July 31, 2020 The notorious movement BLM (Black Lives Matter) is on the rampage. Apocryphally, Otto von Bismarck is said to have remarked, “God looks out for fools, drunkards, and the United States.” https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/bidens_civil_war.html  The meanings of look out for clash and the translator usually takes his time before making his choice between   1) подыскивать  и 2) присматривать. 

July 23, 2020 The BBC refers to the the Nakhchivan melting pot as a "nation" but spells it in a very strange-sounding way to the Soviet ear: 
Chances are you’ve never heard of Nakhchivan. Jammed between Armenia, Iran and Turkey on the Transcaucasian plateau, this autonomous republic of Azerbaijan is one of the most isolated outposts of the former Soviet Union and a place few travellers ever visit.

Geographically severed from its nation by an 80-130km strip of Armenia, this 450,000-person slice of Azerbaijan is the world’s largest landlocked exclave, a Bali-sized amalgam of Soviet apartment blocks, gold-domed mosques and arid rust-red mountains wedged between the Black and Caspian seas.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200721-nakhchivan-the-worlds-most-sustainable-nation?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2F

July 21, 2020 Well the story goes that when the Roman invaders came to France, they tried to impose their language and methods on the French but they weren’t entirely successful.

There was a short period during the Middle Ages when the roman versions ‘septante’, ‘huitante’ and ‘nonante’ looked like they were going to stick but then tradition partially prevailed for the French and they managed to reclaim their ancient ways of saying eighty (quatre-vingt) to ninety-nine (quatre-vingt-dix-neuf).

No doubt French learners would love it if the language guardians at the Academie Francaise decided to ditch the fingers and toes system and adopt the Swiss French number system, but we have to remember that most French people don't have an issue with their numbers.

And criticize as we might, the idea of counting in twenties actually used to be part of the English language too. 

Think back to Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address and you may remember how without realizing, we know ‘score’ to mean twenty:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty…”

To translate, ‘Four score and seven’, means four, twenty and seven, in other words, 4x20 and 7; on exactly the same principle as the French!

https://www.thelocal.fr/20190320/so-how-did-the-french-end-up-with-their-crazy-numbers

July 17, 2020  The correspondences marked by yellow will hardly be arrived at in the back-translation:

I Was a Jaded World Traveler. Then I Went to Siberia.

A travel journalist who’d lost her sense of wonder chasing $1,000-a-night hotels exiles herself to the Russian hinterland—and finds her spirit renewed https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-was-a-jaded-tourist-then-i-went-to-siberia-11594819095?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=8

Translation into Russian: странствия по свету меня пресытили. Но потом я побывала в Сибири

Утратив ощущение чуда от чехарды гостиничных номеров по 1 000 долларов за ночь, журналистка-путешественница отправилась в добровольное изгнание в глубокий тыл России и почувствовала желанную новизну

July 13, 2020 We use them so much in everyday language that we often don’t even notice them, but metaphors and similes help us think more deeply – and make sense of the world around us, writes Hélène Schumacher.

Give a close look to it! Metaphor in short: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200710-the-words-that-stretch-how-we-think

July 11, 2020 The American academic discourse marks 2014 as the beginning of the civil war in the Ukraine and points the linguistic reasons of it [Andresen and Carter. Languages in the world. - P. 230] The monograph referred to here gives detailed case studies of language wars in Burma, Sudan, Sri Lanka etc.  The authors wonder what makes some regimes stubbornly pursue 'one language - one nation' anachronistic scheme doomed to eventual failure...

July 7, 2020 All languages fall into copula bound and copula free ones. In the process of translation the copula may be retained, added or omitted. 

The precise definition and scope of the concept of a copula is not necessarily precise in any language. For example, in English though the concept of the copula is most strongly associated with the verb be, there are many other verbs that can be used in a copular sense as well. For example:

• The boy became a man.
• The girl got excited by her new toy.
• The dog grew tired from the activity.

And even more tenuously:

• The milk turned sour.
• The food smells good.
• You seem upset.

July 3, 2020 Just because Svetlana Aleksievich poses herself as a dissident, they give her space on the BBC homepage: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p08j0ftz/why-i-decided-to-live-with-my-ex-husband However, neither the BBC home-page nor the Nobel prize are capable of taking off a feeling of disgust when you come across a jelly-fish like her: a lot of poison, but no brains worth mentioning! 

July 1, 2020 Phrasal verbs are very hard to deal with for learners of English. Just take a look at the 25 meannings marked by a dictionary: take off 1) снимать, сбрасывать to take off one's clothes — раздеваться to take off one's coat — снимать пальто 2) сбрасывать вес He took off weight every day. — Он сбавлял в весе каждый день. 3) уменьшиться; прекратиться The wind is taking off. — Ветер стихает. 4) уменьшить (что-л.) to take three points off the total score — снять три очка с общего счёта 5) ослаблять; отпускать to take off the brake — отпускать тормоз 6) сбавлять, снижать (цену) to take 3 shillings off the price of smth. — снизить цену на что-л. на три шиллинга 7) уничтожать; убивать The plague took off her parents. — Её родители погибли от чумы. A strong cup of tea takes off the weariness. — Чашка крепкого чая снимает усталость. 8) подражать; имитировать, копировать; передразнивать; пародировать Syn: imitate , parody , mimic , mock , monkey 9) взлететь to take off from the deck — взлететь с палубы (авианосца) 10) срываться (с места) 11) пускаться наутёк 12) вычитать 13) удалять to take off a leg — ампутировать ногу 14) уводить, увозить He took me off to the garden. — Он увёл меня в сад. 15) уходить Take yourself off! — Уходи! 16) начинать He took off from here. — Он начал с этого места. 17) отскакивать The ball took off from the post. — Мяч отскочил от штанги. 18) брать начало, ответвляться The river takes off from this lake. — Река вытекает из этого озера. 19) пить залпом, глотать 20) грабить 21) отвлекать to take smb. off his work — отвлекать кого-л. от работы 22) избавлять He took the responsibility off me. — Он снял с меня ответственность. 23) отстранять to take off the job — отстранить от работы 24) вычёркивать to take smb. off the list — вычеркнуть кого-л. из списка 25) сбивать The waves took me off my feet. — Волны сбили меня с ног