Monday, January 2, 2023

Letter: Lost in translation - Financial Times - Translation

I wanted to point out something in the article “Russia at war: life without imports” (The Big Read, December 15) that I found particularly interesting.

In the paragraph talking about issues within the automotive industry your correspondents write that “the slump led officials to loosen some safety requirements over the summer for antiskid brakes and safety cushions”.

This reads like a very bad calque from the Russian where the direct translation of ABS is antiskid brakes, but airbags is directly translated as “safety cushions”.

While this is something very amusing to me as a native Russian speaker, it might have confused English-speaking FT readers.

Sergei Korolev
Los Angeles, CA, US

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