Мир перевода 2

The latest addition to Moscow's growing top class hotel sector came on line with the opening of the multimillion dollar Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel on Tverskaya ulitsa.

The five-star hotel, located on one of Moscow's most prestigious streets opened for business on 25th August and is particularly significant as Marriot's first venture into the unchartered waters of Russian market. "Marriot's international strategic growth plan is to be present in all of the major capitals of the world and being represented in Moscow is part of that plan", said June Farrell at Marriot's US headquarters.

"We only began our international growth programme in earnest in 1991 and prior to (before) that we only had 16 hotels outside the US. Today, we have an international hotel portfolio (зд. network) of 200 hotels and the timing of our entryinto Russia has simply been a factor of finding the right opportunity," she said.

The nine floor hotel will offer 392 deluxe rooms including 24 suites as well as restaurants and bars, indoor swimming pool, health club and a business centre. Rooms are expected to range from as low as USD 300 per night up to USD 1,400 for the presidential suite.

The hotel should considerably enliven a Moscow hotel sector that has already undergone facelift in the last five years. As well as the expensive refurbish merits given to some of the Russian capital's older establishments such as the Metropol and the National, other new developments in recent years have included the Palace, the Tverskaya, the Sofitel and the Novotel in a sector that is becoming increasingly competitive. Additionally, it would probably not be Marriot's last venture on Russian market.

"Once having established a beachhead in the capital city of a country, we look for opportunities in other cities and business centres in the country, airport locations as well as resorts in established destinations," said Farrell.

Already, it is rumoured that Marriott, which is the franchise partner on the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel, is involved in a hotel project in Nizhny Novgorod although Marriot representatives were not ready to confirm this.

Other firms involved in the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel include the Interstate Hotels Corporation, which holds the management contract, and Mospromstroy, the hotel contractor.

M.O'Rourke

Комментарии unchartered waters – зд. «целина», неизвестность;

in earnest = seriously, concretely;

facelift = change;

refurbishment = overhauling (капремонт);

beachhead – плацдарм;

franchise – франчайзинг (предоставление товарного знака и «ноу-хау»).

Тема: Media and Advertising

The Price of Advertising

Advertising, which is as American as French fries, English muffins and Chinese takeout, saturates society with an incessant barrage. Most people develop mental filters to soften the sensory blitzkrieg, lest they go bonkers, and they respond to the barrage with boredom, which is a kind of criticism.

However, bored or not by advertising that assails eye, ear and even nose (some magazines contain scent strips1advertising colognes), people are collaborating with the perpetrators of it (those who do it). So argues James Twitchell in an essay published in WQ, the invaluable quarterly of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Mr. Twitchell, who teaches English at the University of Florida, should not expect thanks for pointing out that people are paying for advertisements twice. They pay in the price of the product advertised, and they pay in the form of the attention they pay to the advertisements.

Advertising agencies exist to rent (зд. sell) our attention to people with goods or services to sell. Try to think when your attention is not rented. Many college sports teams have Nike's swooshes on their jerseys. Soft drink and other companies pay for "product placement" in movies. When you are put on hold (зд. ожидание, пауза) on the telephone you often areplied with commercial communications, which also appear in urinals, on grocery store shopping carts, on video screens attached to Stair Masters in gyms, in the first five minutes of rented movie videos.

Money or Attention?

Twitchell notes that public television has swarms of advertisements identified by the delicate euphemism "underwritingannouncements" and museum exhibits beat the logos of sponsoring corporations. "At the Smithsonian"2, Twitchell writes, "the Orkin Pest Control Company sponsored an exhibit on exactly what it advertises it kills: insects."

Twitchell is not scandalized by (shocked) these transactions, which is what they are. We give attention, we get things – from television programs to museum exhibits – not really "free," but cheaper that we otherwise would. "Given the choice between paying money and paying attention, we prefer to pay attention."

This is similar to other routine transactions. At McDonald's you go to the counter to order, carry your food to the table and clean up when finished, all in exchange for lower prices. You fill your own tank at the gas station for the same reason. And consuming ads is the "work" you do to lower the price of entertainment. Twitchell calls it that because it does not just entertain, it enculturates (enriches) you.

Too Much Choice?

Mass production gives us products that are barely distinguishable (Miller or Bud? Crest or Colgate?) until advertisinginfuses (fills) them with meaning. Grocery stores which two decades ago stocked 9,000 items now stock 30,000, Revlon makes 177 shades of lipstick, Crest comes in dozens of sizes, shapes and flavors. So billions of dollars are spent on advertising, largely to influence largely inexplicable, or at least barely rational, choices about these things. So it must be, Twitchell argues, when goods are interchangeable and in surplus (в изобилии, избытке), and consumers have enoughdisposable (free) time and money to consume both the ads and the products.

Twitchell has robust contempt for the intelligentsia's "downright supercilious" understanding of consumption, particularly the notion that, were it not for advertising, people would not want things. Our love of things, says Twitchell, is part of our nature; it was the cause, not the consequence, of the Industrial Revolution. Just as Orwell1 said there are some ideas so nuttythat only an intellectual can believe them,

Twitchell argues that only a professoriate, housed in institutions of higher learning far from the marketplace, can entertain the hazy idea of a bygone golden age when people had pure and only natural needs.

Want a glimpse of the future? Twitchell says you've already had one if you have seen MTV, the Home Shopping Network or "informercials." Or if you have read magazines like Sony Style or Colors from Benetton that, unlike many women's magazines which blur the line between advertising and editorial content, erase (destroy) that line.

Today's sweep of advertising is the democracy of the marketplace, what Twilchell calls "the application of capitalism to culture: dollars voting." Where will it sweep next? Perhaps advertisements in books, where they once were. Twilchell recalls that in the late 1940s, Dr. Spock2 fought Pocket Books to have cigarette ads removed from his baby care book. Books might remain one of the last redoubts of advertisement-free America because, Twitchell says, "the prime audience for advertisers, namely the young, is functionally illiterate." That good news about books contains the bad news: books do not have a bright future.

George F. Will

Комментарии muffins – тип кекса; takeout = take-out food;

go bankers = to go crazy (nuts); saturates = infuses; fills with; barrage – вал;

assails = attacks;

Nike swoosh = the company emblem («загогулина»);

Stair Master = gym equipment in the form of moving steps; swarms = lots of (cp. sweep);

underwriting – зд. оплаченные; robust = healthy;

downright supercilious = totally contemptuous; to entertain = зд. to consider (an idea);

bygone = long gone;

blur — зд. «размывают»;

prime = best (cp. prime time, «прайм тайм» ТВ).

Задание

Do you like watching TV commercials? Do you think they're useful? Which of the latest TV spots did you dislike (like) most of all? Do you prefer Russian-made commercials to Western ones? Do ads or commercials sometimes influence your choice of goods? Do you agree with the author's idea that ads are "the necessary evil"?

Тема: Язык и общество

The Curious Role of English Language

If you wish to hear English spoken properly, you should go to Denmark

In a football report on television last week there appeared an unusual figure. He was talking about his team's success earlier that day, but adopted a modest, academic air: his characterization of his club's performance was disinterested, almost scholarly. In an area of discourse which is wonderfully free of such grammatical decoration as adverbs and the imperfect tense, he seemed capable of using both appropriately.

He was, of course, not English, but the French manager of Arsenal football club, Arsene Wenger. A few days earlier, apersuasive letter had appeared in one of London broadsheets which noted that if you wish to hear English spoken properly, you should go to Denmark.

How true. Many will recall the most famous speech ever given by a Dane but few know how it came to be written. In fact Shakespeare had a "mate" in Southwark, South London, whose uncle had killed his dad and then run off with his mum. When the great man asked his young friend what he was going to do about it, the latter replied: "Dunno really. Might just grin and bear it. Might nail the bastards to the floor." And so great Danish rhetoric was fashioned from those lapidarysentences.

Then, right on cue, the National Association for the Teaching of English came out with something called The Grammar Book. It argued that children should not be taught grammatical rules but should observe the patterns of language and how they change over time.

It is funny how those whom the late philosopher Ernest Gellner called narodniks (they were 19th century Russians who believed that the illiterate peasant was always right) always mention the split infinitive. It is 70 years since Sir Ernest Gowres, a leading authority on correct English, showed that "to boldly go" could be better than "to go boldly."

There is a fundamental problem with the narodnik view: all too often one has no idea what the peasants are talking about. And the peasants, when told of their inherent rightness, are naturally discontented when they fail to land jobs as judges or merchant bankers.

Britain, although this is not widely recognized, is the last home of the narodnik. Only in the UK are people encouraged to think that in language, as in many other areas, anything they do is perfectly all right. The English often sneer at the way Americans express themselves. But listen! Listen to the clarity of the 12second soundbite (piece of news), as a witness of a domestic fire in Newark describes how "the structure was subject to intense incendiary activity, but fire-fighters gained an entry and safely evacuated the residents." Listen to the weather forecast on a local station in Tennessee and hear the standard American accent and grammar. Not attractive, maybe, but you know what they are talking about, which is not always so in Britain.

In other countries the rules are even stricter. However, one has to face the fact that there is a strange global yearning forthe English way. Children who are bilingual in English and another language will

Q: Как известно, многие западные компании вкладывают нема лые средства в государства ЦВЕ. Участвует ли Ксерокс в этом про цессе? В какие именно страны вы сейчас инвестируете? Какие крупные проектынаходятся сейчас в работе?

A: More than 12 billion of foreign investment reached the region in 1997, mostly to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Hungary, for instance, received 1,113 USD per capita. Of course, Xerox is also investing heavily. We have been trading in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for many years.

Our two-year Project Exodus programme is gradually moving financial management out of Xerox's UK headquarters. Theproject has already been successfully implemented in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Other countries willfollow.

Q: Уверены ли вы в правильности этого курса? Какова ваша мар кетинговая политика, как вы работаете с местными отделениями компании?

A: More than ever now I am convinced that this is the right course: we've extensively restructured local offices to equip them with the skills and tools to manage and control their own business. Customers and business both benefit.

We're also, of course, a partner of international companies in these markets, and a leading vendor of efficient, globaldocument management solutions (технологии обработки документов).

Q: Сейчас много говорится об «этике бизнеса», о «новой культу ре деловых отношений». Как этовписывается (to fit into) в вашу ка дровую политику, как вы осуществляете подготовку персонала?

A: Our top priority in Central and Eastern Europe, as elsewhere in Xerox, is a motivated and skilled workforce. The company philosophy is to hire locally wherever possible, right up to the country general manager. We've just completed one of our quarterly three-week courses — in Budapest — for 15 of the latest young recruits.

Well, privatisation and the encouragement of local business initiatives. I think, they have to come mainly from political reforms. But by investing heavily in people's development and training, we are doing our bit and contributing to "new business culture," emerging in CEE nations.

Тема: Office and Business Terms

Interview with Mr Vdovin,

Commercial Director of Terra Publishers, a major Russian Priming House

Q: There are heaps of books on your office desk. Do you have to read as part of your duties or is it your hobby?

А: Конечно, далеко не все, что мы выпускаем, я читаю — в про тивном случае для ознакомления с ситуацией на рынке приходи лось бы «проглатывать» 2,5 книги в день. Большую часть инфор мации мне рассказывают сами авторы, помогают коллеги.

Q: What takes up most of your time at work?

А: Основная часть моей работы — это занятие маркетингом и связями с общественностью (PR). Самое интересное — организа ция телевизионной программы «Книжная лавка», на это уходит больше всего сил и времени.

Q: What is your main incentive? Why did you choose to work here?

А: Ради самой работы. Она всегда интересна и захватывает (carries away). Я даже не могу припомнить, когда последний раз ездил по-настояшему в отпуск: отдыхать очень интересно, выби раясь на традиционные книжные ярмарки (fairs) — в Израиль или во Франкфурт, например.

Q: What's the most important part of managers' duties?

А: Самое важное для руководителя — знать проблему. Если ты ее знаешь, умеешь думать и анализировать, то ее решение находится достаточно просто.

Q: How do you hire new people? Do you believe that employees should be duly rewarded?

А: Самое главное — чтобы человек очень хорошо знал свое дело, особенно если он классный бухгалтер,грамотный редактор. По этому принципу мы и подбираем кадры. Ну и при этом сотрудни ки тоже должны получать достойное вознаграждение за свой труд.

Q: What's your most important professional achievement? What are you especially proud of?

А: Больше всего я горжусь тем, что нам удалось издать 86 томов энциклопедии Брокгауза и Эфрона. Это достаточно уникальное репринтное издание. Оно бросается в глаза читателю благодаря ка чественной печати, однако для нас оно особенно ценно потому, что там было затрачено очень много ручной (manual) работы — лю ди вручную трудились над переплетом (binding). Вряд ли кому-ни будь удастся сделать нечто подобное в будущем.

Interview with Mr Shibalov,

Sales and Marketing Director, GAZAuto Works

Q: You were GAZ chief engineer in Soviet times and now you are heading sales and marketing. Was it difficult to turn into a salesman? How did you prepare for that?

А: Конечно, сложно. Я всю литературу — Карнеги, Якокку[12] — прочитал и в конце концов получил представление, что это такое. Но до этого, когда работал в производстве легковых автомобилей, я очень много сотрудничал с «ГАЗавтотехобслуживанием» — под нимал качество, и, когда меня сюда назначили, наверное, знали, что из этого получится.

Q: Marketing is a new profession in Russia and your staff is mostly young. Is there any generation gap in your department — you have worked here for 30 years yourself?

А: Да нет, я стараюсь, чтобы молодые тоже привыкали к самосто ятельности. Не давлю, когда человек принимает свое решение. Но после того как решение принято, я могу и надавить. А так я своим маркетологам говорю: вы счастливые люди, у вас есть возмож ность, пока вы молодые, наработать такой материал, что вбуду щем из вас выйдут и Карнеги, и Якокки. Сейчас ведь у нас просто непочатый край работы. Тем более условия все для этого созданы: хочешь учиться — учись, есть библиотеки, возможность пройти хорошую подготовку и т.д.

Q: Can you feel the difference between the Soviet time GAZ and today's factory?

А: Сейчас завод сам решает, что нужно сделать. Раньше нужно было долго ходить, выпрашивать фонды(financing), упрашивать ку пить этот или вот тот станок. Сейчас мы вольны в своем выборе. Мы могли бы купить автоматическую линию за рубежом, какую хотели, но мы нашли возможность разработать, изготовить, нала дить, запустить в производство свою и заплатить своим рабочим.

Q: What motivates you in business? Do you often have to work overtime?

А: Мне нравится решать проблемы, когда ситуация тяжелая и из нее нужно выйти и вытащить людей, что рядом с тобой. У меня, наверное, запрограммировано, что я люблю работать. Уже 30 лет работаю на заводе и прошел все ступени. Рабочий день — мини мум 12 часов. И я надеюсь, что скоро мы превратим Нижний в рус ский Детройт — у нас отличные специалисты. Мне много при шлось поездить по миру, и я убежден, что тут мы своего обязательно добьемся.

Тема: Welfare and Social Protection

Talk with Mr P.Rusavsky,

Head of the Social Security Department, South-West District, Moscow

Q: Now that the Russian-style "market economy" has badly hit the poor, the public sector employees and the elderly what is being done to help the underprivileged? We know that your district boasts several community welfare centres. What arethese and what they do?

А: Как вы понимаете, эти центры созданы прежде всего для (to target) людей пожилого возраста, для малоимущих и одиноких. Отсюда и направленность их деятельности.

Одна из основных форм — обслуживание одиноких граждан на дому. Это, как правило, больные люди, которые не могут передви гаться и которым некому помочь, кроме наших социальных работ ников, каждый из которых шефствует (look after) над восьмью по допечными.

Q: Could you give some more details? How many people do you serve and what are the functions of the social workers?

А: Сегодня на дому мы обслуживаем свыше 11 тысяч человек. Социальный работник выполняет все их поручения: приносит из магазинов продукты, оплачивает коммунальные услуги, вызывает на дом врача и так далее. Кстати, с февраля этого года мы органи зовали новый вид услуг для таких людей — бесплатно доставляем их в учреждения здравоохранения и социальной защиты.

Q: However there are quite a few lonely people who are not confined to wheelchair or bed but still need as much attention as they can get. What do you do to support them? Could you elaborate, please? А: И для них в центрах социального обслуживания, пока, прав да, только в 10 из 12, открыты отделения дневного пребывания (daycare centres). В них ежедневно мы обслуживаем до 350 человек.

По сути, эти отделения — своеобразные мини-пансионаты, куда люди приходят рано утром, а домой возвращаются поздним вече ром. Путевки (vouchers) сюда выдаем на 24 дня. Человек получает здесь бесплатное питание, комплекс социальных и медицинских услуг, мы организуем экскурсии по Москве и округе, выезды в те атры и на концерты.

Тема: Терминология

Interview with Tom McArthur,

Unguis! and lexicographer, the editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language and the scholarly journal English Today

Q: Насколько распространен так называемый «королевский ан глийский» в наши дни? Не канула ли в Лету мысль о том, что Ве ликобритания устанавливает общепринятые мировые стандарты английского языка?

A: Phoneticians refer to the Queen's English as Received Pronunciation, or RP. That isn't so much the accent of the royal family as the middle and upper classes, especially in Southern England. It has been put forward as a standard accent, first for England, second for the rest of the world. But it was always a minority usage, spoken by 3 to 4 percent of the population in social positions of great authority and prestige. Over time, RP has slowly lost its central position and is being increasingly challenged.

Q: Действительно ли американский вариант английского языка уже подавил своего английского собрата? Каково ваше личное мнение по этому вопросу?

A: The United States is for many people around the world a symbol of modernity. People at the cinema or watching TV are absorbing American English all the time. There are 250 million people in the United Slates and 59 million in the United Kingdom. The language's centre of gravity is now nearer to Ohio than Oxford. So it's probable that a kind of American accent will become a model for vast numbers of people around the world.

Q: Неужели и английская королева будет говорить с американ ским акцентом?

Пока это представляетсянемыслимым...

A: The Queen won't change. Prince Charles won't change. But it's impossible to imagine now how a later monarch might speak.

(ant. it is still true);

Received Pronunciation — приобретенное (в результате

обуче ния) произношение.

Тема: Перевод «советизмов» и «постсоветизмов»

Talk with Mr.Savenkov,

CEO 101. Argument-M Company

Q: Which of your achievements do you consider the most important?

А: Во-первых, я горжусь тем, что мы достигли стабильности и уже два года отсутствует текучка кадров. А если я уеду, то команда будет продолжать точно так же функционировать без меня. И еще очень горжусь тем, что мы сумели подняться действительно «с

нуля».

Q: You've graduated from the Math Department of the Moscow State University. As far as I know, you haven't majored in Business Administration. Where and when did you get an MBA?

А: Я ничего по этой области не заканчивал специально. Жизнь научила, никуда не денешься.Командиром стройотряда ездил об щаться с руководством птицефабрики, у меня был отряд в 60 чело век, разбросанный на большой площади — люди работали в 15-20 км друг от друга.

Q: Aren't you dreaming of resuming research work — it's your profession, after all?

А: Такой мечты у меня нет, ноя с удовольствием вспоминаю, как доказывал всевозможные теоремы и леммы. Вернуться в науку я пока не планирую. Рынок труда сильно изменился, люди науки с дипломами мало кому нужны. Вот поэтому у нас работают выпу скники химфака, филфака российских вузов.

Q: What have you enjoyed reading lately?

А: В последнее время читал «Приключения бравого солдата Швей ка» Ярослава Гашека. Прекрасно снимает стресс. А вообще време ни почти нет, так что в основном читаю бухгалтерские отчеты.

Комментарии текучка кадров — high personnel turnover;

«с нуля» — from scratch;

никуда не денешься — can't help it; that's life;

MBA — Master of Business administration;

стройотряд — students' summer job team (group);

птицефабрика — poultry factory;

«Приключения бравого солдата Швейка» — The Good

Soldier Sweik by J.Hasek.

Talk with Mr.Larkin,

General Director, Borodino Breweries

Q: What is the main challenge your company faces?

А: Самая главная трудность — это получение кредита в банке. Условия очень тяжелые, так как банки, конечно, требуют гаран тии, также нужны грамотные страховые компании, а они сегодня работают слабо, многие из них не принимаются банками.

Q: Why can't you get a mortgage? Or a secured loan?

А: Нет такого положения — заложил имущество, и мне дали кре дит. Для этого я должен обратиться в страховую компанию, заст раховать имущество, заплатить высокие проценты, потом с этой бумагой пойти в банк. Я не могу свою собственность предложить непосредственно банку. В итоге банк под залог имуществадает ма ленькие кредиты — до 1 млн. руб., а если надо больше взять, то это уже громоздкая система.

Q: How do you try to solve personnel problems? What are the biggest difficulties here?

А: Из всех, оказавшихся в стенах завода, остается на постоянной работе только каждый третий. Люди, которые приходят на предпри ятие, не всегда соответствуют предъявленным требованиям, многие не привыкли работать на потоке. Когда работает технологическая ли ния, нельзя ни отойти никуда, ни с кем побеседовать, нельзя поку рить. Многие также любят выпить, особенно с получки.