Comparative analysis of Translation of English-Russian-Chinese

Personal Pronouns.

Abstract

Introduction………………………………………………………………3-4

Chapter I. General information about the personal pronouns of the case

study.

1.1 Personal Pronouns in English……………………………………………5

1.2 Personal Pronouns in Chinese…………………………………………6-7
1.3 Personal Pronouns in Russian………………………………………...7-
11

Chapter II. Nuances of equivalence within the translation of Russian-

English-Chinese Personal Pronouns

2.1 Issues of finding an equivalence during the translation and interpretation

of personal pronouns from Russian and English into
Chinese…………………….12

2.1.1 Question One ………………………………………………….12-

14

2.1.2 Question Two………………………………………………….14-

15

2.1.3 Question Three………………………………………………...15-

16

1
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………….17

List of literature
………………………………………………………………….18

Abstract

Russian, English, and Chinese languages are different, separate part of the
big world language family. It’s true that Russian and English languages are relative
close, since both are the branches of a larger Indo-European language family. But
the fact is that Indo-European language family is the largest language family in the
world. Around 46% of the world’s population (3.2 billion) speak part “Indo-
European” languages family. The language family is further divided into several
subfamilies such as “Indo-Iranian”, “Germanic”, “Romance”, and “Balto-Slavic”1
subfamilies. These language subfamilies differ significantly. This can be observed
in the case of English (which is part of “Germanic” subfamily) and Russian (which
is part of “Balto-Slavic” subfamilies).

Meantime, Chinese is part “Sino-Tibetan” language family, which is often

dramatically differ from the “Indo-European” language family. The paper is about
a translation and an interpreting of personal pronouns of the case study: Russian,
English, and Chinese languages. In other words, about the process of finding an
equivalence within “Russian - Chinese”, “English - Chinese”, “Chinese - Russian”
or “English - Russian” personal pronouns.

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages

2
 Focus of the study is the grammatical cases of personal pronouns of the case
study languages. The paper tries to answer to the topic question of “how to find an
equivalence of those (grammatical) cases of personal pronouns of one language
with the means of the other language?”. Since Russian personal pronouns have six
cases, English personal pronouns have two cases (subjective and objective cases),
while Chinese personal pronouns do not a grammatical case.

Introduction

Personal pronouns (PP) almost always among the most used words of the
languages. Since they’ve existed for a long period of time, their forms may be
different and in some definite languages even quite complicated. Personal
pronouns allow to economize time while speaking and writing by avoiding
repeating the names again and again. While English and Chinese have relatively
simpler forms of PP, meantime Russian language has quite complicated and
different forms. Let’s first have a quick glance into what pronouns actually are,
before we start the study of different tables of them.

Pronouns – if we try to understand with simple words - are words that can be
used in place of nouns, so that we do not need to repeat the noun all over again and
again. Functions of PP are to shows and determine the grammatical person,
gender, number, and case of the noun that they replace 2. For instances let’s analyze
the following instance:

“Mark lives in the UK. Mark loves travelling. Mark’s dream is to see
Brazil. Mark wants to visit Rio de Janeiro and San Paolo. Mark bought a ticket in
September. Mark flies in October. Mark can’t wait October to come, because
Mark finally accomplishes his dream.”
2
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889490697000586

3
 Sounds quite abnormal and repetitive, isn’t it?
Now we will try to read the same passage but with personal pronouns:
“Mark lives in the UK. He loves travelling. His dream is to see Brazil. He
wants to visit Rio de Janeiro and San Paolo. He bought a ticket in September. He
flies in October. He can’t wait October to come, because he finally accomplishes
his dream.”
When we replaced the name of “Mark” with the 3 rd person singular in the
masculine gender, the passage started to sound much more natural and pleasant.
Personal pronouns of all three languages have two forms (singular and
plural) and three persons (the first person, the second person and the third person).
But the differentiating trait of each language is grammatical case, to be more
precise Chinese has not grammatical case, English has two, while Russian has 6
cases. This difference gives a basis for the main topic question of the paper, which
is “how to translate personal pronouns correctly form non-cased Chinese into 6-
cased Russian or 2-cased English?” and “how to translate the meaning and
functions of the 6-cased Russian personal pronouns into non-cased Chinese ones?”
Keywords: Personal pronouns, Russian (language), English (language),
Chinese (language), (grammatical) case, translation, interpretation, equivalence.

4
 Chapter I. General information about the personal pronouns of the case
study.

1.1 Personal Pronouns in English.

In Modern English personal pronouns (PP) do not have the same number of
grammatical cases as in Old English. Firstly, let us quickly recall the function of
the grammatical case of personal pronouns within a sentence. Case refer to the
form that PP take based on the function in a sentence. In Modern English PP have
two grammatical cases: Subjective and Objective cases.
1st - Subjective PP (Singular forms: I, you, he, she, it. Plural forms: we, you,
they), answer to the question “who” and “what”.
2nd – Objective PP (SF: me, you, him, her, it. PF: us, you, them) answers to
the question “who(m)” and “what”.
Subjective case answers to the question of “who” (and “what” concerning
“it”), within the sentence acts as the subject of the sentence. For instance: He is a
doctor. I am a student.
Objective case of PP is used when something is being done to someone (that
PP replace), with other words when PP acts as an object in the sentences. It should
be pointed out that in English there are 3 more pronoun types that are related to the
grammatical person. They are Possessive pronouns, Reflexive pronouns, Intensive
pronouns, but they pronouns are not considered as personal pronouns.

5
 He (Mark) (subjective PP) goes to Brazil to travel. Friends who had already
been to Brazil says Brazilians would like him (Mark) (objective PP). It’s his
(Mark’s)(Possessive pronouns) ticket to Brazil. He bought the ticket himself
(Reflexive pronouns). He himself (Intensive pronouns) bought the ticket.
In all above given example sentences we were talking about the same
person. 

1.2 Personal Pronouns in Chinese.

In general Chinese grammar is easier than the grammars of Russian and

English languages. Chinese PP just have two forms (singular and plural), three
genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) as other languages, three persons (1 st, 2nd,
3rd persons), but Chinese PP do not have a (grammatical) case. They are：

person singular pinyin transl/n plural pinyin transl/n

1st 我 [wo3] I 我们 [wo3men] We
2nd 你 [ni3] You 你们 [ni3men] You
2nd 您 [nin2] You 您们 [nin2men] You
3rd 他 [ta1] He 他们 [ta1men] They
3rd 她 [ta1] She 她们 [ta1men] They
3rd 它 [ta1] It 它们 [ta1men] They

Even though Chinese do not have a case, we can see from the table above
that Chinese PP are not identical with English PP in the subjective case. Because
Chinese has 2 forms of 2nd person singular and plural personal pronouns while in
English there is only one form “you”. It arises a question of “which form of
Chinese PP in the 2nd person ( 你 ， 您 ， 你 们 ， 您 们 ) should a
translator/interpreter use while translating from English and Russian into
Chinese language?”. That is one more similar issue, in English for the plural form
of the 3rd person of all three genders we use identical from “they”, while in Chinese

6
we have three types of “ta1men” namely: (他们，她们， 它们). This difference
brings us to the question of “exactly which form of “ta1men” should a
translator/interpreter to use while translating from Russian and English into
Chinese?” Third issue that should be emphasized is that Chinese singular 3 rd
person PP (他，她，它) are pronounced identically as [ta1], that brings us to the
question “which form of PP in the singular form 3 rd person should an interpreter
use while interpreting from Chinese into Russian and English languages?” We
will try to answer for the above mentioned questions in the second chapter of the
paper.

1.3 Personal Pronouns in Russian.

Russian grammar is considered as one of the most difficult within world

language. This tendency is true concerning Russian personal pronouns as well. One
of the main factor that make Russian PP difficult to learn is existence of six cases.
They are: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Instrumental, Prepositional
cases. These cases change according to their function in the sentence. The
following are the pronouns used for the singular forms of 3 persons: I, you, he, she
and it.

Cases I/me You He/him She/ her It

[我] [你/您] [他] [她] [它]
1. Nominative Я Ты Он Она Оно
2. Accusative3 Меня Тебя Его4 Её Его5
3. Genitive Меня Тебя Его Её Его
4. Dative Мне Тебе Ему Ей Ему

3
Russian PP’s forms for the Accusative and Genitive cases are identical.
4
The pronoun "его" is pronounced “yevo” (and not “yego”).
5
In Russian singular form, 3rd person, masculine “he” and singular form, 3 rd person, neuter “it” are identical except
for Nominative case.

7
 to me to you to him to her to it
5. Instrumental Co мной C тобой C ним C нeй C ним
with me with you with him with her with it
6. Prepositional Oбo мне O тебе O нём O ней O нём
about me about you about him about her about it

1. The pronoun "его" is pronounced "yevo" (and not "yego").

2. The accusative and genitive forms are always identical.
3. He cases of он (he) and оно (it) are identical except for Nominative
case.

1. Nominative case answers to the questions of “who” and “what”. In a

sentence acts as a subject of the sentence. Does the action. For instance: the verb
“to be” usually preceded by NC.

Я (I) врач(doctor). Он (He) врач(doctor). Это (this/it) (оно)

стол(table).

I am a doctor. He is a doctor. It is a table.

我是一名医生。他是一名医生。这(它)是一张桌子。

It should be pointed out that in Russian (usually in Chinese as well) PP in

nominative case “it” often changed into “Это”, which is translated into English as
“this”.

2. Accusative case answers to the question of “whom” and “what”. In a

sentence acts as an object of the sentence. The action is done directly to him. For
instance: the verb “to see” usually followed by AC.

8
 Я (I) вижу(see) его (him)/ ее* (her) / его (it). Он (he) видит
(sees) меня (me).

I see him/her/it. He sees me.

我看见他/她/它。 他看见我。
3. Genitive case answers to the question of “whom” and “what”. In a
sentence acts as an object of the sentence. For instance: the verb “to know” usually
followed by GC.
Я (I) его (him) / ее (her) не (not) знаю (know).
I don’t know him/her.
我不认识他/她。
4. Dative case answers to the question of “to whom” and “to what”. In a
sentence acts as an object, indirect receiver. Gets the result of the action. For
example: the verb “to give” usually followed by DC.

Я отдал книгу ему/ей/тебе. Он дал мне подарок / Он подарок дал

мне.

I gave the book to him/her/you. He gave me a present/He gave the

present to me.
我把书给了他/她/你。他给了我一件礼物/他把一件礼物给了我。

In English Russian PP’s equivalence in Dative case can be reached by added

the preposition “to” before the English PP in objective case, even though without
adding “to” also possible to give the meaning of it. In Chinese an equivalence of
Russian PP in Dative case can be reached by “ 把” form sentences, even though
without “把” form sentence also it is possible to find the equivalence.

9
 5. Instrumental case answers to the question of “with who” and “with
what”. An action is done with the noun in the instrumental case. For instance:
Каждый (every) день (day) я (I) играю (play) с (with) ним
(him) /с (with) ней (her).

Every day I play with him/her/you.

每天都我和他一起玩。

6. Prepositional case answers to the question of “about who” and “about

what”. This case indicates the location/destination of the action.

Я (I) думаю (think) о (about) нем (him) / о (about) ней (her) . Она
(She) думает (think) обо (about) мне (me).

I think about him/her. She thinks about me.

我想到他/她/它。

Above we have examined singular form of Russian PP in all six

grammatical cases. Now let’s us to have a quick glance into the table plural forms
of Russian personal pronouns in all three cases.

Cases They, Them 他 们 /

We, Us (我们) You (您们/你们)
她们/它们
6
Вы (you) (more
1. Nominative Мы (we) Они (they)
than 1 person)
2. Accusative Нас Вас Их
3. Genitive Нас Вас Их

6
“Вы” can be used for the singular form, 2nd person “you”, to show repect to the hearer.

10
 4. Dative Нам (to us) Вам (to you) Им (to them)
Ими (with them)
5. Instrumental Нами (with us) Вами (with you)

6. Prepositional Нас (about us) Вас (about you) Них (about them)

It should be pointed out that plural form of 2 nd person “Вы” (you) can be
used for the singular form of 2 nd person. It is identical with Chinese “您” ， but
in Chinese for the plural form of “您” is used “您们”, since in Russian (您，
你 们， 您们 ) sound identically as “Вы”, it leads us to the question of “Which
form of Chinese PP “ 您 ” , “ 你 们 ” or “ 您 们 ” we should use during the
translation/interpretation of plural form of 2nd person Russian PP “Вы” (you)?”

11
Chapter II. Nuances of equivalence within the translation of Russian-English-
Chinese Personal Pronouns

2.1 Issues of finding an equivalence during the translation and interpretation

of personal pronouns from Russian and English into Chinese

In the chapter one we have analyzed that personal pronouns in Russian,

English and Chinese have both similarities and distinguishing features. PP of all
three languages have two forms (plural and singular), 3 genders (masculine,
feminine and neuter), three persons (1st 2nd 3rd persons), but concerning
(grammatical) case there is a huge difference. In Russian there are six cases,
English has only two cases (subjective and objective cases), while Chinese
personal pronouns do not have any grammatical case at all. These differences
during the translation or interpretation make the process of finding equivalences
quite challenging.

2.1.1 Question One

In the chapter one during the study of PP of three languages several

questions have arisen. Now, let’s us try to find the solution of those issues.
Question 1: “which form of Chinese PP in the 2 nd person (你，您，你们，您们)
should a translator/interpreter use while translating from English and Russian into
Chinese language?”. We know that in English for these four Chinese PP ( 你，您，
你 们 ， 您 们 ) there are only one form “you”, while in Russian for those four
Chinese PP (你，您，你们，您们) there are only two form 2nd person, singular
“Ты”, and second person both singular and plural form “Вы”. The case of 2 nd
person singular form “Ты” is more or less clear, whenever we hear “Ты” we can
translate or interpret it as “ 你 ” , but the grammatical cases needed to be

12
considered. For instance if “Ты” is in (1) nominative cases 你 acts as a subject of
the sentence. For instance:

Ты (you) хорошо (good) говоришь (speak) на (in) руссом (Russian)

языке (language). 你俄语说得很好。

If “Ты” is (2) accusative or (3) genitive case, then it acts as an object in the
sentence:

Accusative case: Я (I) вижу(see) тебя you. 我看到你。

Genitive case: Я (I) тебя (him) не (not) знаю (know). 我不认识他/她。

In the case when “Ты” in (4) dative case, it’s equivalence can be found by usage
of 把 sentence construction. For instance:

Я (I) отдал (gave) книгу (book) тебе (you). 我把书给了你。

If “Ты” in (5) instrumental case then equivalence in Chinese can be reached by

use of “和” or “跟”, for example:

Каждый (every) день (day) я (I) играю (play) с (with) тобой (you). 每天
都我和你一起玩。

At last, in the case if “Ты” in prepositional case, then the equivalence is

found like translation of English combination “about you”. “you” is singular here.

Я (I) думаю (think) о (about) тебе (you). 我想到你。

Now we have answered to the first part of the question “which form of
Chinese PP in the 2nd person (你，您，你们，您们) should a translator/interpreter
use while translating from Russian into Chinese language?” From the explanation
given above we can conclude that the equivalence of Russian 2 nd person singular

13
PP “Ты”, in Chinese is “ 你 ” , only the (grammatical) case of Russian Ты= 你
needed to considered, since in order to find the equivalence, it further effects
construction forms and role of “你” in a sentence.

The second part of the issue is that “which from of “ 您”, “你们” or “您
们 ” needed to be used while translating Russian PP “вы” from Russian into
Chinese.” Russian PP “вы” has the meaning of all three forms. Therefore, the only
way to find the proper equivalence is to pay greater attention to the context of the
message. If the speaker is addressing to only one person using “вы” that means
the speaker using a respective form of “你”, consequently we need to translate it as
respective form of “你” which is equivalent to “您”, but not as “您们”, “你
们 ” since they are used while addressing to more than one person, in other
words, used only with plural forms.

Nevertheless, if the speaker by using “вы” is addressing to more than one

person, in other words if “вы” is used in a plural form, then one of “你们” and
“您们” is used. If the speaker addressing to the audience whose age is older than
the speaker’s or if the speaker is addressing in a formal or respective form then “您
们” is used, if vice versa then “你们” is used.

2.1.2 Question Two

There are more issues that need to be considered during the translation or
interpretation from Russian into Chinese. In the chapter one it was analyzed that
there is only one form for Russian and English PP in the 3 rd person, plural form
which is “they” in English and “они” in Russian. Meantime, in Chinese for the
similar 3rd person, plural form we have three forms “ta1men”: “他们”, “她们”,
and “它们”. Existence of three different forms leads us to the Question 2 “which
form of PP in the plural form, 3rd person should a translator use while translating

14
from Russian and English into Chinese?” In order to answer for the question first
we need to understand why there are three forms of “tamen” in Chinese.
The first “ 他 们 ” is used when talking about the 3 rd person, plural who
consist of only men or when there is at least one man among those people (mixed
group). The second “她们” is used referring to group of females. The third “它
们” is used referring to group of objects. 7 The explanation given above makes it
clear that when “they” or “они” come which from of “ta1men” needs to used. It
also should be point out that this issue is relevant only concerning a translation not
an interpretation, because all these three forms of “ta1men” sound identically.

2.1.3 Question Three

In Chinese there are two forms of PP in the 1 st person, plural form: “我们”
[wo3men] and “咱们” [zan2men] while in Russian and English there is only one
form: “мы”, and “we”, that means that not every “we” and “мы” can be translated
or interpreted as “wo3men” or “zan2men”. It leads us to the question 3 “which
form of Chinese PP in the 1st person, plural form is used while translating or
interpreting form Russian or English into Chinese”.

To answer to the question let’s quickly check the difference between

“wo3men” and “zan2men”. “When the subject talked about only has a connection
with the speaker, only 我们 (wǒmen) can be used for this situation. For example,
in the sentence “我们的学校很大 (Wǒmen de xuéxiào hěndà. Our school is very
big.)” The school talked about is the one that the speaker attends, not the listener
(excludes the listener).
In the above mentioned situation the speaker cannot use “咱们 (zánmen)” to
replace “ 我 们 (wǒmen).” The speaker could use “zan2men” only if both the
7
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Personal_pronoun

15
speaker and the listener went to the same school (includes the listener), and were
talking about their beautiful (the same) school, only then the speaker could say “咱
们的学校很漂亮。 (Zánmen de xuéxiào hěn piàoliang. Our school is beautiful.)”
or “ 我 们 的 学 校 很 漂 亮 , (Wǒmen de xuéxiào hěn piàoliang. Our school is
beautiful.).”8

Therefore, it can be concluded that “wo3men” is used when the speaker by

“we” means “he himself and others but excluding the listener”. While “zan2men”
both includes the listener, and the same time may include others as well. Hence,
the translator or interpreter should pay greater attention in the process of finding an
equivalence for “мы” and “we”.

Conclusion

In the paper it was analyzed that different languages have different number
of grammatical cases and different number of personal pronouns themselves. These
differences may serve for the different purposes. Meanwhile, a translator or
interpreter still have to try to do his best in order to create the meaning of the
personal pronouns of a source language with the means of a target languages. But
this task is not as easy as it seems in the sight. Personal pronouns almost in all
8
https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/the-differences-between-women-and-zanmen

16
languages very often repeated. Therefore, repeated incorrect translation of PP
might easily change the meaning of the passage.

In the paper it was mentioned that Russian personal pronouns have six
grammatical cases, English has two, while Chinese personal pronouns do not have
a grammatical case. English has only one form of personal pronoun for the 2 nd
person, singular and plural forms, which is “you”, while Russian personal
pronouns for the same 2nd person, singular and plural forms have two forms “ты”
“вы”, while Chinese language for the same 2nd person, singular and plural forms
of PP has four forms, namely: “你”, “你们”, “您”, and “您们”.

Russian and English have only one form PP for 1st person, plural form,
namely: “мы” and “we”, for the same PP Chinese language has two form: “我们”
and “咱们”. Russian and English have only one form for the PP of 3 rd person
plural form: “они” and “they”, while Chinese language has three forms: “ 他们”,
“她们” and “它们”. All these above mentioned differences, especially existence of
six grammatical cases of Russian PP, require from a translator and an interpreter an
extra attention. Therefore, in the paper we tried to give an answer for those issues
of PP.

List of literature

1. Gu, Rui, "An Examination of Singular Third-Person Pronoun Usage

Between Spoken and Written English by Chinese ESL Students"
(2018).Culminating Projects in English. 133.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/133
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages

17
4. https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Personal_pronoun
5. https://studizba.com/files/show/pdf/55188-7-dissertaciya.html
6. https://studychinese.ru/grammar/1/
7. https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/the-differences-between-women-
and-zanmen
8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889490697000586
(Chih-Hua Kuo, “The Use of Personal Pronouns: Role Relationships in
Scientific Journal Articles”.)
9. Irem Uz, “Individualism and First Person Pronoun Use in Written Texts
across languages”, TOBB University of Economics and Technology,
Ankara, Turkey.
10.Kirill Babae, “Once Again on the Comparison of Personal Pronouns in
Proto-Languages”, Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities
11.Yu Jie Seah, “Contrastive Analysis of Pronouns across English, Mandarin
Chinese and Japanese”, Nanyang Technological University, 2013.
12.Yurong Hao, “Explicitation of Personal Pronoun Subject in Chinese EFL
Majors’ Translation: A Case Study of Translation Universals Based on
PACCEL-W Corpus”, Bailie International College, Lanzhou City
University, Gansu, China.

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