Original text - Russies - Medali

Долетали до луны
Дали за любовь медали
У медали две стороны
Этой мы не знали

We have flown to the moon
We have given ourselves medals for love
Medals have two sides
We never knew it

That's my first attempt for a good beginning, Alex

Perhaps you can do the whole translation, when you've got enough time?

Alex, I'm sure our Russian experts would cope much better with the translation... My Russian is rather basic...even if I understand the song.

Could one of you face the challenge, dear friends?


CC: Siberia ramarren

Yes, when I have enough time I would be glad to help.

Because Aneta made great work in translating the first verse, I can correct it a bit:

We had flown to the moon,
Were given medals for love,
Medals have two sides ,
We did't know 'bout this one.

Of course, this also can be made better. In reality the song is really hard to translate from grammatical point of view because it uses different tenses and other grammatical forms which are not so obvious to translate into English.

E.g., the first line "Долетали до луны" formally means "We reached the Moon several times in the past (before now)" so it's hard to stuff this into literary translation. Formally Past Perfect helps to indicate the action before another action in the past (this flights were before the medals, which also described in the past), but how to describe in one string recurrence of the action? And so on, and so forth. So, actually, the verse should be like:

We had flown to the moon [several times],
Were given medals for love,
Medals have two sides ,
[But] we did't know about this [particular side of the medal].

The next verse:

Is this the right side of the Moon,
Is this the right side of the medal?
Either we have found Love
Or we have lost it?

Sorrowful song, actually

Hi ramarren,
Glad you faced the challenge! I also found the song difficult to translate.
But, I'm surprised how you translated the second line of chorus. Дали за любовь медали - (We) Were given medals for love? Isn't it the active voice, the 1st person plural?

Maybe if more people would work on the translation, they would cope.

Aneta B.

The trick here is that we should consider the whole context of the song, and it says that the medals "were given" to singer and her beloved.

In Russian the forms of verb for 1st person plural and 3nd person plural are similar, e.g. "мы дали" and "они дали (нам)". From the context we can learn that in this case we have the second situation, but in impersonal form, which can be translated both in active (e.g., "They gave us" ) and passive ("We were given" ). Taking into consideration that in the original the sentence is impersonal, it's better to translate it in Passive, which is more impersonal then the formal impersonal (but grammatically personal!) "They gave us" (well, you know it's like "They say the world is round", etc.) The advantage of this solution that we do not create any additional essences comparing to original (which does not have any "they's", i.e. any figures except the singer and her beloved).

Great!

I see Ramarren has translated it already almost completly.

1st verse

It gets dark an hour earlier
(Now I) step on the gas (pedal)shaper
(Now I) call home rarely
(My) mother doesn't know
(Now I'm) often silent
(Now) it takes an hour to warm the bed
I miss the happiness of those five weeks

*Everything in this verse is compared to what was earlier in girl's life, she describes the changes*

Last verse:

I won't let anymore
To change one pain for another
Somebody else's field
Won't reap the fruits
(You) Didn't try to dazzle
(You) Said "It was - it's gone" **
No more words needed
To understand.


** it's about the feelings, e.g. "I was in love but now it's all over".

I think now you have it Alex

PS I'm sorry this song really annoys me to make it to the real translation. I'm sorry again as you probably like it

Oh, I see. It makes sens. I just thought that "we have given ourselves the medals". I didn't consider other people who could give the medals to us... Yes, Russian can be really confusing in such cases.
However I love the song (and even sing it) so would like to know the correct translation
(I know it is Alex's request, but I guess he submitted this for me, haha!).

Wow, thank you, Siberia for joining us. The great piece of work!

Irina Dubcova - Medali

And Medali by me for my Russian colleagues!
It seems that it's easier to sing it than translate, haha!

Thank you all, guys

It is getting dark on hour before
I am keeping my foot down more
I call home rarely more
O, my mom does not know how
I am keeping my tongue more now
I warm my bed in one hour
So it is needed for me
Happiness of five wk

To Moon we have reached now
Medals was gaven for love
And The coin has two sides
It was unknown really life.

Is that right side of moon
Is that right side of coin
We have found our love
Or we've missed a point

I don’t allow to change
My pain to another pain
This field
can not reap a yield
I did not any show
I said-it was on, it is over
Anything we might be about to say
To understand my pain.