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Comment by bushin | Hacker News Reader

I think "exellent" is an excellent choice of the word (beautiful ≈ красиво).

I don't know russian, but in croatian which is somewhat similar adding pre to infront of the word makes it stronger, does not change meaning. Like too beautiful or as beautiful as it could get. Though in russian it could be different. (edit or even more beautiful than it is allowed/expected/needed)

Well, if you remove "pre" from "прекрасно", you get "red-colored", so it doesn't quite work here. (Actually, it would make the first part of the sentence a bit too literal.)

"прекрасно" consists of two parts : "пре" ("very" here) and "краса" ("beauty") in Russian so it is pretty close etymologically to English beautiful. Slightly different connotation in this particular case but still close enough.

As our workshop teacher in USSR's school said once to us: "всё что технически-совершенно то прекрасно" - "everything that is technically perfect / harmonious is beautiful".

I would say that "прекрасно" is "harmonious and so beautiful" in this context.

"excellent" makes it sound like Bill & Ted doing the translation, though. 'first-rate' is a common choice for that quote which is also unsatisfying - without the unwanted English connotations but also without any of the desirable Russian ones.

It must be a very small subset of English speakers for whom the word "excellent" can only be read in a Bill & Ted accent, so I suggest this is bogus argument.

Yes, it must be and yet 'excellent' is a really poor translation for this.

Perhaps "superlative".

Yep, that's (roughly) in the same vein as 'first-rate'. What makes the translation tricky (if you speak Russian, apologies for explaining the obvious) is that while the word has uses other than literal 'beautiful' it is composed of a superlative prefix and the root for 'beauty'. The line itself is spoken by character in a play, a high-minded, provincial county doctor as Chekhov himself once was. 'must be excellent¹' is strained and clunky in English to begin with and none of the more natural-sounding replacements evoke the connotations of the original.

¹ Moreover, nobody ever translated the name of the Russian fairy tale Василиса Прекрасная as Vasilisa the Excellent.

I often translate "красивый" as "nice" or "pretty" or something similar, depending on the context.

I think "beautiful" is more subtle (less banal, if you will) than "красивый". And so is "прекрасный".

Agreed, the English "beautiful" often doesn't seem to capture прекрасно. I always took them to have some overlapping meaning, rather than being a direct translation.

> the English "beautiful" often doesn't seem to capture прекрасно

I agree, but I'd say "excellent" is even further away in meaning. Translating between such distant languages is always an exercise in compromise, unless you're willing to take great liberties at interpretation (when translating poetry, for example).

Being Russian I suggest "прекрасно" means "perfect" or "excellent" in this context.

Not really.

Excellent is closer to идеально. Both imply relative comparison (to others). Beautiful is an absolute characteristic, same as красиво, so it's a better fit here.

'идеально' suggests perfection, 'excellent' just quality.

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