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- What do you think about her?
- Oh, she looks like a nice woman.
Как она тебе? – Ничего, приятная женщина.
Требуется вежливый перевод
What do you think of her? - She's alright, a nice woman.
- How do you like her?
- Well, I think she's nice.
- What do you think about her?
- Oh, she looks like a nice woman.
Tatiana: ...think OF her? ...nice LADY.
+++Elena!
Spoken like a true native!
🌝
Lena, “she’s alright” sounds like “meh... I guess she’s ok” - like you’re not too sure.
Хорошо, поняла. 👍
“she’s alright” sounds like “meh... I guess she’s ok” - like you’re not too sure
Seriously???
She's alright = like you’re not too sure???
She's alright-=|'m absolutely sure
I guess she’s ok” = I guess she’s alright
The KEY WORD is GUESS. Then you can sound like you're not too sure.
Using ALRIGHT to describe anything sounds like you’re not too sure if you like it/them or not, but will settle for it for lack of a better option. That’s why it’s normally expressed with “I guess” which is very tentative. In another context, to say that a person is alright implies that they’re safe/better after an accident, illness or tragedy.
In your translation “She’s alright. A nice woman” ALRIGHT sounds like you’re not too sure if you like her:
You obviously didn’t have I GUESS in your translation, but that’s how we would most likely read it. ALRIGHT or OK aren’t the best choice in this post because here the speaker seems to genuinely LIKE the woman.
A lot of times, when someone describes someone or something as ALRIGHT or OK, the listener will ask “Just ALRIGHT?” because again, these words don’t express a full commitment to calling something or someone GOOD:
Hopefully these references will help you see the error of your translation and support my comments regarding it.
What is it to do with "just alright"??
You can make anything sound doubtful or confident.
Say it with an intonation of doubt and it WILL sound doubtful.
She's ok/alright = (I'm really not sure).
Say it with an intonation of full confidence and it WILL sound absolutely confident.
She's ok/alright = (I'm totally sure).
Ok, Lena! I personally consider OK and ALRIGHT namby-pamby no matter what intonation you give them and I’d hoped my links would show you that. If you feel happy using them your way, people will understand you)) If someone stressed these words and said He’s ALRIGHT! I would assume that he had been in danger and is now safe. But to each his own - we’re all here to learn by whatever means is easiest and most enjoyable))
What's all this dispute about??
There's nothing even to dispute.
Such a simple thing...
Look at the first response to this post. “They can be used to indicate that the quality of something is "satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good" - These are native English speakers answering questions for people like you.
“They can be used to indicate that the quality of something is "satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good"
In Russian "ничего, хорошая женщина" may mean the same - satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good".
When my father used to ask me Как дела? and heard my answer Ничего, he would say "ничего - пустое место".
Good to know! So is that the meaning here? It he saying “She’s (just) ok... nice lady.” ?
In Russian, "ничего, хорошая женщина" may mean the same - satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good".
I can't fully agree. It's ничего that may mean "satisfactory, but not exceptionally good" or may even mean "quite good". At the same time, adding хорошая leaves little room for doubt. So, their meaning is that they find her quite nice.
Thank you for the confirmation. that’s exactly what I pointed out in the first place to Lena, and her response was “Seriously???” Note above that I never said her translation was incorrect - I just clarified the meaning of ALRIGHT since I wasn’t sure what the Russian meant.
Yes, to some older people, ничего may sound neutral or close to a negative spectrum, but it obtained a pretty positive connotation in the modern language. If someone said: А она ничего!, I would take it as a compliment (in this case used in reference of someone's apperance).
That’s what I thought too. I once heard someone refer to another’s apartment as ничего and the translation was that it was nice. That’s why I pointed it out to Lena.
Exactly. Quite a lot of people would go with ничего instead of хороший, приятный, симпатичный, вкусный as in А она ничего такая/А квартирка-то ничего.
Good! Thank you. So I’m not crazy)))
Ничего may mean good and quite good and mediocre. A lot depends on the intonation and the context.
Bingo! And it’s hard to tell what the context is here, which is why I said something.
Ничего "выражает умеренно положительную оценку чего-либо: более-менее, сносно, довольно хорошо"
Exactly. I was just clarifying that with Lena because I wasn’t sure. I had seen it used both ways.
Again, let us not talk about dictionaries, let's go back to the sentence in question. I believe there's enough context so we can consider that woman "nice'. Funny enough, Elena's translation screams of it.
Yes, and the more natural English.
You said: "ALRIGHT or OK aren’t the best choice in this post because here the speaker seems to genuinely LIKE the woman"
But without a context it's not clear if this person likes her or not.
My translation is my interpretation and Lena's translation is her interpretation, and they both work in different contexts, but there isn't any context here.
Now I realize it can mean both after your explanations.
👍
I can imagine a context like [- Как она тебе? - Ничего, приятная женщина, ПОКА РОТ НЕ ОТКРОЕТ]. But Cosmos' comment требуется вежливый перевод makes a continuation as unexpected as this one really unlikely. More than that, to me it shows that the context is complete.
Additionally, I can't imagine any different intonation other than a sarcastic one, which also seems to be a little of a stretch here, given this vezhlivost.
умеренно-положительная оценка вовсе не предполагает сарказма
Aha! I had forgotten about that comment! That’s what made me question Lena's translation in the first place. It didn’t seem nice enough.
You said ALRIGHT sounds like you’re not too sure if you like it/them or no. But it's not impolite.
It is impolite. If someone asked you what you think of someone and you answered that they were alright , that would mean that you like them less than you dislike them.
In other words, it’s not something you would say to somebody’s face unless you wanted to insult them.
I would NEVER agree that ничего, приятная женщина implies сносная or mediocre. Talking about some context and intonation that could be essential for interpretation IN THIS VERY CASE seems quite unsustainable to me.
We're of different opinions here, Tatiana.
Ну вот видите, ключевое слово - комплимент.))
там много мнений, и они разные