Watching an old favourite of mine, The Russia House, not to lose the motivation even when I am taking a rest from dipping my nose in Russian textbooks (I have exams in the next few days), I couldn’t help but pricking up my ears when, presumably for dramatic purposes as part of the plot, a lot of importance is given to an apparent mistranslation of a Russian word.
You see, Muscovite Katya keeps on using the word “convenient” but we are told, (along with Sean Connery’s character, Barley) that when she says “convenient” she is actually trying to say “proper”.
That is because, as Barley is also told, in Russian, удобно, the word for convenient, also means “proper”.
We are to assume that, although her English is almost perfect, since it’s not her native language, such nuisances would escape her.
As the dictionary was by my side anyway (having been a constant company on my bedside table for the past month), I decided to check it out.
And no, unless two of my dictionaries are wrong, the meanings are not interchangeable. The words are not even related.
The word for “convenient” really is удобно (the word for inconvenient being therefore неудобно, or, as it is used in the film, “not convenient”). But it does not have the double meaning of “proper”.
The word for “proper” as in socially acceptable (which is, I think the meaning it is meant to have in the film) is приличный, so fat chance Katya would have confused them in her own language!!
