Lost in Translation: 'Learn Russian' lesson for State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki
In a jubilant tweet recently, Jen Psaki of the US State Dept accused RT’s Russian-language channel of “faking” a translation.
Must be doing something right! Made it @RT_Russian – but they faked the translation. @UkrProgress#ukrtruthhttp://t.co/Arnesc0pl7
— Jen Psaki (@statedeptspox) March 22, 2014
While Psaki herself didn’t get into specifics RT looked but could
not find what exactly Ms Psaki was referring to (neither did
google).
It all started with Psaki’s opinion, stated as fact, that ‘Russia
shot first’ in an incident at a facility in Crimea which left two
people dead.
RT’s Anastasia Churkina picked her up on it and Psaki responded
thus: “We don’t see how it’s possibly true that the Russian
claim that someone else was the aggressor, that the Ukrainians
were the aggressor can possibly be true.”
So for the record, here’s the RT-Russian translation.
“Нам не кажутся достоверными заявления русских, что
агрессором был кто-то другой или украинцы.”
Even a rough machine-translation indicates there was no ‘faking’ going on, at
least not in RT.
“We do not seem authentic Russian statements that the
aggressor was someone else or Ukrainians.”
So, maybe it’s time for Jen Psaki to start working on improving
her Russian?
RT’s Learn
Russian project can help with that.
Psaki is also quite fond of @UkrProgress, a Russian-language
twitter account set up by her employers.
Check it out for unattributed allegations such as: “Putin
congratulated Ukrainian soldiers on not using weapons, but then
allowed to shoot one of them.”
Путин поздравил украинских солдат с тем, что они не применили оружие, но затем позволил застрелить одного из них. #ИзоляцияРоссии
— Прогресс для Украины (@UkrProgress) March 19, 2014
