Comment by orthoxerox
11 hours 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}.
I 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.
There are also the "canonical" nicknames that are not obvious to non-Russian speakers. E.g. Nikolai is Kolja.
With 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.
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And then we add the diminutives like Kolichka. Though, admittedly, there's much more of a pattern there.
> 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.
I've been reading Tom Clancy recently, and that's basically the Jack Ryan books. Somehow, "Jack" is actually a nickname for "John".
> Somehow, "Jack" is actually a nickname for "John".
That has never made one iota of sense to me. The whole "Dick" / "Richard" thing makes more sense than "Jack" / "John" to me (and it's nonsensical, too).
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I've not read Dostoevsky, but there is a similar issue in Japanese literature. The same person might be referred to in as many as 4 different ways, and on top of that you are supposed to infer who the speaker is by the mode of address (and other context clues like personal pronouns), so dialog tags are seldom used.
I'm bad with names to begin with, so I usually make a chart to keep side characters straight.
The same thing happens in English literature of Dostoevsky's period - upper class characters might be referred to by substantive title (sometimes in two different forms), subsidiary title, courtesy title, surname, first name, job/rank/office, epithet, nickname, or even pet name.
To add confusion, the choice of which to use is usually context-dependent (time period, age, status, situation, relationship between characters) but sometimes the author will switch between, say, title and surname within the same paragraph simply as a matter of style or to avoid repetition.
And then some people call him Jack or Johnny
The 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)
Sasha and Alexander isn't that obscure thought. Very common example The real obscure diminutive for Alexander is Shura :D
I was in my 20's when I realized Bill and William are the same name
I read a lot of Enid Blyton in my youth; by ten I know bill/william and richard/dick, etc.
My 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.
Will = William
Ipso facto:
Bill = Billiam
Mutatis Mutandis:
Jim = Jimothy
The 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
Here there is at least same prefix.
Only issue I recall might be with female Aleksandra (abbreviated to Ola) and male Aleksander (abbreviated to Olo, or Olek).
Others usually (if I remember correctly) have similar prefix.
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The dialectal form Aleksasha (following the common pattern Mariya > Masha, Pavel > Pasha, etc.) might reduce the confusion somewhat.
> Jack for John
Wow, is this one common?
Traditionally, yes; these days, perhaps not so much.
The author Jack London was originally John London. John F. Kennedy was familiarly known as Jack ("Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"). The British racing driver John Stewart is far more commonly known as Jackie Stewart. In Patrick O'Brian's naval fiction, Captain John Aubrey is almost always referred to as Jack.
I 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.
Sasha 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/
(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.)
> Сашь -, and e.g. Mish - Мишь
Note: these are written without soft sign a the end: Саш, Миш.
That's awesome, thank you
I think it's the translators' fault. I think they could've added some footnotes like *Sasha - diminutive of Alexander.
This could be an LLM based e-reader feature, replace names with non-native intelligible translations.
I'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.
If 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.
I 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.
Yeah, 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.
Yeah, Dick for Richard is my favorite!
Mostly Southern Chinese or Hong Kong.