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Note added at 11 hrs 36 mins (2005-04-02 02:13:37 GMT)
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To James Vail: what you wrote would have been relevant if the original sounded like: \"потому что пациентам кажется, что у них нет симптомов\".

I don\'t mean to sound arrogant but if you believe a native speaker, there\'s NOTHING about symptoms in this phrase. Moreover, there\'s no way to tell from this Russian phrases if they have ever been diagnosed with TB. They could\'ve been prescribed the anti-TB medicine as a preventive measure if they were prison inmates for example, as the Russian prisons are well known TB-breeders.

Also, I am surprised how you can take two words that are not mentioned in the original: symptoms and non-compliance, and try to prove anything by making a Google search on those \"strangers\".

Back to \"Показания\" and \'симптомы\' - they are two clearly different things.

Examples of \"симптомы болезни\": coughing, high temperature. Examples of \"показания к применению лекарства\": high epidemic risk, a member of family is sick, stressful situation at work. Please note that I purposefully picked the situations when there are indications but not necessarily any symptoms for a person in question.

And yes, symptoms and indications can also be the same in certain cases: eg. coughing, but it shouldn\'t confuse interpreters into taking one for the other.

To all my dear colleagues from the \'symptoms\' group: here\'s one more way to look at it: if you translate \"потому что к ЭТОМУ нет показаний\" as \"there are no symptoms of IT\" - do you realize that ЭТОМУ refers to IT in your translation? And do you understand that ЭТОМУ (in the original) stands for taking a specific medicine and IT (in your translation) stands for whether a patient has a particular disease? There\'s a distinct discrepancy here.
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I think when any one of us wants to defend his variant whatever it takes, he should always remember that students might be carefully studying this and getting the wrong messages, especially if it comes from such respected and experienced members as Mr. Doughty, Mr. Donahue and other renowned experts.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for listening.

W77

PS. Not to sound arrogant again but I don\'t think there are many natives who can identify with non-natives so well as to understand WHY exactly they make certain mistakes - and who cantherefore explain in the best way how to avoid a mistake. It\'s nice to see some appreciation for this but here\'s what I saw instead: Mr. Donahue took the trouble to go back to one of quite old questions that I answered to, and he added grades to a member who said exactly what I said (BEFORE him, too), and he also added points to somebody else who said something distinctly different (those two even had a little argument about it) - BUT he didn\'t add any points to me. Sad. I only wanted to help.

PPS If anybody can suggest a better word for \"interesting\" in my \'insulting\' comment, I\'ll be happy to rephrase it. Sorry if I hurt anybody\'s feelings.

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Note added at 23 hrs 21 mins (2005-04-02 13:58:28 GMT)
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James Vail: \"the context seems to be about compliance\"

Are you sure? Please compare our sentence \"Пациенты не принимают препаратов, потому что к этому нет показаний\" with \"Пациенты не принимают пр., хотя к этому есть множество показаний\". Now, which one \"seems to be about compliance\"? Are you sincerely sure that \"only the asker knows enough\"?

James Vail: \"it is important to consider the suggestions of native speakers of English to create a final product that doesn\'t appear to be a translation.\"

W77: Agree 100%. But you are forgetting about an equally important first step: it\'s necessary to consider the suggestions of native speakers of Russian to know the exact meaning of the original phrase. And please stop throwing your \"dictionary meaning\" ar me. I am not a student trying my luck with dictonary meanings here and there to see if I could happen to gain a few points.

James Vail: \"How far the translator wants to go in correcting the author\'s questionable choice of words is the subject of another debate.\"
W77: my rule is simple: unless it\'s an outright nonsense, translate as it is and add a note if you think it\'s important. We should trust our readers, some of them may be able to understand the so called \"faulty\" original better than the translator, let\'s not deny them this chance.

w77

PS I got messages saying that I \'mangle the use of articles\'. Please feel free to correct me. I was way too old when I started learning English so I\'ll never be even close to perfect, that\'s why any help is greatly appreciated.

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Note added at 1 day 14 hrs 54 mins (2005-04-03 05:31:44 GMT)
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To James Vail

Dear James, you talk at length about what kind of assistance and on what issues you wanted to provide to the asker - but wouldn\'t you like to simply provide your translation?

The asker is Russian,- therefore she hardly needs any assistance in understanding the meaning (moreover when a phrase is as simple as this one, and when the assistants admit they are \"unsure\", \"making assumptions\" etc.)

It is nice of you to finally single out the unique case when \"Jack Doughty\'s suggestion will NOT result in a loss of meaning\" - it\'s the case of non-compliant patients. But in our case - when there\'s no indication - the only way for patients to be non-compliant is if they kept taking the unnecessary medications:)

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Note added at 3 days 8 hrs 19 mins (2005-04-04 22:56:31 GMT)
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To James Vail ->

James Vail: \"We are all (including you) making assumptions\".

W77: I am not making assumptions because the phrase is 100% clear, but you are free to believe you know better if I am guessing or not.

James Vail: \"The asker is Russian - Exactly. She is asking about usage in the target language.\"

W77: Usage of the RIGHT words is what she\'s asking about.

James Vail: \"So far, I think the best suggestion in this regard comes from Mr. Doughty\".

W77: Then why didn\'t you present this \"best suggestion\" as I was asking you to? I\'ll try do it myself: - \"Many patients stopped taking TB medications a long time ago because \'there are no symptoms of it\' \". Did I put it right? It\'s important for us to know the way native speakers would say it, so please comment if you can.