What Did He Say?

Here in Russia, when English speakers start talking with Russian speakers about President Trump, it seems like you’re talking about two entirely different people. Why this is can be a puzzle, until you take a look at how Trump is presented and quoted in Russian. Then it becomes clear: they are two different people.

The American Trump speaks in short bursts that sometimes trail off into nowhere, with plenty of repetition and a lot of very colloquial or slangy words and expressions. The Russian Trump speaks in complete, statesman-like sentences, with a few sharp words for piquancy.

Does that remind you of anyone? In Russian, Trump sounds a bit like Vladimir Putin.

Of course, it’s early days, so things might change. But in general, in the Russian press there is a post-election, pre-disappointment glow, in which news from the White House comes via press releases with scant attention paid to alternative points of view. So the news about Trump’s travel ban in the mainstream Russian media was this: Трамп подписал указ, ужесточающий контроль за въезжающими в США мигрантами (Trump signed a decree tightening control over migrants entering the US). No wonder Russians couldn’t figure out why Americans were protesting.

When Russian periodicals do quote Trump, they generally tend to причёсывать (smooth over) Trump’s speech and raise it up in register. This is, in part, an old tradition here, applied to all leaders. With Trump, they make him sound tough and pithy. So his colloquial and not very precise “I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it,” becomes the more proper and coherent: Я думаю, начнём с того, что ядерное оружие должно быть очень значительно сокращёно (I think we’ll start with a substantial cut in nuclear weapons). The tweet about the Australian refugee issue ends in English with the decidedly down-register “I will study this dumb deal!” In Russian, the tweet is more adult: Я изучу эту чёртову сделку (I’ll study this damned deal.)

Similarly, Trump’s “bad hombres” become just “bad guys”: “You have a bunch of bad hombres down there” Trump was quoted as telling the Mexican president. In Russian, it sounds more like Trump is pointing out the presence of armed bands: У вас там есть шайка плохих парней (You’ve got a gang of bad guys.) The exclamation “big trouble!” is “большая проблема в сфере национальной безопасности” (big problem in the area of national security). And so on.

In other cases, it appears that the translators and journalists are simply struggling to understand Trump. When he tweeted, “Iran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq,” no one was sure if he meant it literally or figuratively. Some went for literal: Иран быстро захватывает Ирак (Iran is quickly occupying Iraq) or Иран быстро поглощает всё больше и больше Ирака (Iran is quickly swallowing up more and more of Iraq). Others went for the figurative: Иран имеет всё больше влияние на территории Ирака (Iran has more influence on Iraqi territory) or Иран устанавливает всё более ощутимый контроль над территориями Ирака (Iran is establishing more tangible control over Iraqi territory). Some publications used both and let the reader decide.

And then sometimes the poor translators are just flummoxed, as they were by Trump’s call to “go nuclear” if ratification of his nominee to the Supreme Court was held up. В арсенале республиканцов имеется “ядерный вариант” (The Republicans have the “nuclear option” in their arsenal.) Readers were left to figure out what that meant.

It’s going to be a long, confusing four years.