Igenlode Wordsmith’s Reviews > Russian basis and essentials reader > Status Update

Amusingly, some of the parallel Russian translation appears to be closer to the original than the "Basic English" version of Gulliver: "blade for taking the hair off my face" is simply бритва, for example, and "pocket-cloth" is платок (familar to me in the form of Aramis's famous handkerchief! Z)

Given that Gulliver had to swim for his life and was washed up half-drowned, how come his snuff and his written papers took no harm from the prolonged immersion? And why didn't the Lilliputians search him for dangerous weapons during the eight hours they had him drugged and unconscious? :-p

"I frequently let my legs down but without touching earth; but when I was almost at the end of my powers and unable any longer to put up a fight, I saw that I was in not very deep water, and by thus time the wind had gone down" - not my idea of "Basic English"! I *think* the Russian translation genuinely is less old-fashioned...

I can't judge as to the Russian version, but the English half of these dialogues (a loose idiomatic translation) is charmingly 'period' in flavour:
"Let's go in now and then we'll see everyone come in."
"Here are our seats. I say, what comfort!"
"The place is certainly full."
"Don't let's be late. (INTERVAL BELL) Oh, they're all coming back. It's no good going now."

A sudden odd crop of Americanisms: "going down town" and "in the Fall"...

Odd (presumably archaic, but I can't work out the rules) use of въ...

More graphic phrases: Я не могу лезть иоп стол в моей возрасте! (I cannot crawl under the table at my age)
Я поднялся с пола с большим трудом (I got up from the floor with great difficulty - presumably the sequel to the above :D)

Внезапно нотёл лопнул, машина сломалась, поезд остановился, п он был принуждён пойти пешком по полям - the sample sentence in which a ordinary railway trip suddenly turns into disaster when the [steam] engine's boiler explodes is verging on the "postillion struck by lightning" variety!