quite different from "I would call you if I knew you wanted to see me."
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Answers
41 mins confidence:
i would call - i would have called
Я бы позвонил
Explanation: "Я бы позвонил тебе, если бы было время" is a suitable, if ambiguous, translation for both of those sentences. To make them unambiguous, I would offer the following:
I would call you, if I had time. Я бы позвонил тебе, если бы нашлось время.
I would have called you, if I had had time. Я бы позвонил тебе, но не было времени.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-08-21 15:04:42 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Regards "I would call you, if I had time" To be honest, I find this quite ambiguous in English as well. Many people would say it this way even though they in fact meant "I would have called you, if I had had time."
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-08-21 15:04:57 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Regarding* not Regards, sorry.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-08-21 15:27:12 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Assuming I only had the first part to work with, i.e. either "I would call" or "I would have called," and I didn't know what followed these words, I would render it in Russian as follows:
Я бы позвонил, если
vs.
Я бы позвонил, но
Only by replacing если with но can we convey the knowledge of the fact that the condition was NOT met, as expressed by the English "had had."
Mikhail Kropotov Germany Local time: 18:51 Native speaker of: Russian PRO pts in category: 71
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