this is one of the models featured in the reader gallery in the last FSM issue. very nice. problem? see where it says something in russian on the side? well…
1). the first word is actually english spelled in russian letters
2). the last word is not properly conjugated. actually it’s not conjugated at all
3). the wrong non-conjugated word is spelled wrong
i’ll admit that last one could probably happen. those weren’t the most educated people writing those slogans but the rest i’m just not happy about.
people, if you’re going to paint something on the side of something in russian and you’re not sure, please let me know i’ll at least try to catch the most obvious errors.
Nice model. It’s times like this that I’m glad I can read/write russian. I can’t remember the company, but I’m certain I have seen these decals in a kit.
Ouch! I have a couple of Sturmoviks and don’t want to make the same mistake when I get around to building them. How would I prevent the same mistake when I only know that the cyrillic P is R in english?
I was going to respond to what I thought you were pointing out as silvering of the decal. Were the Russians actually painting slogans on their tanks at this relatively early point of the war?
Not sure if you got that translation right. The second word is correct. It does spell “rossia” (not russia) in cyrilic. The first word starts off with “zor” something, I can’t make out the rest correctly. However, I do agree with you. It is quite stupid. It’s clearly not the russian language [:)]
btw, goatmonkey, do you speak russian, or can you just recognize the cyrilic alphabet?
Was it possibly a decal? If it was a decal that came with the kit, then you can’t really fault the modeler. How many people speak Russian? Err…let me rephrase that question…how likely is it that someone outside of Russia is going to speak Russian? If I were building a kit of a Russian tank and it came with decals like that I would assume it was correct.
Perhaps this is a lesson in asking for a translation before using decals? [;)]
That’s right!
So before you use any Japanese language on your AFV or aircraft, you’d better run it by me first! [;)]
What a second…most of those kits are from Japanese companies anyway, so they’re probably OK! [:D]
Goatmonkey, if you’re saddened by the misuse, misspelling, and misrepresentation of languages, then bring plenty of Kleenex if you come to Japan.
You’ll see amazingly contorted English, French, and German (just to name the most popular “victims”) all over the place, on everything, and in every situation imaginable!
Bless their hearts, though…they’re trying![:D]
Definitely looks like a decal and definitely looks silvered… David Voss is right- most people would assume (apparently incorrectly) that decal slogans like that are correct. You would like to think they are taking the decals from pictures or actual tanks, so major errors should be avoided (guess not!). Not speaking Russian, I would have had no clue and until now, wouldn’t have thought about checking. I must admit, I have found a couple of spelling errors on kit decals for German planes and it did annoy me.
J-Hulk, I have a 1/48 J7W1 Shinden that I plan to hand-paint a dragon on the side and then putting something in Japanese across the bottom of the wing. I bought a book on Kanji that also shows Kanna and Hirigana and not knowing the spoken language has made it almost impossible to construct a sentence.Do you have any reccomendations?
zokissima- from trying to figure out Japanese I’ve learned that just because you know the alphabet of a language,it has no bearing on your ability to construct a sentence
Allen
Hi, Allen!
The only “slogan” that comes to mind that I’ve seen on Japanese aircraft is the term hissatsu, which means “determination to deliver a deathblow to an opponent,” or more simply put, “deadly.” The two characters are kanarazu, which means “certainly, absolutely,” and korosu, which means “kill.” When you make the jukugo, or “compound word,” hissatsu, leave out the hiragana and use only the kanji. Just look up hissatsu and you’ll see what I mean.
If you have any ref pix that show a slogan, or if you want to create an original one, let me know and I’ll help you out![:D]
Allen, continuing my previous post, here’s a pic of an old Otaki Raiden I built about 11 years ago, with hissatsu on the side (click the pic to enlarge):
The kanji is actually from a Hayate decal sheet, but I thought it would look cool on the Raiden, so there it went!
I do in fact have a basic understanding of Russian, and through it’s grammatical and verbal similarities to my own language, I tend to be able to understand it when it is spoken. When it is written, again through common verbs and terminology, I find it fairly easy to understand. My statement was not an assumption of the incorrectness of the word, it was a fact.
That’s TWICE today that I’ve had to defend myself from someone else’s generalizations and assumptions. Geez [:)]
Whoa, steady there, Zok! [:D]
I don’t think Allen was generalizing or assuming anything, and most of all not attacking you. No defence needed! He was just stating the truth about languages, as far as I could tell.
From your posts, it is not clear that you have a certain level of proficiency in Russian, particularly since you said yourself, “I can’t make out the rest correctly.”
Now I know that you do! I’ll be coming to you to confirm the decals for my 1/16 Trumpeter T-34/76 are correct! [;)]
By the way, the T-35 in the original post, isn’t that a Russian kit? I mean, aren’t the only kits of that vehicle from Russian companies? I can’t recall the names…Alan? Maquette? Not sure, but I think they’re Russian…or Ukranian. At any rate, shouldn’t they have a good idea if it’s correct or not? I wonder how they let that one through!
zokissima: i didn’t say the second word was wrong. the second word is the only one that’s actually right. the first word is actually “for” spelled out in russian. the third word isn’t conjugated. i’m from russia so i speak the language.
voss: the probability that someone outside russia is going to speak russian is actually quite high. with the lifting of immigration restrictions, there was quite a flood of refugies, immigrants and people going to study abroad. so if you live in a major city or even anything moderately sized, chances are there’s some bit of a russian community nearby.
