Anthropomorphic Verbs
In English, it is perfectly acceptable to write “this report shows”, “a study demonstrates”, whereas Russian is less accepting of such anthropomorphism. When translating sentences where an inanimate subject is coupled with an active verb which is primarily associated with animate nouns, it is best to modify sentence structure in one of the following ways:
- replace the verb with a more appropriate verb:
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this device brings a new level of accuracy to your operations
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Correct
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данное устройство позволяет достичь нового уровня точности в работе
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- use an impersonal verb (the subject will automatically become the object)
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the report shows that a similar phenomenon
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Correct
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в отчете показано, что аналогичное явление
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- add a clarifying noun
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a study demonstrates an absence of correlation
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Correct
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результаты исследования указывают на отсутствие корреляции
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