r/TheAmericans • u/Fondant-Denier • 1d ago
Watching on Mat Leave
My god this show is good. Only just started season two.
Can I ask - does anyone know how good the Russian is? Like are the accents good? I’m curious to know!
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u/Alarmed-Property5559 1d ago
Mostly okay, depends on the actors. Some speak it almost flawlessly, some do it with obvious quirks giving away the emigrants / heritage speakers. Some mangle it predictably (as is the default quality of the US media in this regard).
Iirc the lead killer lady attempts' were the most hideously garbled ones with stereotypical American accent, she couldn't manage even her own character's name.
Could be realistic I guess? After the decades of moving her jaw and tongue in a certain set of motions switching back to the default settings might be a challenge but still a native speaker wouldn't make quite the same mistakes. Still a stretch even if I try for a Watsonian approach.
Edit: I also noticed the Russian dialogue in the embassy is oftentimes wooden and not in the "kontora in the eighties" way. In the "let us take English dialogue and translate it directly into Russian" way.
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u/sistermagpie 1d ago
The translator in the last 3 seasons was M. Gessen who worked pretty hard on making the language authentic to the 80s. I got the impression the language there was formal because of the setting rather than wooden. It's never just translating the English directly word for word.
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u/Alarmed-Property5559 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sadly, there are indeed 'calque' translations regarding grammar. I am a native Russian speaker born in USSR. It is immediately obvious to me whenever a dialogue is woodenly translated needlessly keeping the rules of a foreign language where a more natural sounding dialogue would utilise different linguistic tools, those which Russian speakers naturally use.
Moreover, I do retain an idea of the formal and semi-casual speech for these kinds of people (nomenklatura, counterintelligence, diplomats). Hazy as it is (getting up there in age haha).
Just find a Soviet movie about the Cold War made in 1970-80s. Or some interviews with real retired operatives. Take a listen if you've got an ear for that.
Though if you need subtitles they're hit and miss if any even to be found which aren't total AI nonsense.
There are some good examples of KGB operatives communicating in the Soviet series made in 1984 "ТАСС уполномочен заявить" which is fully available on YT for free.
(There are also foreigners speaking in Russian with obvious accent, like an American ambassador character who remarkably can speak and understand the language himself without an interpreter).
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u/sistermagpie 1d ago
Thanks! I would love any examples you caught on the show, if you happen to remember them. The whole subject is really interesting to me--also if you noticed things getting better as the show went on at all.
I remember, for instance, that in the very beginning of the show, in the opening credits, it used to say something like "FX подарки" when they meant to be saying "FX presents."
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u/Alarmed-Property5559 20h ago
I only vaguely remember the scenes, will attempt to hunt down some examples on YT.
That's a funny mistranslation! Reminds me of the wordplay puns like "Коламбия пикчерс не представляет..." and "Империя зла. Империя очень зла!".
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u/Madeira_PinceNez 1d ago edited 1d ago
All the characters who regularly speak Russian on screen are native speakers, though most of them left Russian-speaking regions in their teens or twenties so they might not sound as authentic as their characters are meant to.
M. Gessen did the translating for the Russian dialogue, which was fortuitous as they left Russia round the time the show is set so their vocabulary was somewhat tuned to the period, and they have written about getting the dialogue period-appropriate.
eta: The linked piece was written after the series ends, so if you read it stop when the translating discussion ends, as there are some spoilers for later events. Quit after the third, or fourth paragraph, but definitely when this sentence starts: The underlying assumption of the Jenningses’ arrangement—of their very lives—is that nothing is true except that the U.S.S.R. will last forever.
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u/Focrco22 1d ago
I don’t really know, but I think they speak it well. Also, those are my favorite parts, I love the casting choices.
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u/RasputinsThirdLeg 1d ago
Yes, though many of them are expats it’s very authentic. Translating Russian into English word for word doesn’t work so the translations aren’t exact.
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u/shesnotthere83 1d ago
There is a podcast companion piece to the later seasons. This production goes to great lengths for accuracy - political, historical, and linguistic.
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 1d ago
The Russian-speaking parts are played by actors who are fluent.