Okay, I’m getting a bit obsessed with this now. Tumblr user secretlytodream has given me the actual Russian version of the Winter Soldier’s handler’s ten reprogramming words! This is so interesting compared to what we are given as subtitles in the English version of the CACW movie:
1. Longing: желание – wish/will (depending on the context really)
2. Rusted: живой – alive
3. Seventeen: семнадцать – seventeen
4. Daybreak: рассвет – dawn
5. Furnace: печь – oven
6. Nine: девять – nine
7. Benign: добросердечный – good-hearted
8. Homecoming: возвращение на родину – homecoming
9. One: один – one
10. Freightcar: грузовой вагон – freight car.
Thanks secretlytodream! You’re the best.
Ok, first of all, I have no idea why they can’t hire Russian people to do these things for them, because there are always – always – mistakes or whatever. There’s a bit of confusion on the “rusted” part. I was sure I heard the word “живой”, like, the word stress and everything. But after I found out that the English subtitles were actually the word “rusted” which is “ржАвый” with the stress on the “a”, I got confused. Because the dude in the movie clearly pronounces it with the stress on the last syllable and it’s a no way to pronounce the word “rusted” in Russian.
And “benign” is a synonym of “good-hearted”, “kind-hearted”. The last two are more of a literal translation I suppose. In case there are more language geeks out there 😀
If these words weren’t in the comics, now I’m curious how they were chosen. I mean, some words are pretty obvious, but some are really open to any interpretation.
struggled to pronounce
“ржАвый”, it was more of a “ржавОй“ in his delivery, but when Karpov (Gene Farber) says it in the 1991 scene, it’s clearly“ржАвый”,
“rusted“. I can’t fathom why they didn’t go for “kind-hearted“ for “добросердечный“, it’s the closest lexical equivalence and most contextually appropriate. As for “возвращение на родину“, I find the nuance interesting here, since it’s “return to the homeland“, literally, in the source language (Russian) but “return home“ in the target language (English subtitles translation, “homecoming“), which brings out two different conceptual references: actual codeword
“возвращение на родину“appealing to something ideologically patriotic in the subject’s mind, while the translated codeword “homecoming“ referencing something more personal and intimate, a home – with the associations ‘home is where the heart is‘, ‘home is not a place but a person/people‘ (some Steve-related subliminal message).
Sebastian Stan’s Russian is interestiing – while he seems to understand what he’s saying, his accent is very noticeable and his pronunciation seems influenced by Romanian, not American English. If this is what the legendary Winter Soldier sounded like all the time, with an identifiable regional accent, he was likely referred to by Department X or Soviet-based Hydra branch or whoever supposedly handled him in MCU as “our Moldavian supersoldier“. 🙂
“Товарищ командир, силы противника прорываются сквозь линию окопов и идут к нашей базе. Прикажите доставать из холодильника чудо-молдованина?“ (Comrade Commander, the enemy forces are breaching the trench line and moving towards our base. Orders to take the Moldavian miracle man out of the fridge, sir?) /headcanon
Reblogging because instant Moldavian Winter Soldier headcanon.
Correction:
Karpov (Gene Farber), too,
pronounces ржАвый as ржавОй, @secretlytodreamis 100% right. I wonder why, is that Belarusian accent?
Interestingly, Zemo (Daniel Brühl) pronounces рассвет (dawn) as развед, as if he were about to say разведка (scouting, intelligence gathering) and stopped one syllable short.
But what really caught my attention upon second viewing was that when Karpov activates the psy-ops coding, he says добросердечный (kind-hearted, like a person can be good-natured) while Zemo says доброкачественный (benign, like a tumor can be benign): these are two absolutely different words! Either this is horrible continuity or it’s supposed to make sense in the movie: Zemo pronounced the word wrong, so the conditioning was faulty and Bucky came back to his senses when he was fished out of the water.
Sebastian Stan’s distinct Romanian/Moldavian accent when he responds “Я готов отвечать“ is the most breath-takingly adorable thing, though. Супермолдованин Баки – the most reliable operative of the Winter Soldier corps.
Oh man, thanks for clearing that up! I was pulling my hair trying to figure it out, because both words – “alive” and “rusted” could have very different meanings in the whole “reprogramming” situation. Daniel Brul literally speaks 3 languages (4 technically), I wonder why he didn’t put more work in the pronunciation of a couple of words. But it seems that the official version is “rusted” – the same word was used in the Spanish subtitles, too. As for Sebastian, bless his soul and heart, at least this time his Russian is somewhat understandable, comparing to “Она моя” from The Winter Soldier 😛
And yes,
while Zemo says доброкачественный (benign, like a tumor can be benign): these are two absolutely different words!
this got me, like, wtf?..
Another thing that I think was amazingly creepy was that the first time Karpov says “Доброе утро, солдат” – Good morning, soldier, like it’s a good thing or something, like he’s trying to be kind. And yeah, gimme more Супермолдаванин Баки! 😀 *remembers those damn plums and goes cry in the corner some more*
Well (a russian here) I didn’t expect any better from them to be honest. I still remember Winter Soldier saying “Ona u menya” in WS which doesn’t make any sense at all (it seems that they simply used Google translate for that).
“Ready to comply” is translated wrong into russian too; what they are saying in Russian means “Ready to answer”, which is kinda close but still has a different meaning.
And don’t give me started on the signs or anything else in written Russian! Like the sign on the snowmobile in Siberia “через снегу орендовать” -that is just 3 words stuck together! FFS! I mean, why is it so bloody hard to correctly translate shit? God, they don’t even have to pay the translators, all they have to do is ask russian-speaking tumbler-ites to help!
In a generous mood, I’d go for an interpretation of Bucky the Winter Soldier actually having studied Russian, but speaking it poorly and with interference from English and from other languages he had to learn for mission purposes (Civil War establishes he has at least listening comprehension of German and speaking/listening skills in Romanian). Hence the infamous
Она у меня, найди его.And Я готов отвечать.
(If that’s the standard response Bucky gives, imagine Karpov just muttering through his teeth every time, Да кто тебя спрашивает. He unsuccessfully tries to teach him some other response, at least Slushayus’, tovarishch komandir. The Soldier doesn’t show he understands the orders, either. Karpov would have liked a “Yest’!“ or “Tak tochno!“, but no, with Bucky Bear, it’s all meaningful blinking.)
(But those before Karpov, before they taught Bucky at least passable Russian, must have encountered more difficulties. End of the year review would’ve been… unconventional. “We have successfully fulfilled the five year plan for Nefarious Affairs in two years! Congratulations, team! Akopyan, bonus! Dondukov, bonus! Sidorov, bonus! Shumbasov, bonus! …Soldier, an abecedary.“)
I couldn’t read “через снегу орендовать”
at all, later assuming it must have been something in Khalkha Mongolian in Cyrillic script – since @secretlytodream mentioned the Hydra base is in Ulaanbaatar in the Russian cut of Civil War? (MCU Ulaanbaatar sadly did not look like “sophistication on the edge of the steppe“.) But
“через снегу орендовать”seems like plain Google translate Russian.
And that doesn’t put me in a generous mood. MCU is just so careless with depicting the world.
Knowing that Bucky is supposed to be a polyglot of sorts makes me even sadder. I know, I know, it’s not real and everything, but really – they could have put in a bit more effort eh?
He unsuccessfully tries to teach him some other response, at least Slushayus’, tovarishch komandir.
All the while holding his cup of tea. That the soldier probably brought him back from one of the missions.
later assuming it must have been something in Khalkha Mongolian in Cyrillic script – since @secretlytodream mentioned the Hydra base is in Ulaanbaatar in the Russian cut of Civil War
I’m pretty sure they weren’t going to be that continuous as, let;s say, in Cap2 with Steve’s little notebook, when they created different lists of “Important Things” for different countries. Plus changing the country/city obviously was made long after post production, and mainly by the dear old motherland I think.
Reprogram Bucky – the plot thickens
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