Erzsébet Czopyk Dec 20, 2015:

@Arabella, I made a telephone call to the theater director I know, he knows a lot about Eisenstein and I also sent and e-mail to Mr. Bergan (he is in Prague now). I will post the answer.

Arabella Bishop (asker) Dec 20, 2015:

Dear Erzsébet, the thing is that in the client's text there are a lot of discrepancies in comparison to what is written in different internet sources. I'm at a loss what to do: just translate the text as it is or correct everything that is wrong according to the Internet..

Erzsébet Czopyk Dec 19, 2015:

a noble rank that entitled him to be addressed The Montage Principle: Eisenstein in New Cultural and ...
https://books.google.hu/books?isbn=9042008989 -
Jean Antoine-Dunne, ‎Paula Quigley - 2004 - ‎Literary Collections
5 His father was the city architect and engineer, Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein, of German-Jewish descent.... recently converted to christianity and had rapidly climbed the social ladder. Both of his brothers, Dmitry and Nikolai, had risen to positions of authority, the former an officer in the Tsarist army, killed in Russo-Japanese War in 1904, the latter a judge. In 1893, Eisenstein senior graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineering and was, sortly thereafter, sent to Riga. There, over the next quarter-century, he rose to become the city's chief engineer and then official architect, on the way attracting decorations and a noble rank that entitled him to be addressed as "Your Excellency". In 1987 he married the...

Erzsébet Czopyk Dec 19, 2015:

@Arabella According to the NYT article, he was not a high rank officer, but a senior civil servant. This is a civil title, which is (if you relly want to use the word) equals to general rank. (but this is nonsense, I beg you, please try to somehow explain in English, it is like comparing a wooden cube to a plastic ball).

Arabella Bishop (asker) Dec 19, 2015:

Dear ladies, thank you very much for helping me!!! Since there is only one alternative offered, do you think this would be an acceptable translation for this sentence? - Daddy was a high rank officer, his title equivalent to that of a general

Inese Poga-Smith Dec 19, 2015:

Take it easy please, will you? Please don't take it personal. I mean the linguistic differences are huge. There are enough terms in English itself available for use. That's why I think the primary examples, etc., should you give such, MUST be in the target language. We've got people here speaking numerous languages. I don't treat these discussions as some kind of fight or battle for the only truth, therefore, I'm quite relaxed and I don't find it irritating. I have not been judgmental with this either, not at all. My point is: do whatever you want, but since the translated text and not the people who suggest answers, should matter here, so make your suggestion rather based on the target language. That's all. Secondly, everybody should be grateful that there are people who do the search and explore the term and help with translation. Anyway, it's good to be helpful, and let's not turn this into some kind of a personal revenge scene. It wasn't meant like that. Take care!

Inese Poga-Smith Dec 19, 2015:

Where did even my opinion go? Did you delete it? I simply found this boy ringing bells extremely amazing. For "paipuisītis" we'd quite certainly use "mommy's boy". I also believe that one should take such translation only in case they master both languages since the interpretation of contextual meanings is extremely important. Texts translated googling each separate word without any regard to a deeper contextual relationship look disastrous. Plain and simple: there are some limits to which googling works or it doesn't. I also find that using Russian references is not acceptable for a completely different language combination translations like English into Latvian. Structures of these languages are so distinct that I really don't get this. The main idea is still the same: Art/Literary texts require much higher grade of language knowledge because of the hard to translate or convey meanings.

Erzsébet Czopyk Dec 19, 2015:

@Arabella Please make an equivalence between a civil engineer and a general. We can ask here in different languages how it would be comparable a civil title with a military rank. Just an example from Russian with "почти (как)", which is literally "almost as" or I gave all versions like as good as, more or less, much the same as, comparable to, on a par with, commensurate with, equivalent.

Генерал-Фельдмаршал князь Паскевич
https://books.google.hu/books?isbn=5518040555 -
А.П. Щербатов - History
... когда уже почти равный ему по чину флигель-адъютантъ Паскевичъ пользовался довѣріемъ главнокомандующаго, Карлъ Федоровичъ Толь относился ...

Пошехонская старина -
https://books.google.hu/books?isbn=5457001792 -
Михаил Салтыков-Щедрин - 2013 - ‎Fiction
Редко присаживался, почти постоянно ходил взад и вперед по комнате, как ... но, достигнув чина статского советника (почти генерал), вышел в отставку.

Erzsébet Czopyk Dec 19, 2015:

@Inese - after a cup of coffee I used the simple phone dictionary but was focused on the part of the text was asked. I am glade for any correction from you and also would appreciate if you could tell me what is "paipuisītis" I am always ready to learn from the distinguished native Latvian speakers. Thank you very much for pointing on my mistake and I corrected it immediately. You are completely right, it supposed to be the first scream when the baby was born. I was stupid as I read that he was BORN on 22 January 1898. I apologize for making such mistake - it was unintended. Have a nice weekend.

Erzsébet Czopyk Dec 19, 2015:

Papeņka Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein/Михаил Осипович Эйзенштейн, 1867 in St. Petersburg – 1921 in Berlin), Russian architect and civil engineer