Chronos wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
MalchikBrodyaga wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
MalchikBrodyaga wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
я не понимаю, почему россияне пишут свои письма назад
Did you type it in English and do google translate? Because there are so many misused words that I can hardly even understand what you wrote. Here is what you were saying, if I take it the way it is written: "I don't understand why do Russians write their own letters back". So you meant "backward" as in from right to left, or "back" as in a reply to someone, but then it won't be "their own" letter or would it?
Were you asking why do Russians send replies? Because its not what it says.
I’m well aware of the google problem. I check for literal translation and then just do the best I can.
If you thought that was bad, you should have seen what I wrote first before checking it. It literally read: I don’t understand why Russians write their own person backwards.
Then its not the language, I just don't understand what you were alluding to. What do you mean by writing their own person backward?
The English words “letter” and “character” both have plural meanings. “Letter” can mean a letter of the alphabet or it can mean a message written on paper sent through the mail. “Character” can mean either a letter of the alphabet or it can mean person. If I use the word “character,” it translates to a Russian word that means person.
The Russian letter я (ya) looks like the Roman letter R and sounds nothing like it, whereas the Russian P is derived from the Greek Rho and sounds like the Roman “R.” Some of our words are similar, which means Russian shouldn’t be any more difficult to learn than German. But the letters all seem to be backwards.
The second meaning of character isn't person. It's the fictional embodiment of a person.
Ummm...you’re thinking in literary terms. I was thinking more the moral attributes of an individual. When discussing word meanings across languages, it’s best to work in the simplest possible ways. A non-Anglophone doesn’t have time for a doctoral dissertation on every definition of one or two words.
The definition of character I believe that was mistranslated roughly means “persona.” Depending on how well a Russian-speaker understands English, the word persona might not have been immediately clear. That’s why I chose the word “person” instead. Sometimes strict precision in language can actually be misleading. The English word for character translates to person, persona, or personality in Russian.
In other words, NOT what I meant. The word “letter” seemed to work better in translation.