Anyone here speak Russian?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm trying to translate a few things into Russian for some roleplaying I'm doing, but I'm concerned I'm not getting an accurate translation from Google. Any Russian speakers in the Playground able to help me out with this? Specifically I'm looking to translate "hard lightning" and "dragon's head."

[Flickerdart]

Those don't sound especially impressive, unfortunately.

Голова дракона - golovA drakOna - Dragon's head
Though you could also say
Дракония голова - drakOnia golovA
However, the word дракон is of decidedly Western origins. Dragons in Slavic myths were called змий - zmiy. So if you want to be historically accurate, you want голова змия - golova zmiya or змииная голова - zmiinaya golova.

By "hard" do you mean "solid" or "difficult"?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Those don't sound especially impressive, unfortunately.

Голова дракона - GolovA drakOna - Dragon's head

By "hard" do you mean "solid" or "difficult"?
"Solid." It's a literal translation of Excalibur's real name, Caledfwlch.

Good, so Google Translate was accurate on the Dragon's Head translation. And what are you talking about, Golovadrakona sounds pretty darn impessive!

EDIT: And Golovazmiia sounds even more impressive.

[Zeb The Troll]

Дракония голова - drakOnia golovA
Wouldn't that be "drakOnnaya golovA" (I can't type in cyrillic, sorry)
My russkiy's a little rusty, but I used to be pretty fluent with it.

[Don Julio Anejo]

"Голова дракона" (golova drakona, 2 words, literally means "head of a dragon") or драконья голова (pronounced more like "drah-kohn-jaa" than anything else, literally, "dragon's head"). @ Zeb: no.

As for hard lightning... Literal translation is "твердая молния" (tverdaya molniya... tviohr-dah-yah mohl-nee-yah)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thanks to you all! Reason for all this is that I'm playing a King Arthur expy in a game of Kingmaker, and since the characters come from Brevoy, which is Pathfinder expy of medieval Russia, these would make a bit more sense than just using the original Welsh. :smallsmile:

[Zeb The Troll]

"Голова дракона" (golova drakona, 2 words, literally means "head of a dragon") or драконья голова (pronounced more like "drah-kohn-jaa" than anything else, literally, "dragon's head"). @ Zeb: no.
Is the nominative драконь then? Just curious. I don't feel bad not getting that one right since it's nonstandard construction. Unless my memory is horribly faulty. Most nouns that end in -он become -онный as adjectives, don't they?

[Saage]

Is the nominative драконь then? Just curious. I don't feel bad not getting that one right since it's nonstandard construction. Unless my memory is horribly faulty. Most nouns that end in -он become -онный as adjectives, don't they?
The nominative is Дракон, actually. I'm not an expert in grammar, but -онный usually means "having the same properties as" or "made of" (for example картон -> картонный). In this case we are having the posessive relationship (dragon's head belongs to dragon), so it needs slightly different suffix to make it an adjective, for example драконья голова, волчий хвост, лисьи зубы.

[Zeb The Troll]

Hmmm, I get you, I think. I've just rarely encountered that particular construction that doesn't use either ый or ий immediately after the noun's final consonant, and vocalized consonants, like н are often doubled when adding that type of ending. Again, if memory serves. It really has been a long time since I actually made a study of the language.

I know what you mean about -онный, but I thought that was generally applied to nouns that don't already end in -он.

[Flickerdart]

Half the time, words with foreign roots have their own rules anyway.

[Zeb The Troll]

I s'pose that's true, but it's funny hearing the other cognates using the traditional construction rules. :smallcool: