6 ms·
> The main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard. What's wrong with the names? I find Chinese novels much harder to read because everyone's named
by orthoxerox 4mo ago
> The main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard.
What's wrong with the names? I find Chinese novels much harder to read because everyone's named C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou} C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou}C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou}.
- kelnos 4mo agoI haven't read any Dostoyevsky since high school, and don't remember it at all, but I'd imagine it has to do with nicknames. A non-Russian speaker is going to be confused when the same character is referred to as both Alexander and Sasha, for example, and will think they're different people.
- nephihaha 4mo agoI've never understood this particular issue. My mother had it too with Russian literature. Many Russian books have a "cast list" at the beginning to get round this. I don't find it any stranger than William being called Will, Wullie, Bill or Billy; or Robert turning into Rob, Robbie, Rab, Bert, Bob or Bobby; or Elizabeth being turned into Liz, Lizzy, Beth, Betty, Liza, Lilbet etc. I found most Russian diminutives are formulaic so I picked them up fast.
- NorthSouthNorth 4mo agoYeah, it's easy once you pick up the formula, but for first-time readers, it's hard. My first piece of russian literature was The Idiot, and I remember consulting the front page quite often. There are lots of similar names, and the seemingly random use of full names, first names, last names and nicknames, throws off new readers. There are also just a lot of characters.
- simiones 4mo agoI don't think it's conceptually difficult, it's just hard (for some of us, at least) to remember the names of a culture you haven't been exposed to. I speak a language with slavonic influence, so I didn't have this problem with Russian literature, but I remember vividly how hard it was to remember the names of characters in the first anime I watched, just because I was so unaccostemed to Japanese names (even though they were clearly very distinctive). The recall of words you aren't familiar with tends to be pretty poor. This is also visible in how hard it can be to build vocabulary when learning a new language, and how you can completely mix up words at that stage - there's nothing about names that makes this any easier.
- timka 4mo agoYeah, Dick for Richard is my favorite!
- sumeno 4mo agoIf I hadn't grown up hearing those nicknames I would find them confusing as well. It's not natural for a non-native speaker to figure out Dunya, Dunechka, and Avdotya are the same person. Similarly, Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin is referred to as Razumikhin 95% of the time, then suddenly people are referring to Dimitry Prokofych and I've got to look up who that is.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- kgeist 4mo agoI think it's the translators' fault. I think they could've added some footnotes like *Sasha - diminutive of Alexander.
- marttt 4mo agoSasha may also refer to Alexandra, which is a feminine first name. What's more, there's like a ton of diminutive short names for these -- my first ever instagram link on HN, but: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTUeNn7iAit/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTUeNn7iAit/ (FWIW, it lists: Sasha, Sashka, Sashulya, Sashenka, Sanya, Sanechka, Sancho, San, Shurik, Sashunya, Sanyusha, Sanyok. I myself have heard native Russians use Sash - should be written as Сашь -, and e.g. Mish - Мишь -, which is a similar "lazy" conversational short form for Misha/Mikhail. I've learned some Russian, and once you start sensing the endless magic they can do with verb prefixes and sufixes, you realize what a versatile language this is. Somewhat the same counts for first names, I guess.)
- lovegrenoble 4mo agoThat's awesome, thank you
- yurish 4mo ago> Сашь -, and e.g. Mish - Мишь Note: these are written without soft sign a the end: Саш, Миш.
- marttt 4mo agoThanks! I wasn't sure about this one, and guessed wrong. Considering pronunciation, it does feel that there should be a soft sign as well.
- mamonster 4mo ago>Shurik This is a "meme" nickname that 95% of people called Alexander will get pissed over. It's a pretty old diminutive, but because of the movie a lot of people really don't like it.
- K0balt 4mo agoThis could be an LLM based e-reader feature, replace names with non-native intelligible translations.
- bloak 4mo agoI think the problem with Russian names in particular is that a Russian name has three parts (e.g. Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky) and different parts get used in different contexts, depending on who's speaking, level of familiarity and so on. So it's like in an English novel where someone might be referred to as Smith by the narrator but John in dialogue, but with an extra 50%, at least, of confusion.
- jampekka 4mo agoThere are also the "canonical" nicknames that are not obvious to non-Russian speakers. E.g. Nikolai is Kolja.
- OnACoffeeBreak 4mo agoAnd then we add the diminutives like Kolichka. Though, admittedly, there's much more of a pattern there.
- somenameforme 4mo agoWith different transliteration that one at least makes sense. Nikolay = Kolya. But one that'll send most non-Russian speakers for a loop is Alexander = Sasha. It's like Richard = Dick, though there there's at least a rule that makes that one make sense (a rhyme with a shortened name so Richard -> Rick -> Dick, William -> Will -> Bill, etc). I wonder why it didn't just end up as Lexa, which would fit the other patterns for Russian names/diminutives.
- maxgashkov 4mo agoLexa (to be more precise, Lyoha) is a shortened version of Alexey (Aleksei); but if it wasn't reserved for that, Lyoha sounds a bit rude (and a more gentle version akin to Sasha would be Lyosha).
- orthoxerox 4mo agoThe "-sha" pattern is relatively consistent: Pavel-Pasha, Mikhail-Misha, Natalya-Natasha, Nikolay-Nikolasha, Alexey-Alyosha, Mariya-Masha, Ilya-Ilyusha. So, Aleksandr-Aleksasha. The dropping of "Alek" is the only inconsistent part, on par with Agrippina-Agrusha-Grusha.
- jhbadger 4mo agoThe obscure Russian nicknames! How is anybody supposed to know without being told that Sasha and Alexander are the same guy? (I do realize that while some English nicknames like Johnny for John are pretty self-explanatory, other like Jack for John or Dick for Richard are as opaque to foreigners as Alexander/Sasha)
- mananaysiempre 4mo agoThe dialectal form Aleksasha (following the common pattern Mariya > Masha, Pavel > Pasha, etc.) might reduce the confusion somewhat.
- personalityson 4mo agoI was in my 20's when I realized Bill and William are the same name
- lelanthran 4mo agoI read a lot of Enid Blyton in my youth; by ten I know bill/william and richard/dick, etc.
- gullywhumper 4mo agoMy wife had a grandfather with the first name Bill and middle William. After 12 years together, I'm still not sure if she's just messing with me.
- helterskelter 4mo agoWill = William Ipso facto: Bill = Billiam Mutatis Mutandis: Jim = Jimothy
- mathieuh 4mo agoThe first time I worked with Polish people I had this problem a lot until I noticed the pattern. Someone told me to go and talk to "Maciek", it was only on asking Maciej where to find him that I found out they were the same person
- anthk 4mo agoMostly Southern Chinese or Hong Kong.